It’s obvious that it is hard for many teens to be heard or taken seriously by anyone. All because teens are seen as unserious and rebellious. 

Being teens who are old enough to watch our siblings and take them to school, even if it meant being late. But not old enough to start being heard as a young adult. Not old enough to learn how to drive or learn about health care insurance. 

Society believes that we teens don’t have such a thing as a “voice”, we only have one when we “complain” too much or ask for too much. But it’s not always like that; we just want to give our input and see how that could impact our lives. We just want to be heard because we are still learning things about life. 

I myself like many others can’t express myself because I’m not being heard on what I feel and how I think we can improve things. I can’t say what I want to because it’ll feel like I’m speaking to a wall. There’s no one on the opposite side that will listen. That takes a toll on many teens, causing them to lose their creativity and social skills. We want someone who listens and understands us instead of seeing us as “causing problems.” 

We want someone to hear us say we have goals, we have things to look forward to on the weekends, or even being with family. We do make mistakes and will continue to do so, but that gives us more opportunities to better ourselves. When we tell our families or teachers we need help, they just look at us and say do better. They don’t hear that we’re trying to achieve that 100% in our grades. That alone gives us motivation to be quiet and not ask for help or even shut down our feelings. All because we weren’t heard. 

We teens still struggle with it today, and this issue has improved in the last couple of years, but it is still a battle to have a voice out there. The voice that we teens have is powerful, and the courage to give to our future generation, as being heard is important to us teens. You have a voice, make it known.