Today's Teenagers vs Yesterday's Teenagers

Sorry to everyone following along with me here, I was in Montreal defending the cup from last years Canadian Hockey Enterprises, which explains the week off from posting. This post may sound like a rant, but just some thoughts I have.

Old School Teenagers

The fact that I am writing this article is making me feel old, but I would consider myself somewhat of a dying breed. Old School teenagers were flat out tougher than today's teenagers. When I was a teen (that doesn't feel good to say) here are some of the things that characterized me, my friends, and teenagers of old. We used to play tackle football, street hockey, man hunt, etc until all hours of the night, all seasons of the year. Snow on the ground? Even better, let's throw snowballs at each other across the street and aim for each other's heads. I vividly remember living in Quincy during Hurricane Bob and having my cousin Mark knocking on my door to see if I wanted to take advantage of the 3 feet of water in the backyard to play "kill the man with the ball". Needless to say we were out there flopping around beating the hell out of each other.

We played football, soccer, baseball, basketball, and hockey and often times after playing a hockey game I would put on my pads and get in the car with my mom and dad and drive to my football game an hour later.

During the summer all of my friends would landscape, work construction, roofing, painting, etc. As soon as you were physically able we were working for some pocket money. We all drove shitbox cars for the most part too.

We had conversations with each other face to face, picked up the phone to call our buddies and that first girl you had a crush on.

Today's Teens

This breed is a sharp contrast to the way things were when I was growing up. When young guys come into the gym to train I hear them talking about playing NHL Live or Halo on their XBox (I may not even be saying this right, which makes me feel kinda good). Kids are sitting in dark basements playing these video games with kids across the globe while wearing headsets for 4-5 hours on end. Do you know what would happen if 15 year old me ran into 15 year old you? I would stuff you in a dumpster and take your lunch money. Kids are talking about sick goals and touchdowns they scored, which is great except they scored them using their thumbs while holding a game controller.

I know of 10 and 11 year old kids who have cell phones. What is that about? What could they possibly need phones for? I got a cell phone when I was 17 only to be kept in my car in case of emergency because I was a terrible driver along with everyone else my age. Now you see kids walking around texting each other or using IM instead of actually speaking to each other. Kids have become so used to texting that they are losing their ability to communicate as humans.

As far as sports goes, parents of kids age 10 think they have the next Wayne Gretzky on their hands and start sending their kids to play hockey year round. No more football, soccer, basketball, etc, just hockey all the time. I'd like to tell some of these parents, "guess what, little Johnny probably doesn't even have a shot to play Div3 hockey in college, but he may have a shot at DIV 1 Lacrosse except you will never know because his skates are permanently laced on."

Summer Jobs? Ha! Some of these kids will do some manual labor but bitch and moan about it like it is the hardest thing in the world. And still they are better than the kid who sits on his couch all summer and whines at his Dad who works 60 hours a week when he asks him to mow the lawn once every 10 days. Drive around a high school parking lot nowadays and you see that some of the kids are driving nicer cars than their teachers, and they deserve it, they have worked hard (sarcasm?).

Solution

If you are parent start trying some of these things today and you just might see some really amazing things happen with your kids.

1. Ban TV on weeknights. This will force them to find other ways to entertain themselves. This goes for video games, IM, and other crap. You may notice they start putting together street hockey games or going to the park and scraping up their knees.

2. Give them cell phones for emergency purposes, not so they can text 400 times per day. Watching young kids text like they are a gifted musician playing an instrument makes me wanna puke.

3. Make them try other sports. Church League Hoops, pickup soccer, flag football, anything really.

4. Send them to the gym to lift weights. If you have the means, then send them to a qualified strength coach or trainer who will make sure they turn into well rounded, strong athletes and people.

5. Don't buy them a brand new Explorer when they get their license to drive. Buy them a beat up station wagon so they can appreciate that first nice car. I have yet to get my first nice car but know that when I do, a new Jeep will feel like a Maserati.

6. Make them try landscaping or roofing for a summer.