Blockbuster Theory

At MBS Performance Counseling, we provide adolescent counseling services in Frederick, Maryland. Our goal is to promote positive character traits and solution-focused thinking in our young adults.

Too Much Access:

Many adults like to blame our adolescents for the ills of the world; labeling them as lazy and selfish. However, our own decisions have sheltered our teenagers from failure and eliminated disappointment from their lives. This, in turn, has made our youth unable to deal with setbacks and has created an expectation they can have what they want, instantaneously.

I understand the documented evils of television, cell phones and video games on our teenage students. But, I feel blaming inanimate objects allows us to ignore the fact that we allow our youth, and ourselves, to indulge in these technological luxuries daily. We are buying the cell phone, purchasing gaming consoles, paying the outrageous cable bills, and allowing televisions to be the centerpiece of multiple rooms in our houses. These are not decisions by our adolescent students. These are decisions made by the adults of this generation.

Compare the access this generation has to what we had growing up in the 1980’s. Five-year old children can access On Demand shows through cable television and Netflix, 24/7. When I was five years old, we awaited Saturday morning with an energy and giddiness that rivaled any sugar-high, since this was the only time cartoons were available. We had to wait for the shows we loved, and when we got them, we were thrilled. We appreciated it, long before we even knew what appreciation was. Slowly, we were building patience, appreciation, and resilience, especially when our antennae was not picking up a strong enough signal to get a clear picture. We understood sometimes things worked, sometimes they did not.

The Blockbuster Theory

In my childhood,  something as simple as renting a movie could test even the strongest of emotional strengths. We can all remember walking into the local Blockbuster on a Friday night. You walked through those doors on a mission! A mission to bring home the new release! You knew exactly where to find your target in the store. As you neared the ‘Wall of New Releases‘ you could see the 10+ copies of the desired movie’s sleeves. As if pulled closer by the sirens song, you glided to the wall. However, as you looked behind each of the individual movie sleeves on the wall, you realized there was not one copy in stock.

Panic began to fall over you, but, like a seasoned veteran, you’ve been here before. You know to ask the clerk about the infamous Movie Return bin. Has it been checked recently? If not, you begged the clerk to go through it, hoping there would be one copy of your coveted rental discovered at the bottom. Panic became disappointment as you realized there would be no miracle. You had to regroup in order to identify a second or even third option for your movie night. Or, if like me you had two brothers, you now had to come to an agreement on the one movie you would take home. Often you had to trade a baseball card or dessert in order to move your choice to the top of the list.

Although this sounds like a mundane example and one that had little impact on our everyday lives, I focus on it to highlight the many lessons learned in such an insignificant moment of our youth. Compared to today’s movie rental process, of getting any movie you want immediately from the comfort of your couch, our process allowed for dreaming, disappointment, problem-solving, more disappointment, and compromise.

In the past, these skills, along with resilience and grit, were built into the fabric of our everyday lives. We faced small disappointments everyday because we did not have constant access to everything we wanted. Society as a whole had to wait. Had to be patient. Had to deal with setbacks because setbacks were more prevalent when we had less access to technological luxuries. With the instant availability of everything one could desire, we are losing the natural teaching moments that our generation grew up experiencing.

Empower Our Youth

So, do we purposely set our teenagers up for disappointment just to create learning opportunities? We do not need to go to this extreme but we do need to reconsider the amount of access we give our kids to technological luxuries. Our young adults are struggling to overcome setbacks, to deal with adversity and to hone their ability to affect change in life. Experience is the only teacher of resilience, grit and optimism, even through failure. Experience is what we should be providing our children, and ourselves, versus the convenience provided through constant technological access. So, we need to stop stealing opportunities for experience from our teenagers.

A few thoughts for the road: Allow our teenagers to fail, allow them to be bored, and allow them to lead the problem-solving process, even if it is imperfect. They are not a victim of circumstance, but their circumstance is a result of their decisions and actions, both of which can be changed at any time to create a new circumstance. They can learn through the smaller disappointments as a child so they are prepared to emotionally respond to larger disappointments as an adult. Empower them to grow!

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MBS Performance Counseling can help you develop these skills! Click here to contact us today and setup your first appointment!