If you are a parent of a teenager, you probably wonder what happened to your carefree, happy-g0-lucky kid. In exchange, you have what sometimes seems like a completely different person. Your little one is now no longer so little and extremely moody and doesn’t seem to care about much of anything anymore.
One of the most frustrating things about this stage is their ”I don’t care” attitude- apathy. What exactly does this mean? Is your teenager depressed? Is this normal?
APATHY AS A PRETENSE. “I don’t care if you don’t like how I’m changing!” an eleven-year-old explodes as parents censor the new tough talk he has learned testing young manliness with male peers. But the parents stick to their standards: “How you talk with friends on the playground is your business; but how you talk at home is ours. None of that language here!”
It’s hard to be an early adolescent because what gains you points with peers can earn you demerits with parents. He still wants his parents’ good opinion, but to save face he pretends it doesn’t matter. His statement of apathy in this situation is really bravado speaking. What he actually feels is, “I care too much about what you think of the new me to let my caring show.”
Parents need to see the “I don’t care what you think” statement for what it is, and avoid strong statements of disapproval at this vulnerable age. Disagree with the young person’s choices when they feel they must, but don’t criticize his character when doing so.
APATHY AS BOREDOM. “There’s nothing I care to do!” moans the early adolescent (around ages 9 – 13) at a loss of how she can occupy herself. Having discarded
childhood hobbies and possessions because she no longer wants to be defined and treated as a child, she doesn’t yet have older likes, interests, and activities to replace those that have been let go. When it comes to knowing how to meaningfully engage herself, for a while she is riding on empty.
While parents are often inclined to trivialize boredom in their adolescent, it is actually a very painful emotion. It is an expression of
loneliness. The young person can’t find a satisfying way to connect with herself, other people, or the world. She feels disconnected, at loose ends. Although short term boredom creates the opportunity for the adolescent to develop her own resources and entertain herself, long term boredom should catch parental attention because it is often a staging area for impulse. The young person is willing to do something, anything, with friends to escape the emptiness they share. This is a time when parents need to keep their adolescent adequately busy so
impulsiverisk-taking to cope with long term boredom is not allowed to rule.
APATHY AS DEFIANCE. “Who cares about grades?” protests the middle school student to parents, as academic performance falls from failing effort. “It should be good enough to just get by.” The formerly high performing young man is rejecting the importance of school achievement to which he was committed as a child and that his parents still are. By this expression of apathy he intends to show the adult world he is no longer wants to be wed to the values of childhood. Not caring about what mattered to the child and what matters to parents feels like an expression of adolescent independence.
But for his future sake at this disaffected time, the parents insist that all school work will be done, and apply their oversight to make it so. “Although we understand how school performance matters less to you at the moment, we still expect you to pay attention in class, complete all the homework, study for all the tests, and if you can’t make yourself do all this, we will give you our support of our supervision, even if that means showing up at school to help you take care of studies there.”
APATHY AS A DEFENSE. “I don’t care about serious dating anymore,” declares the high school junior who has just been jilted by her boyfriend of two years, with whom she had fallen in love, but who it turned out hadn’t been in lasting love with her. Now she discovers some painful lessons about love: love is not guaranteed to be forever; the one we love the most can hurt us the worst; our love for someone is not always the best measure of their love for us.
‘Caring takes daring’ is the lesson the young person has learned because when it comes to love, the risk of hurt is always there. Apathy at this juncture doesn’t heal the suffering, but it does defend against becoming enamored again anytime soon. Respecting this decision, parents can also help the young person appreciate good aspects of this last relationship that can strengthen the next loving
attachment when she feels ready to try again.
APATHY AS INDIFFERENCE. Adolescence can be a very self-centered and socially limiting experience, in the extreme causing young people to lose
empathy for others in their preoccupation with self-interest and confinement to their own small social circle of friends. In the first case, concern for others is sacrificed to caring only for self, ignoring the needs of those they live with. This is when parents complain: “He only thinks of himself!” In the second case, the high school student may be so committed to a social clique and sticking to her own kind that there is insensitivity and indifference to the welfare of others outside of her immediate associations. This is when the young person seems to think: “Who cares about them?”
Because healthy personal relationships must work two ways and not just one (the adolescent’s way), and because after leaving school the young person must be prepared to function in a larger and more diverse world, lack of empathy and range in personal relationships will not serve the growing adolescent well. Therefore parents need to insist on mutuality with them and do all they can to broaden experience and enlarge sense of social affiliation while she is still living at home.
APATHY ASCYNICISM. Fresh out on one’s own and facing a large impersonal world and job market that is inhospitable, the last stage adolescent finally secures an entry level job, earning just enough to move in with two similarly situated friends who need a third roommate to make rent on the one bedroom apartment they now all share. What a come-down from the comforts of living at home!
Because the present is discouraging and the future looks unpromising it’s tough to care about life when life doesn’t appear to care much about you. If you just graduated from college and there are not the opportunities you thought awaited someone with your advanced
education, life can feel unfair. Add pessimism to apathy and cynicism can result, creating an outlook with little hope and a lot of disappointment and
anger. True independence is a letdown when the world is revealed as the hard, impersonal place it is. Now the work of making one’s way begins.
Because cynicism makes it difficult to stay motivated, it can be the enemy of effort at a time when summoning the will to keep trying, to try even harder, is what is needed. Although parents should not spare the older adolescent this time of struggle, they can offer encouragement and also provide perspective by relating some of the trials they went through starting out in life many years ago.
APATHY FROM SUBSTANCE USE. At any stage of adolescence, when life gets hard to engage with, it’s tempting to escape from these demands, which is where a lot of substance use comes in. The escape is about freedom – freedom from worrisome or painful cares, freedom for unrestricted and uninhibited pleasure. The effect of substance use is an altered psychological state.
Depending on the dose and frequency, substance use can take the user from sober caring, to less caring, to acting carelessly, to becoming care-free, to not caring at all if intoxication or getting wasted occurs. When regular use of alcohol,
marijuana, or other psychoactive
drugs becomes established, a loss of normal caring can disable effort. Now apathy erodes ambition,
motivation falls away, and healthy functioning is harder to maintain. Another impact of substance use on apathy is not caring about consequences and engaging in dangerous risk taking. In either case, parents should push for an assessment of use, and if advised see about getting substance use counseling, treatment, or support group help.
APATHY FROMDEPRESSION. “What differences does anything make?” exploded the high school senior. She just lost her best friend to a fatal car accident a month ago. “Nothing matters anymore!” That’s what her
parents report in counseling, explaining how “our daughter’s just feeling really sad, but she’ll get past it. We just need to give time.” However, based on other data that they share, I disagree. “She’s showing signs that she needs help. She’s no longer striving on her own behalf. She doesn’t care about the future. She looks downcast all the time. She’s stopped socializing with friends and just stays by herself. She’s given up working out. She’s not interested in communicating and gets angry when you want to talk with her. I think she’s becoming seriously depressed. Significant loss of any kind always carries the risk of a depressive response.
Our teachers reading this article already know this about learning. Active and fun learning is more effective, more memorable, than static learning. For individuals with ADHD, it takes a lot more stimulus to maintain attention. The more stimulating, or interesting/fun/active, the greater chances you have to maintain their attention! Here is a great site with some fun ideas for attention-improving games. One of my favorite games to improve attention is Stare!.
