Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence

Last week I finished reading Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence by Paul Feig. Through comical recollections of his adolescent years  I was instantly transported back to my own growing-up years. Beyond simple entertainment value, the biggest takeaway for me was simply remembering the awkwardness of those years. As a youth worker it is always good to be reminded of the incredible amount of change my students are going through.

I've often said, the older I get, the better I was. Reading this book reminded me that I too was once a weird kid, and I too once dealt with all of the things that kids today are dealing with. While kids today deal with some things more intensely that we did due to the advent of the Internet and social media, the reality is that kids are still kids, and at the core the things they struggle with are the same things we struggled with. Identity. Security. Relationships. Purpose.