On Truth Telling...

One of the most important skills you need as a Youth Worker is truth telling, and we don’t talk about it enough. It requires that for each moment that you are with a young person, you have to be willing to tell them what they are doing right, what they could change, or what you feel might be harmful to themselves or others. You have to be willing to them them the truth, even if you’re afraid that it might sever the relationship.

How many of you have had a difficult conversation with a young person/teen that made you want to pack your shit and just leave? Just me?

If you’ve worked with pre-teens, you may have had the “I think you might smell…” conversation. Of course, you can never say those exact words! You’ve got to dance around it. You’ve got to make sure they know it’s a judgment free zone and you’re doing it for their own good. And you do it. Usually with some coaching and some giggling with co-workers beforehand. It’s one of the hardest things to tell a sensitive middle schooler who already feels like the world is against them that their hormones and body are also working against them and making them smell funky. They may even ask you, “How do you know?”

But you do it. You tell them the truth.

That’s the talk.

Now, let’s walk the walk.

What does that look like when you clock out*? Do you tell others the truth? Do you speak truth to power? Do you tell your friend if they have spinach stuck in their teeth? Or tell them that their privilege is showing? Do we say when someone has hurt our feelings? When their intention didn’t match their impact?

I’m often told that I’m good at telling the truth. They call it being honest on a nice day. On days when it’s weaponized, it’s being intimidating. I often share the painful story about the time I asked my father if he loved me and it how ended with him physically harming me. I asked the question not to corner him, but for clarity. I wanted to understand if the way he was treating me was out of love or out of something else (it felt like control, and I was right).

A lesson my father tried to teach me that day, but did not succeed in, is that truth telling is wrong and dangerous. Literally. You’d could get choked out for that kind of thing.

But for me, I had already felt like I was suffocating long before his hands were around my neck. Moving through the world not knowing how someone felt about me, had me gasping for air. I could exhale now. Maybe not right away, but I knew exactly who and what my father was after that day. He couldn’t handle the truth, which means he couldn’t handle who this girl was growing up to become. That was one of the first times I began to understand that someone could care for you (provide shelter, feed you, get you new bball kicks), but that didn’t mean they loved you. I think on that day, I was willing to be rejected because at least I would know the truth. And in that, I would seek belonging and love from people who had it to give.

bell hooks brilliantly writes about this in All About Love: New Visions:

“Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love's path is communication.”

-bell hooks

What does it sound like when you have to be honest and you’re afraid of the outcome? Do you step up? Do you have the words? What would it take for you to walk the walk and be a truth teller even when it means you might lose everything.

*Youth Workers never clock out. We are always on call, but let’s use this for clarity between being in front of young people and being away in our private space.: