Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

About once or twice a week I get some long DMs, usually from a younger person, who’s all stressed out and wound tight about how they’re going about their lives. It’s really heartening and kinda sad how appreciative they are when all I do is say a few kind, supportive things

My sense is... lots of kids are really anxious and overwhelmed. And I don’t think it’s they’re fault; they inherit it from the world around them. Kids are more perceptive than you think. But they don’t yet have a lot of executive function. Also... puberty is serious drugs, man

What I’m getting out of this, really, is that people aren’t listening to kids. That’s why they DM a stranger halfway around the world. To find someone who will listen to them, who will ask them loving questions from a place of kindness and sincere curiosity

A few mins of attention from an adult who sincerely cares can be life-changing for a kid who feels invisible and worthless The bigger question: why do so many kids feel so worthless?? The BS about participation trophies is BS. Kids know the truth even if they can’t articulate it

I also find that adults often dramatically underestimate the degree to which kids pretend to be kids, for adults. Kids will often pretend, when mom asks, that they didn’t hear mommy and daddy fighting. This is a sort of stress-minimization strategyhttps://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1074016987666235392?s=21 …

(Not all kids, of course... but this is a recurring pattern I see a lot. Kids have inner lives that are much richer and much more complex than adults tend to remember. Their motivations and concerns are multi-variate, convoluted, conflicting, and their fears are outsized)

I think it’s v important for kids to have relationships with nourishing adults of all kinds- particularly adults who have nothing to do with them. (Parents and teachers are constrained by their obligations.) School programs kids to be with same-aged peers. This is unhealthy IMO