Teaching Your Teens About The Problem With Ghosting.

Ghosting refers to breaking up with someone by abruptly stopping all communication with them. This trend is due in large part to the current generation of teens fascination with doing all things via texting and social media including both starting and ending relationships. Being ghosted is, of course, easier for the ghoster than the ghostee because the ghoster avoids the painful process of providing an explanation for the break-up. The ghosted, on the other hand, checks his or her phone constantly, dreadfully distressed and confused about a sudden break-up coupled with a lack of an explanation.

Ghosting unfortunately occurs across all age groups but it is my observation that it is very prevalent in the teenage population-the group that was raised in the age of social media. Before I explain how to speak to your teens about ghosting it is necessary to clarify the slight differentiation between ghosting and going dark. Whereas ghosting refers to a way out of romantic relationships going dark refers to a larger and equally problematic trend. When you go dark with someone you are cutting off not only romanticized relationships but you might also be cutting off friends, family etc. It is simply a broader group with whom you may be terminating your communication. Yikes.

Clearly, we would prefer that our teens be neither the ghosters nor the ghostees. I know that we would like our kids to be sensitive and empathic in all relationships and to the best of their ability. Toward this end I would like to encourage you to teach your kids the following: First, simply because it is easy to ghost someone and end a relationship via cutting them off abruptly does not mean that this is the best way to do it. Easy and responsible are not synonymous. Our kids need to be as kind and responsible at the end of a relationship as they are in the beginning of that relationship. We need to teach our kids that they are accountable to one another. If they are not ready to do that then perhaps they are not ready for these sorts of relationships. Talk to your kids about some possible ways to end a relationship as gently as possible. Consider the following statements: I think that our relationship is not working out at this point in time; I believe it would be best to move on or even I dont want to leave you hanging. As difficult as this is for me to say I would like to move on from our connection. There are all kinds of variations of how to end a relationship that do not involve ghosting. They are not easy but they are much more admirable than silently abandoning someone. Second, talk to your teens about empathy and what it must feel like to be in another persons shoes. Have they been ghosted or abandoned abruptly? Have they been frozen out of a peer group? How might they feel if they were ghosted? How do their friends act when they have been ghosted? This is a wonderful opportunity to discuss role reversal and empathy. AND third, Encourage your teens to do their breaking up in a dignified manner. This will be good not only for their own sense of integrity but for respecting the feelings and dignity of the person that they are breaking up with. We certainly dont want to raise a generation of avoidant individuals now, do we?