Young People Up Close

Working with adolescents

by Nick Luxmoore

Working With 14-Year-Old Babies

It seems straightforward. Professionals on counselling skills training courses practise listening to a partner without saying anything and, afterwards, they describe what the exercise was like. Read More

What's the Point of Death?

We avoid talking with young people about it. “Death’s the last thing on their minds,” we tell each other. “They’ve got their whole lives ahead of them. Why would they want to be thinking about death? Read More

The Pink and the Black

I've noticed it several times: the girl whose is hair held by one pink scrunchie and one black scrunchie; another girl with black trimmings around her pink schoolbag; another with a pink stud in one ear and a black stud in the other. Read More

Why Do We Work With Young People, Really?

Whether we're psychologists, teachers, therapists or social workers, there are easier and better-paid ways of earning a living than working with needy and often truculent young people. So why do we do it? Read More

You and I and Him and Me

So many parents do it nowadays that it sounds almost normal. Instead of a mother saying to her child, "When you've finished your food, we'll read a story, then you'll go to bed and I'll finish my work," she says, "When James has finished his food then James and Mummy are going to read a story and then, after that, James is going to go to bed and Mummy's going to finish her work." Read More

Shock! Horror! Another Disappointing Christmas!

Wow! Superb! Fantastic! How amazing! Capitalism drives Christmas on to being bigger and better and happier and more exciting than ever before. They may act cool but young people are left twitching with excitement, hoping that this Christmas maybe, just maybe.... Read More

The Cruellest Thing about Splitting up

"They don't speak any more... He hates her... She's always criticizing him... He's not allowed near the house... She's burnt all the photographs..." Read More

The Secret Purpose of Rows

Because rows can be hurtful, we usually do our best to avoid them. But there's sometimes a secret purpose to our rowing which isn't so bad and which gets overlooked... Read More

What's That on Your Neck!

With relish, Emmy tells me about coming downstairs blearily after a night out, only for her strait-laced mother to look up with horror from the breakfast table and exclaim, "What's that on your neck!" Read More

Dirty Looks

Our need for recognition is primitive, and never goes away. Read More

Why Choose to Kill Young People?

Kenny tells me how much his parents hate it whenever he goes out with his friends at weekends.

I ask what he knows about their childhoods.

"My dad's dad was really strict," Kenny says. "He wouldn't let him do anything! And my mum went to boarding school." Read More

Why do well-informed young people still have unprotected sex?

Rhona is talking about fourteen-year-old girls who go out at weekends to get drunk and have sex. "They're pathetic!" she says. "They don't realise how stupid they look when they're falling down drunk and letting boys do stuff...." She says these girls are scornful of Rhona and her boyfriend for using condoms. "They say condoms are stupid and it's better without! Read More

What Happens When Young People Start Believing Their Own Publicity?

The great leader addresses the crowd. "We're a proud nation!" he declaims. "A nation united! A nation in which every man, woman and child is free to achieve his or her potential!" In the crowd we cheer, pumped with patriotic fervour, determined to believe these things even though we know them to be simplicities which don't stand up to serious scrutiny. Read More

Whatever love means

Prince Charles had a good line. Posing for engagement photographs with an embarrassed Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, he was asked by the press, "Are you in love?" to which he answered, "Of course!" He hesitated before adding, "Whatever love means!"

Everyone knows what happened in that particular fairytale. Read More

An Outbreak of Inspiration

It's everywhere at the moment… Everything is ‘inspiring' or ‘inspirational.' Apparently, there are inspirational people on the loose and young people are out there, constantly being inspired to achieve amazing things. Read More

The myth of 'anger management'

When I ask what's the matter, some young people who come to see me (not quite understanding) say, "I've got anger management!" as if they've got a disease. They may well be feeling angry or their apparent anger may be a defence against more difficult feelings such as loss, hurt and powerlessness. Read More

The prospect of death and the prospect of exams

Laura, whose mother died six months ago, has just got the results of some public exams and she's done badly. She says that her father doesn't mind because he knows that she did her best.

I ask what her mother would say.

"She'd say it doesn't matter because I can re-take them. But I'm gutted," says Laura. "It's weird. I feel like I'm nobody. Like I'm pointless. Like I'm trapped." Read More

When things go wrong

The fire alarm goes off in the middle of the session. The room is double-booked. I'm late because of traffic. Someone's moved all the furniture. The young person must go immediately to be vaccinated. Read More

The meaning of 'things'

The meaning of ‘things'

It's hard to get Simon to talk about anything other than computer games about which I know nothing. I'm patient because I think it's his way of making and, at the start of each session, re-establishing a relationship with me in the same way that other young people might begin by talking about the weather or football or whatever happened on the way to the session. Read More