The Community School is an alternative school in Camden, Maine. For thirty years, they have worked with troubled teens to earn high school diplomas and turn their lives around. Its cofounders have these suggestions for dealing with edgy adolescents:

BE REAL. Teenagers have very good "BS" detectors and can often tell when you are faking it. Your authenticity helps to ground them and models what it means to be a human being.

LISTEN CAREFULLY.  The attention deficit most teenagers feel is that no one hears them out. This does not mean agreeing with everything they say, but attending to them respectfully.

ADMIT YOUR MISTAKES.  Time and again, as an adult, you will screw up. Learn to acknowledge this gracefully and apologize with no excuses. What a powerful role model you become in that instant.

EXPLAIN HOW THEIR BEHAVIOR MAKES YOU FEEL.  Let them see that you get upset and anxious-and that their behavior affects you profoundly.

AVOID SARCASM AND CYNICISM.  These too easily cause hurt and anger-but then that gives you a chance to practice admitting mistakes and apologizing.

ALLOW CHOICES.  Frame situations in term of choices and possible outcomes. Always show that their choices are their responsibility and no one else's, and that you will not keep them from their own decisions, however poor, if that is what they want to do.

GIVE YOURSELF SPACE.  When being pushed hard for a quick answer, ask for time, run through your options with a friend outside the situation, and then get back to the edgy one.

REMEMBER, IT’S NOT PERSONAL.  It is an adolescent’s job to defy, oppose, and resist you as an authority. If you get hurt and angry, you may do things that once again prompt you to admit mistakes and apologize. (Oh well, it’s not so bad.)

FIND THINGS THEY DO WELL.  When you can honestly praise a teen for a job well done, you confirm essential qualities of success and goodness in them that they desperately need to know about.

WRITE DOWN AGREEMENTS AND HOLD TO THEM.  Then the agreement becomes the arbiter of a future conflict about who agreed to what.

IF YOU FEAR SUICIDAL OR VIOLENT BEHAVIOR, ASK.  If you’re way off base, nothing harmed. If you’re correct, the edgy one might be relieved to talk about what is going on. Even if they do not want to talk, at least they know that someone has seen them, that they exist.

WORK ONE-TO-ONE ON THESE ISSUES WHENEVER POSSIBLE.  A teen is as different in front of his or her peer group as a private is in front of a sergeant.

                           -Taken from Life Lessons in Hope Magazine July/August 2004 www.hopemag.com