Understanding Your Introverted Teen
For most of my life, I've felt hopelessly weird,” said Heather,an introvert in her early thirties. “Like I don't really fit in.I've learned how to fool some of the people some of the time -there are those who swear I can't possibly be intro...
...verted - butI know better. Solitude and reading time are like oxygen for me;and too much time spent with other people (especially talkativesorts) is draining.”Heather struggled with being an introvert in her teen years andhas been coming to terms with it more as a young adult. She’snot alone. Being a teen can be stressful and even more so forintroverts, who have to withstand all the social pressures of atypical high school day which are exhausting to introverts andof no intrinsic value.For some of us, high school was a long time ago! We canunderstand the needs of introverted teens better and supportthem in growth on their own terms by going back for a moment tolook at the high school years and the demands that are made onteens beyond the academic.Most high schools are set up to please extroverts, who are themajority of the population 3:1. Introverts may find a typicalday overcrowded, over stimulating, noisy, oppressive andstressful. The lunch room seems to be a particularly awfulexperience. Introverted teens suffer from an almost total lackof privacy as well.We decided to get asked a group of introverts how they feltabout high school. Here are some replies.1.“High school was better than grade school because there wasmore individualness to the curriculum. I remember wanting to bealone at lunch time, even though I had friends to sit with, butthere was no excuse to get away from people. Sometimes I'd go tothe library to pretend to work on projects in the quiet, or I'dwalk in the halls (I went to a huge school) and pretend I waswalking somewhere, just for a moment alone.”2.“Hated it. It was noisy and there always seemed to be anelement of danger in the air. The teenage stage of humandevelopment is probably the most dangerous. If teens had accessto nukes, we'd all be doomed! LOL.” 3.“Loved high school. Gave me a greater opportunity to be anerd. Loved carting all those books around. Instead of gettingmy books from my locker as I needed them, I got all the booksI'd need first thing in the morning and get rid of them as I nolonger needed them. If there was homework assigned for a class,I carried that book all day, and usually got through all thehomework before I actually had to take it home.”4.“I liked studying and reading but I did not interact with mypeers because by that age, everyone seemed to have made up theirmind that I was much too different and weird so I remainedalone.”5.“I can't say that I did like it - it was really just a job tome. I needed to get great grades because there was no money forcollege. So I tracked myself into the academic side and wound upin Honors and AP classes. I became Editor of the newspaper whichwas a big deal since the paper had a tradition of winning a lotof regional and national journalism awards. I edited theliterary magazine, helped with the yearbook, and did a lot ofdebate. Basically, if I thought it would look good for college Idid it if it wasn't completely horrible like the Prom Committee.Teachers liked me. Other students just ignored me. I had somefriends and I dated guys who went to other schools. Really anysocial life I had involved kids who were high academic achieversboth in my own school and at other high schools. We all kneweach other from debate, chess club, academic competitions orwhatever. Frankly, probably more than half of these kids wereintroverts so there wasn't a lot of pressure to conform to a"peer group". A lot of the normal stuff of high school just flewunder my radar. I couldn't get involved in the status dressingthing - no money. I couldn't get involved in the drink or druguntil you puke thing - no money, looked stupid. I couldn't getinvolved in the high end sex thing - pregnancy would haveabsolutely ended my college ambitions. So I stayed out oftrouble and had a fairly okay time.”6.“High school was fine. I had a small group of friends, butpreferred to be alone on the weekends. I was always “the quietone” in the group.”7.“I hated high school with a passion. I should have been homeschooled. I was too sensitive and introverted to be thrown intothe lions den. My elementary school never really prepared me forstudies like geometry and I had parents that were busy and toopermissive. So not having the help I needed to get over my mathlearning disability (discaculia) I rebelled with drugs to escapethe pain of having to socialize and study.”8.“I hated the immaturity of the other students. They made otherstudent's business their business and I thought that was notonly immature but antisocial and destructive. I hated highschool because it didn't address the complete person. I wantedto know the map of the human psyche. I wanted to learn abouthuman behavior and take it apart under a microscope.” 9.