“At some level and at some times (and it’s the parent’s job to spot when), the teen recognizes that the parent can offer certain kernels of wisdom – knowledge valued not because it comes from parental authority but because it comes from the parent’s own struggles to learn how the world turns.” (Dobbs, 2015, p.5)

Although this quote talks about the role that a parent can play in a teenager’s development, it can be translated to teachers as well. I particularly like this quote because I feel that it reinforces what we have mentioned in class, that as teachers we need to be honest with our students and tell them the truth.

We shouldn’t “sugarcoat” things especially when it comes to talking to teenagers because they can see right through that and as this quote mentions, they value when we are honest. Instead of telling students they shouldn’t do something because it is wrong or bad, we can be honest with them and share our own experiences and what we have learned from our own mistakes. Now I’m not saying that we need to go into complete detail of every single crazy mistake that we made when we were adolescents, but we can share what we have learned from our own experiences with our students. I also particularly like this quote because it mentions that “…it comes from the parent’s own struggles to learn how the world turns.” this reinforces that adolescents value honesty and that as teachers, parents, mentors etc. we don’t have to portray that we know everything but instead can let them know that we have struggled and are still struggling to figure things out. Particularly as teachers, I believe that it is important to be honest with our students and let them know that we are learning as well and that we may not know all of the answers. If a student asks us a question that we don’t know the answer to, we can tell them that we will research it and then get back to them instead of trying to make up an answer or lying to our students.