The teenager has many realistic current grievances. He meets up with cliques or gangs and is excluded, for instance. His anger at those who snub him is realistically directed at them. But if he pins on his dentist the picture of a bad man who purposely is out to hurt him, not only is this unrealistic but it leads him into feeling greater fear than is warranted and greater dislike of the dentist.
When his turmoil seems out of proportion to the actual person or event that he blames for it, one very important point to remember is that, in many instances, the roots of his exaggerations reach back into childhood to where his feelings and fantasies were centered on us, his parents. As we've seen, it is this very reaching back that often makes him overly angry at us now and makes his anger also spread out onto others. It is this same reaching back that makes him offer us those exaggerated objections he so often gives.
"But when things are past," you may still ask, "what can we do about them now? Isn't it best to let bygones be bygones?"
It isn't. When bygones stay hidden the troubles they contain grow larger.
Instead of letting bygone sore feelings stay hidden a better policy is to help your teen-ager gripe belatedly about the objections and "bad" feelings he used to have.
Because of your new insights and your new ability to accept many of his feelings, you'll do better with his old feelings now than you did then. He'll have a chance to relive them, as it were, with a more understanding parent than he had then.
And this, in turn, can help him rid himself of some of their pressure and show him belatedly that he isn't so bad as he felt he was.
Charles's father recounts, "We have what we call REMEMBERING TIMES. They aren't set programmed moments. They can come in at any hour of the day.
"The other evening Charles got peeved about something inconsequential. Anyway, he looked at me with utter scorn and called me a dope.
"I let him rave and a little later I said, 'Remember, Charles, when you were a kid, one afternoon you called me some name and I let you have it across the mouth?'
"'You bet I do,' ruefully. 'Gee, I hated you. Let's face it, Pop, that was a horrible thing for a big man to do to a little boy. I never wanted to exterminate anybody so much in my life!'
"'Check!' I said. 'It was rotten of me.'
"'Uh-huh,' he came back. 'That was before you had any sense.'"
Noreen's mother brought past things up in similar manner with Noreen.
"Remember how I used to punish you?"
"Oh, Mom! The worst thing was the eating business. Remember the way you used to make me sit and sit. For hours. I'll never do anything like that to a child of mine. It makes you want to throw up all over everything . . ."
"And everybody?"
"You said it. And especially over one person."
"I can guess who that was."
It's a fallacy for us older ones to think, "You young squirt, you've got your whole life ahead of you!"
He hasn't. He, too, has a past. He has a history of past occurrences and wants. He also has a history of past feelings.
It's true, as far as the occurrences and events are concerned, that what's past is past. You can't undo it. It's done.
Fortunately, feelings are more malleable. You can make up for past mistakes by present acceptance. Going back into past feelings and bringing them out can sometimes also bring a fresh start.
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