2 weeks Ago
Welcome to The Teen Fix , a column for people who care about teenagers. My name is Cyndy Etler, and I’ll be your fixer. Here’s why I want to help: I’m a dual-certified teen life coach, drawing from research-based strategies to help teens create the changes they want.
I hold a master of education degree; I taught for 17 years. I’m also an award-winning young adult author whose work is featured in international print and television media. But that’s the brain stuff.
Way more important is the soul stuff. Condensed into bouillon, caring about teens is my life’s mission. A synopsis of my early years will illustrate why.
My childhood was fantastically violent. At the age of 13, I ran away from the home in which I was being assaulted, got arrested for doing so, and was given a choice by a cop: “Go into foster care or go home with your mother.” I chose foster care and then, because there were zero parents checking for a “juvenile delinquent,” I went to Janus House, then Bridgeport’s homeless shelter for kids.
The best month of my childhood was spent there. The staff at Janus House blew my mind. Instead of commands and threats, they gave me calm, clear expectations: “Here’s the chore chart.
Here’s your name. The chore by your name today is washing the dinner dishes.” And then—this is pivotal—they gave me options.
“If you choose to do your chore tonight, you can watch TV downstairs with the other kids. If you don’t, you’ll be upstairs by yourself.” Then they turned and walked away, like what I did next was no sweat off their brow.
What I didn’t know—and I suspect staff didn’t either—is that providing options is 100% aligned with adolescent brain development. It’s exactly what the teenage brain seeks, in preparation for the autonomy of adulthood. That first night, of course, I sat alone picking loose threads out of a janky comforter, listening to the hoots of the kids watching TV.
But I didn’t get hit for refusing to do the dishes. Didn’t even get yelled at. Proverbially, what the heck? The next night, because it was truly my choice, I did my chore.
A week of choosing to chore later, I earned the right to walk to the bodega. It was on that walk back to Janus, packing my Marlboro Reds on the butt of my 13-year-old palm, that I got hit with my mission. “This is what I’m to do with my life,” was the message, clear as a bolt of hot lightning.
“I’m to be this kind of adult for other kids.” I took that message and ran with it. At least, I did once I escaped the warehouse where I was locked up next.
Each child who entered Janus House had a bed for just 30 days. On day 28, my mother had learned about Straight Inc., a program touting itself as a miracle fix, a drug rehab for kids.
I was schlepped across state lines and into a Straight warehouse, where I would be then tortured for the next 16 months. In Straight, the punitive approach to shaping teens was writ large and barbaric. When I emerged, I was broken and suicidal, unfit for human interaction.
And then I met my next epochal adult: an English teacher at Masuk High School in Monroe. She, too, intrinsically knew what a desperate teenager needed. She created a classroom vibe of participation, safety, and joy, meeting the need for human connection.
She turned a spotlight on my strengths by reading excerpts of my papers aloud to the class, thus dousing my raging adolescent fear around others’ perceptions of me. She validated my outlandish dream of becoming a real, true author. With this, she gave me a reason to stay alive.
So I became an alternative school teacher, to emulate the work of these caring adults. After 17 years in the classroom, I trained in adolescent psychology in preparation to certify as a teen life coach. It was then that the miracles I experienced as a child became clear.
What these random adults gave me, the homeless, incarcerated child, was exactly what psychology proves can transform a severely abused human into a highly successful one. All teenagers’ brains crave autonomy, connection with peers, and validation of their worth. But more acutely, research repeatedly shows certain factors in the lives of people who are deeply traumatized, then go on to thrive: supportive relationships, even if they’re limited in time and scope, an intrinsic goal or purpose to strive toward, and a reframing of the narrative around the traumatic events.
The first two factors were mainlined into my young soul by the staff at Janus House; by my Masuk English teacher. Then, through the process of teaching at-risk teens, becoming a certified teen life coach, and achieving my dream of becoming a published author, I’ve reframed my horror movie of a childhood. It’s obvious, right? My childhood was my boot camp.
I was put on earth to support teenagers with empathy and respect, and to help others do the same. And this, dear reader, is why you can trust me to give you the teen fix. Cyndy Etler is a dual-certified teen life coach and award-winning young adult author.
Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Today, Newsweek, The Boston Globe, NPR, and other outlets..
