Mind Moves:In the life of every young person, there are those moments when he or she leaves childhood behind, steps across an invisible threshold, and assumes a place in the adult world.
Societies have evolved various rites to mark this passage, from circumcision and walkabouts for young men to rituals of a less physically demanding nature for young women.
While this "coming of age" may be symbolically and collectively celebrated on a single specific occasion, there are of course many times in the life of a young person where they symbolically "cross over" into adulthood. In our post-modern western civilisation, examples include passing the Leaving Cert, receiving one's first pay cheque, passing one's driving test, purchasing one's first car.
Developmental landmarks may be obvious and public but they may also look ordinary, even mundane. It's all too easy to discount them and miss the immense significance they hold for the young person concerned, eg making the school team, giving up smoking, being honoured in some way by their peers, becoming involved in fighting some injustice.
It requires an astute empathy to catch such moments. Yet when you do, and when you acknowledge and support the young person, it can mean a lot.
As a father of three, I don't always get it right. But recently I was lucky to pick up on a moment of some significance in my second son's life: the purchase of his very first suit. This may not sound like a mythical event, but it turned out to be a really powerful one for gearing him up to confront a major rite-of-passage, his college pre-graduation viva.
A suit serves as battle dress for many men who daily ply their trade in the marketplace. It's accepted dress code for most professionals and creates a level playing field as they settle into the business of negotiation and transaction.
A suit also serves as a means of self-expression for every occasion. It communicates before ever its host speaks. It can say "Look at me, I'm as dull a guy as ever you've met in your life," or "Don't be fooled, I may be understated, but I deliver," or "This meeting is important enough to me that I've gone to a little trouble to look well."
My son could have presented for his viva in T-shirt and jeans. What would have been so wrong about that? What did it matter if he knew his stuff and could communicate competently?
He and I actually considered this option before heading into the sales. We came out in favour of buying a suit because of what it represented to him.
This viva was a defining event in his life. He was about to finally graduate college. This suit - with all the accessories we carefully selected to complete the ensemble - validated the significance this event held for him.
It also reminded him that the confidence he needed to face such ordeals builds from the inside. It is often by attending to trivial details - the right socks and shoes - that we get ourselves into the right mindset for combat.
Other kinds of preparation would naturally be required, eg practising mock viva with mentors/ supervisors. My role was to mark this time in his life and to support him in preparing for it however I could. The outward preparation that I subsidised encouraged that inner prep work that he alone could arrange.
The experience proved to be a really enjoyable and constructive one for the pair of us. I recommend it to dads who feel at a loss as to how to engage with their emerging adult sons.
As the New Year begins and you busy yourself with strategies to improve your quality of life, may I suggest the following: Reflect on what you have to give, rather than dwell exclusively on your shortcomings.
Somewhere in the year ahead a young person you know - and to whom you mean a lot - is facing one or more challenges in their lives. It may well be some defining hurdle for them that symbolises their "coming of age".
Your relationship with this young person, the fact that you know them and believe in them, may be the best thing they have going for them in their lives.
So why not begin this year on a note of self-appreciation and acknowledge the positive influence you've already had on them. And then open your imagination and think about practical ways in which you could support him or her in "crossing over" in 2008.
Tony Bates is founding director of Headstrong - The National Centre of youth Mental Health.
www.headstrong.ie
tbates@irish-times.ie