“Please tell me it gets better from here. I'm still in it, ifthat clarifies anything. I hate everyone here. No, I meaneveryone. There's maybe a few people I don't altogether hate,but only a few. It's pretty depressing really, being surroundedby 2000 kids my own age and I can't make a single friend. Ohwell, college will be better. Hopefully...10.I was a band geek and an AP English student. I think I ate inthe cafeteria once for lunch the whole three years of highschool, because I could never find anyone to sit with and it waseasier to starve than go sit in there. Eventually I got to hangout in the band office during lunch. Did theater and speech teamand French Club and the Literary magazine. Never had any reallygood friends though until the last year.”Now you’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth. Introverted teensfind little value in extraneous socializing. Homeroom, clubs,dances, prom committees and most of all the dreaded lunchroomare annoying and exhausting to introverts. When they get home,the favored activity is reading or other quiet pursuits. The exception may be academic clubs which tend to contain moreintelligent students. With a rise in intelligence, the ratio ofintroverts rises as well. Studies have shown that theproportions almost reverse themselves among Rhodes Scholars andPhi Beta Kappas. Many of the more academic groups and committeesare run by and for introverts and can be satisfying toparticipate in.Introverts also prefer private projects (art, creative, musicalinstrument) and will often choose to pursue these in their timeoff.Some introverts are comfortable with their personality type evenin high school. We were struck with those who made the best ofit, humorously or otherwise, but we personally identified withthose who walked the halls for a moment of privacy and whodidn’t eat because they couldn’t handle the dynamics of thelunch room.When your introverted teen gets home, he or she may need timealone to fill back up again. In fact, one of the greatest giftswe can give an introvert of any age is a room of their own witha door that closes!Let’s take a look at what some of the introverts on the surveysaid they liked to do when they got home from high school everyday. Some of the answers may surprise you.1."Eat or watch TV."2."Every so often talk on the phone with a friend, but otherwisemake my own dinner, watch some TV or listen to folk and protestmusic and/or teach myself to play the guitar, and do somehomework."3."Sort out my homework, then do some reading"4."By this time my sister was more self-sufficient so I'dusually go to my bedroom, watch TV, write and daydream. I spentA LOT of my time inside my head."5."I spent a lot of time by myself outside of the sport andschool activities I tried to get people to be friends with."6."Read" 7."I by then was very organized and fast at completing chores,so I had time to paint and write."8."Babysit my little brother, make dinner... the usual." 9."I have been sleeping a lot after school. I'm an introvertedkid, and I used to feel bad about wanting to sleep after schoolcause I was so tired, but now I feel better. I play the clarinetnow, so I practice that and read." 10."Got a snack and took a nap. I DESPISED high school." 11."Cry, eat" 12."Practiced my saxophone. Drew pictures. Went overboard on anycreative projects the teachers gave me. Like, we were supposedto do an introduction to an epic poem in rhyming couplets. Minewas ten pages, and a whole rhyming couplet version of whathappened after the end of "the Phantom of the Opera." The book,not the musical. In history we made children's books, and I wasthe first one the teacher ever gave a perfect score to becausemine was fully illustrated and had doors and windows that openedto pictures underneath."13."Since I'm in high school that’s easy, I go home and watch anhour of Sliders and then I usually read homework or my book forfun and go on the internet."Please understand how stressful a high school day can be foryour introverted teen. Give him or her the privacy and quiettime desired when they get home in the afternoon and, ifpossible, a room of their own with a door that closes!Above all, appreciate the ability of the introverted teen tostand alone. In plain English, this means their ability towithstand the peer pressures of drugs, alcohol, smoking andpremarital sex are practically ironclad.This is what one introvert said, ”I was the nerdiest goody twoshoes in high school you could possibly imagine. I was so shy Idon‘t think I spoke to anyone the whole four years. But in away, boys like that kind of girl, thinking they can push youaround I suppose. So I got asked out a lot. Anyway, I had oneguy try to force me to take a drink of wine. He simply could notbelieve it when I said no and meant it. Since I didn’t care whatanyone thought about me anyway, it was easy. I thought he waspathetic to even try!”Introverts don’t have the normal extroverted teen’s craving tobe part of the group. On some level, most of them know it isn’tgoing in that direction anyway. Introverts are also well aheadof the game in knowing who they are. Some of the thoseinterviewed mentioned a focus on getting into college or makinggood grades and were not tempted to get off track by pursuingactivities of less mature classmates.Last but not least, your introverted teen may not be susceptibleto peer pressure where things like drugs and sex are concerned.Next time you see him or her “hiding out” at the internet, youcan thank your lucky stars for the introvert’s innate selfreliance.
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