From the first moment you hold your child in your arms, the emotional impulse is, "I must protect this tiny person in every way." It is a common response of both biological and adoptive parents of infants.
For most of their infancy and toddlerhood that imperative to protect them remains dominant in our hearts. But their gradually increasing need to venture out, to become, challenges our sometimes overwhelming need to protect.
Every ‘first’ is an adjustment for us as much as an achievement for them- first steps, first visit without us, first sleepover, first days of school, first bike ride, first game. Through most of childhood those conflicting needs--theirs to launch out, ours to protect-- can be balanced. Then comes adolescence.
According to the University of Texas Medical Branch, “An adolescent has four tasks to accomplish to become a well-adjusted adult. These tasks are categorized as: 1) independence, 2) body image, 3) peer relations, and 4) identity.”
In lay terms that means teens must choose their own levels of risk (independence), resolve how they relate to their bodies (body image), learn what being a friend means (peer relations), and figure out how to be an individual, themselves- beyond their family and culture--Who am I, beyond who are we? (identity)
"How can I be me and fulfill what my family expects of me?" can often become the critical question for teens. The wider the difference between what we want them to be and their own aspirations and sense of self, the harder it is for them to become their most, best selves.
The potential cost of disappointing us can be almost overwhelming for our children.Yet, their adolescent growth tasks mandate that they must make more of their own decisions, launch into new territories, and challenge our protective shells. This is true for LGBTQIA+ kids and for heteroromantic or cisgender kids.
What has been startling about recent political culture clashes is they almost all revolve around the four necessary areas of growth for teens and how that challenges parents. It is almost as if some would intrude on our most complex and personal parent-child relationships and have us as a collective society renegotiate the path to adulthood for our children, taking away choices in all the developmental growth categories they must engage in.
From questions like- What clothes should I wear, or what books will I read, to who am I physically attracted to, or what name really feels most me- “Who am I, and how does that fit with my family, friends, and world?” resounds in almost every experience adolescents have.
We can, as caring adults try to guide and support our children in their quest, but at a deep level their internal mandate is to figure it out for themselves. We may be temporarily successful in denying them their own selfhood, but only at the expense of their long-term dissatisfaction, struggle, and adult dysfunction.
No amount of legal or societal restrictions and suppression can negate that necessity to become their own persons. Neither parents, nor teachers, nor society as a whole can deny that need, and it is only damaging foolishness to try.
As they grow, it turns out, the best way to protect that tiny person we first hold in our arms is to nurture the internal person they are discovering, rather than demanding they manifest the person we imagined or try to insist they be.
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