Dear Young Person,
There are a few things I want you to know about me.
I'm not here to judge you, lecture you or tell you who you should be.
I'm here to listen.
To understand.
And to remind you that your thoughts, feelings and opinions matter.
It isn't my job to make every decision for you, rescue you from every difficulty or tell you what to think. The adults around you have a responsibility to help keep you safe, but growing up also means gradually having the freedom to discover things for yourself.
To explore who you are.
To develop your own values and perspectives.
To discover what matters to you.
To make choices, sometimes make mistakes, and learn from what happens next.
Because there is something I really want you to know:
You don't have to have everything figured out yet.
Most adults don't either.
We continue to learn, change our minds, question things, get things wrong and discover new things about ourselves throughout our lives.
Growing up isn't about reaching a point where you suddenly know all the answers.
Perhaps none of us ever do.
You are allowed to change.
You are allowed to question.
You are allowed to experiment with who you are becoming.
You are allowed to discover that something you once believed no longer feels right for you.
And you are allowed to make mistakes.
A mistake doesn't define you.
Neither does a difficult day, a difficult year, a label somebody has given you or a grade written on a piece of paper.
They are all pieces of your story.
None of them is the whole of you.
The world you are growing up in can ask a lot of you.
There can be pressure to achieve, belong, fit in, look a certain way, behave a certain way and somehow already know who you want to become.
You don't need to rush.
There is time to explore yourself and the world around you.
There is time to discover what you're good at, what you enjoy, what matters to you and what doesn't.
There is time to change direction.
Your needs matter too.
You are allowed to have opinions, preferences and boundaries. You are allowed to say when something doesn't feel right. And you are allowed to ask for help when you need it, even when you don't quite have the words to explain what is wrong.
Being heard won't always mean getting the answer you want. Adults still have responsibilities, boundaries and decisions to make.
But you deserve to be listened to, taken seriously and included in conversations that affect you.
And the adults around you won't always get it right either.
Sometimes we may misunderstand.
Sometimes we may react before we've listened properly.
Sometimes our own experiences and expectations may influence what we think we are seeing.
We are learning too.
What matters is that we remain willing to listen, reflect, repair and try again.
There is only one you.
Your thoughts, feelings, hopes, abilities, characteristics and experiences come together in a way that belongs uniquely to you.
So, in a world that can sometimes seem determined to find a box for everyone, I hope you remember this:
You don't have to squeeze yourself into somebody else's idea of who you should be.
You are still becoming.
There is no rush to decide exactly who that person will be.
Explore. Question. Learn. Make mistakes. Change your mind. Find the people who allow you to be yourself and who help you feel safe enough to grow.
And through all of it, remember:
Your voice matters.
Not because you're always right.
Not because adults are always wrong.
But because you are part of your own story, and no conversation about your life is complete without you in it.
With warmth,
Karen
White writing on dark green background. “Dear young person, You don’t have to squeeze yourself into somebody else’s idea of who you should be.”
