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Did this headline grab you? You’re not unique. It’s what seems to work for newspapers and television.
This is what I read in the New York Times this morning: “Raising a Teenager? What’s Not to Hate?” Not exactly what I like to read with my morning coffee, and I found the wording pretty distasteful.
What I wondered is how many click-throughs that headline got. But it got worse.
The article turned out to be a review of a tv show debuting tonight and actually said very little about teens and their parents. Except when the author made this indictment of children and teens everywhere:
I don’t think the writer said this in jest; the article was more serious than that. Now my distaste has turned into disbelief and way more than dislike. I’m disarmed.
Why do teenagers seem to get a bad rep?
They are our future leaders, our creative spirits, and sometimes our conscience. They make us think about who we are and what we represent. They ask great questions.
There have been countless times, when planning programs in different venues, that the proprietor asked “You mean, your program is with TEENAGERS? How many? Will they be supervised? How many chaperones will there be? Are you insured? Has this been done before?
Even in the space our school shares on a weekly basis, there is an attitude that during break time ‘the kids are loud, create a mess and hang all over the furniture’.
Break time is what I love. There are close to 150 teenagers, all hanging out together, connecting with each other and their cellular devices…and it’s all good.
Put that into a headline.
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