Teenagers, popularity, and smarts

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by Cloud

or, an interesting article on "Why Nerds are Unpopular." Is it hormones? or just the lack of anything useful to do?

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

This is a 2003 article, and I don't know this guy, but I am interested in this problem. My personal opinion is we are failing our teenagers (I certainly failed as one, and pretty much failed at parenting mine). I don't know that I buy into everything said, but it's thoughtful. Some excerpts:



Just food for thought.

I don't know why you'd think you've failed your daughters Cloud. It seems to me that they've turned out pretty well.

When I was a kid, I know my parents were too busy hating each other to pay much attention to the fact that my brother and I were both pretty screwed up (largely because of all the fighting at home), but thankfully my own kids don't have to deal with that issue, and from what I can see so far it's making a difference.

Admittedly both of my boys are good looking and excell at sports, so maybe not the best examples, but they're both pretty smart too and don't seem to cop much flak over it at all. In fact, Aden has been labled the cool nerd at school. I actually think that socially this is good for everyone because it partly takes away the whole nerdy nerd stigma for everyone.

I think it's true that the new hormones kids face during puberty do make it tough for them, but as a parent it's your job to help them deal with these feelings and help them find ways of working them out or off. Aden has a lot of trouble keeping his temper under control at times and I put that down to hormone surges because he's never been that way before the last couple of years, so we just talk about it and try and make sure he's aware of how he's behaving and that helps him get it under control.

I know in these times, most families don't have the luxury of one full time stay at home parent, but I really do believe that kids need parents full time. I think this is a big part of the problem and the only way it'll end is when kids have a parent at home to help them deal with these sorts of issues as they come up.