What+Adults+Dont+Get+khe1

__What Adults Don’t Understand About Being a Teenager__

“You’ll understand when you’re older.” Have you ever heard this phrase, or something like it?

I hear it all the time.

Sure, when I’m a grown adult, I probably will understand a few things more than I do as a teen, but at this point in my life, this phrase does nothing except say, “Well, you’re just immature and don’t understand anything.”

What they don’t understand is our hectic schedules, impossible homework loads, and the responsibility of being independent for the first time in our lives.
 * Who's "they"?1205110203**

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All of the activities we do, including school, clubs or sports in school, extracurricular activities, plus homework makes for one difficult schedule. For me, I can’t even start my homework until nine o’clock.
 * specify who "we" is, maybe by saying "we teenagers" 1205110203**

I have friends that don’t get home until even later than that.

Many teens are on multiple sports teams at once, one or more clubs at school, plus Carmel students have service hours every semester. Learning how to manage our time is a skill that we are all trying to learn, and we don’t get much help from adults. Teachers have no mercy when assigning homework. Coaches don’t think twice about making practice run late, or scheduling extra practices with short notice. Parents aren’t very helpful either; they just tell us to learn how to handle it ourselves.
 * Use more expressive wording, example: "...plus, students at Carmel are required to complete a total of forty servicehours." 1205110203**
 * in "and we don't get much help from adults," use but instead of and 1205110203**
 * "when issuing time-consuming homework assignments" 1205110203**
 * don't "__even"__; about "letting" practice run late; 1205110203**
 * (maybe say something about how they pile on chores and give you other errands to do) 1205110203**

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School itself goes almost seven hours, taking up a huge part of our day. I don’t understand why every teacher then assigns at least a half hour of homework. If every teacher assigns that much work, that’s three hours of homework to begin with.
 * School itself is about seven hours long, which takes up a significant amount of our day up. 1205110203**
 * "...half hour of homework, without keeping in mind that other teachers are giving us a large amount of homework also." 1205110203**

A couple teachers will assign more than that. This ties in with our schedules: let’s say we get an unusually large amount of homework one day. If we don’t show up to practice, our coach makes us pay for it, like running laps or a half-game suspension. If we don’t show up to a club, we miss information that we will need, and are behind.
 * "Not to mention most likely, teachers will assign more than that" 1205110203**
 * This "conflicts" with our "busy" schedules 1205110203**
 * ",with punish ments like running laps....." 1205110203**

So your either try to catch up on missed information and sit on the bench at a game, or you stay up until two in the morning doing homework. Most teens have to choose the latter, and end up with a couple hours of sleep at most.
 * "So, you"; ", otherwise you're going to half to stay up until two in the morning to finish your homework load" 1205110203**

This greatly affects our performance at school.
 * "Not only will this make us teens tired and unhealthy, but it greatly affects..." 1205110203**

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Learning how to handle our schedules and manage our homework are both ways that we are becoming more independent.

Driving is another big step that teenagers take.

Once you learn how to drive, you have to manage time even more; instead of someone telling you it’s time to leave, or someone is picking you up to take you home, you have to figure these things out yourself.

Earning money to buy a car or pay for gas makes us independent too, instead of everything just being paid for. Applying for jobs or service hours is difficult, and we have to know how to write a resume and talk to a boss ourselves. These are all skills that you don’t get a lot of help with. Obviously we are taught how to drive, but the responsibilities with having a car are up to us to take care of.
 * "...instead of everything just being handed to us."1205110203**
 * i think "resume" has accents? 1205110203**
 * "...,or enough time to learn to do"1205110203**

When looking for a job, your boss expects a lot of you, and there’s no one to help you with that. If you’re under 16, you often make less than minimum wage for the same work an adult does.
 * change there's to there is (just to sound better)1205110203**

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Being a teenager is more difficult than a lot of people think.

We do get some support, but sometimes it’s either not enough, or people have no patience with us. More understanding would help us through a lot of things. When I am an adult, I will take my teen experience and use it to be more patient with teenagers, hopefully teaching them to do the same.
 * no patience to "deal with us" 1205110203**
 * "The more adults understand about us and our stressful lives, the more help we will get and the easier it will be" 1205110203**

Maybe our generation will have a tough time, but we can stop it for the next one.