Seek First to Understand

If you look at a teen and label them trouble

Be willing to explore their daily struggles

Maybe it is time to open your eyes,

widen your mind

you’ll be surprised

what you will find

No, they don’t walk uphill both ways to school

But they walk a road with alternative rules

Life is hard

A generation scarred

Defensive, on-guard

Searching the stars

5,360 words end with -ism

Words that build a prism of cynicism

Oppressive, discriminatory beliefs

Theories of grief

Embroiled in disbelief

With no release, no peace

Authoritarianism, Alcoholism

Greet each morning

Materialism, Nationalism

Racism, Sexism

Served at lunch

Terrorism

Death — ism

Haunt the dark of night

Families are complex even when love exists

Everywhere conflict and struggles persist

People are human, we’re all flawed

Kids see it all

abuse, addiction, adultery

Poverty, pornography, reality

debt, divorce, deception

Floating on clouds of depression

Schools once offered safe places to learn

Doors now open to fears and concerns

Peers gossip and lie

Bullies blacken eyes

Isolation’s an irritating fly

Problems magnify

Souls slowly die

Questioning, why even try

The reply

Suicide

Unless bullets soar by

While the hand on the moral compass spins

Creating a world where nobody wins

Russian Roulette

Chinese checkers

Foreign nations are a threat

To a rich republic of beggars

Youth didn’t spark the problems in the air

They’re animals caught in a snare

Filled with despair

Doubting the power of prayer

So, when you look at a teen and see their struggle

Know they didn’t start the trouble

Born in a time of moral decline

Kids are not unkind

They are not blind

They simply act on the rules others assign

As they venture up life’s incline

Littered with land mines

We must seek first to understand before we can solve the problem.

Brenda Mahler considers herself a youth advocate who hopes to enlighten society that youth live in a turbulent world that influences their behavior. Just as we ask what came first the chicken or the egg, we must explore who sparked the world’s problems the youth or the adults.

Read her recently published book Lockers Speak that shares the concerns of high school students at one moment in time. Available on Amazon.

Brenda Mahler is a educator, administrator, published author, parent and grandparent with a master’s degree in educational leadership, 60 years of life experience and 35 years working with teens.