15-year-old refuses to answer normal questions his 21-year-old brother asks because he thinks he'll use his answers against him: 'If he asks where I am going when I go out, I don’t tell him. If he asks me what I'm cooking, I don't tell him'

It can be challenging to trust teens' perspectives on their situations. Saying that out loud makes me feel like a grouchy old man who can't remember what it's like to be a teenager, but that's just the thing: I remember exactly what it was like, and I wouldn't say I was always the most reliable narrator about the things that were happening in my day-to-day life. I tended towards paranoia, thinking that everyone was out to get me. I felt that unless I acted in a particular way, everything would go awry. That doesn't mean there weren't dysfunctional things happening in my day-to-day life, but they definitely weren't as extreme as I experienced them in the moment.

It's easy to dismiss your past teenage self as overly emotional and dramatic, but being a kid is not easy. Just because adults think teenage emotions are silly does not make them any less real. Teens feel so deeply, and no amount of dismissal or rolling your eyes at them will change their unstable emotional state. You need to meet them where they're at, because they deserve the same amount of respect and consideration that an adult would get, even if they aren't as mature as an adult.

via mehrab zahedbeigi

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The teenager in this story needs a little tough love, and the internet is willing to give it to him. He ignores his brother because he doesn't think he deserves to know details about his life, and it's making their relationship incredibly fraught.
Am I the bad guy for not sharing stuff about my life with my brother?

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