A Day in the Life of a Teenager

Today's teenagers have a lot to cope with. The usual storm and stress of adolescence has doubled due to new technologies and a range of must-have products. As the body struggles to cope with an influx of new hormones, our minds dart from emotion to emotion. Alas, fear not. I have the answers.

Let’s start with the biggest problem of all: parents. They are people who tell you that they would do anything for you and then, a second later, deny you the chance to go out with your friends.

”They’ve forgotten what it’s like to be young.” You complain to your friends. In your mind they hate you.

“I’m not a baby anymore!” You scream through the bedroom door.

For this problem, remember that desperate times call for desperate measures. Step one: open your bedroom window as wide as possible. You’re going to need all the space you can get when you escape. Thanks to puberty, you’ve grown too tall to climb out the window like you used to. Thank God the trampoline is right outside your bedroom.

Step two: turn on the TV. Switch the channel onto MTV and turn the volume up as loud as possible, this way, when mom comes to the door with biscuits and tea to apologize, she’ll hear the 16 and Pregnant girls fighting with their baby daddies. She thinks you’re plotting your revenge and knowing your fragile state of mind, will leave you to cool down

Step three: having planned to run away to the tropics, where Mammy and Daddy will never find you, you end up at your friend’s house down the road. It’s tense because just yesterday you told the girls at school that she’s a moody cow. She doesn’t know this but it’s true, you reason with yourself.

And finally after a night spent tossing and turning in a sleeping bag on the cold floor, you return. An important tip to remember is always make a dramatic entrance. Strut through the kitchen. Again the world is against you. The parents have gone to Dublin.

“Without me?!” you cry to your brother. Go back to your bedroom. This process is exhausting and you’ll have to repeat it tonight.

Another obstacle in teenage life is school. That grey prison that you’re forced to trek to at dawn.  Every. Single. Day. You would rather roll in fire than go there again but your friends are there and misery loves company. On the bright-side, you can all be sleep deprived together.

To rid yourself of this barrier, I always remember the IRA prisoners in the H-blocks. You’re just like them; all you want to do is wear your own clothes. Start a protest in the school but remember your target audience. Sixth years and third years are always up for a protest. Those pesky state exams have maddened them. Their hair is falling out with stress and so there are eager to join the protest. Transition years are unreliable. Here one day and gone the next – they are just too busy

The principal will ignore your marches through the hall. Don’t fret. Start singing rebel songs at the office or streak through hockey matches. Never give up. We teenagers are unbreakable. Eventually, the adults will crack. How could they not? They need us. Who will turn on their computers and iPads without us? Plus the media is on our side. We have shown initiative and resilience.

Unfortunately our biggest enemy is not as easily-fought as teachers are. When even your own body betrays you, it’s easy to feel alone in this world. Spits and mood swings are the order of the day for us. After a lot of Googling, you realize that all your favourite celebrities say that drinking water every day is how they stay so perfect. Unfortunately drinking 2 litres of water every day is unsustainable for you. You can’t live life peeing every twenty minutes. Force your mom to buy you every super food going and live off these for seven hours before your spirit is broken and you eat some Cadburys. 

Remember each new day is a new beginning and start to feel a little better. It could always to worse.

Following that train of thought, even on your worst days, just think about your future to cheer yourself up. No parents, no school and no worries. Recovered drug addicts always talk about how they changed after hitting rock-bottom. Teenagers and drug addicts are very similar. We’re both at rock-bottom. It can only get better from here. Adulthood is a breeze compared to this torturous experience. Focus on making it through this and then life will be easy. Spread positive energy through your friends by telling them about your epiphany. Just don’t let your parents hear you talking about drug addicts.