One night, while my oldest child, now in the Navy, was visiting, I called my younger kids together for our reading session. Every night, I had been reading a few chapters of a classic Bruce Coville series aloud to them, and we were enjoying the story.
To my surprise, my oldest chose to sit in on the reading too, and, to my delight, my adult child spoke nostalgically about similar reading sessions they recalled from growing up.
Sometimes it can be like pulling teeth to get all the kids to sit down in a room for this activity, and I teared up a little upon hearing that it had made an impact.
I’ve spent a lot of time, and I think I’m not alone in this as a parent, worrying about how various childhood traumas impact my children. House fires, loss of loved ones, bullying, and other negative events weigh heavily on our hearts, and we wonder if our kids are being shaped by these hurts.
A recent study found that when teens and young adults are asked about the events that have shaped their lives the most, they don’t usually talk about their traumas and hardships but rather about positive milestones, connections with loved ones, and their own growth experiences.
Being A Teenager Isn’t Easy
From an adult point of view, teens have a pretty cushy situation. Someone else pays all the bills, employment is optional, and there’s a built-in support system in your own home.
Of course (aside from the fact that not every teen has those advantages), adolescence has its own stresses. Kids’ bodies are changing, their brains aren’t yet physically mature, and they still lack a lot of the experience needed to make big decisions and handle social situations.
Then there’s the trauma. Most of us can remember childhood traumas and recognize their long-term effects on our relationships, fears, and life choices.
Yet our kids say these aren’t the factors shaping their lives—the connections and positive milestones are.
Here’s What Teens Say Shapes Their Lives
Study participants were asked at ages 15, 17, 20, and 24 to share about the single event that had the most impact on the direction of their lives. The results were published in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Psychology.
At ages 15 and 17, most of the answers centered on school, educational milestones, or apprenticeships. In short, the top factor for most teens was an event or experience that taught them, provided new information and skills, and helped set them up for future success.
Fifteen-year-olds were more likely to cite sports as an experience that impacted their lives; 17-year-olds slightly less so.
For both of these age groups, relationships were also prominent. These included romances, as well as friendships and relationships with family. It’s pretty clear that forging connections with other humans is one of the experiences teens really credit with shaping their lives.
Travel and vacation also appear prominently, reinforcing the theme of growth and connection.
These Priorities Shift A Bit In Young Adults
At age 20, participants focused even more heavily on education and professional development as keys to shaping their lives. By 24, that focus dips slightly, but it remains the most prominent topic participants identified as a driving factor in their lives.
Employment begins to appear more prominently, and by age 24, marriage and parenthood also emerge as important themes.
Moving out and living on one’s own also became a common theme in responses.
These older participants are less likely to cite family connections as their life-changing event, although friendships and romantic relationships continue to appear as prominent events.
What About Stressful Or Traumatic Events?
While researchers noted that most participants across all age groups reported positive milestones, accomplishments, or connections as their single most important life experience to date, stressful and traumatic themes also appeared.
Notably, stress and loss are more common themes among answers from both 15-year-old and 24-year-old respondents, with a drastic reduction in the age group in between, but they still fall well below the most prominent themes.
Researchers also recognized something about the types of trauma teens mentioned:
“Many of the events reported within the ‘stressful life events and loss’ topic were not random or extraordinary traumas but rather developmentally normative experiences, such as the loss of a grandparent between ages 15 and 24.”
What Can Parents Take From This Data?
There are a few caveats here.
First, these answers were self-reported by participants, who described which events had the most impact on their lives. That means it’s a bit subjective and could also be influenced by factors like an individual preferring not to share details about a traumatic event.
Second, participants named only the single most impactful event, so this study does not suggest that trauma has no impact; rather, it indicates that only a very small percentage of participants named it as the single most defining event.
That said, the study provides some good data parents can lean into.
Parents can choose to emphasize positive experiences, center their kids’ successes in academics and sports, and their positive and beneficial relationships. Knowing that trauma and hardship don’t absolutely have to become the defining event of our kids’ lives, we can choose to put more energy into these other aspects that kids say are life-defining for them, and maybe even take a deep breath and worry a little less.
