Before You Call a Young Person Difficult, Clarify the Expectations

When adults describe a teenager as “difficult,” I want to know what happened before that description took hold. What was the young person asked to do? Who explained it? When did the deadline change? Did anyone ask the teenager what they understood the agreement to be?

Those questions don't excuse a missed commitment. They help us find out whether we are dealing with a behavior that needs to change, an unclear arrangement, or both.

I learned this through a relationship with a young person I worked with years ago. I'm leaving out identifying details because his life is his story to tell.

A creative young person who didn't fit the schedule

He had remarkable creative ability. When he cared about a project, he could work intensely and produce something that others valued. He did not always work on the schedule adults expected. Some saw that as proof that he lacked discipline. I saw someone with real potential who also needed to learn how to make clear commitments.

As I got to know him, I began to see the confusion around those commitments. People expected him to be present at particular times or finish work in a certain way, but the expectations were often informal. Sometimes a project was changed late, and the deadline or workload changed with it. What one adult considered obvious had not necessarily been agreed upon.

His creativity did not make him exempt from showing up when he had promised to. At the same time, adults could not reasonably hold him to a private expectation they had never communicated. Both sides needed to speak more clearly.

Make the agreement visible

Our conversations became practical. What is the work? Who decides when it is finished? When do you need to be there in person? What is the deadline? What happens if the project changes? If payment or another commitment is involved, what exactly has been agreed to?

I encouraged him to ask those questions directly, even when the conversation felt uncomfortable. When the terms were clear, he could decide what he was able to commit to and then be responsible for following through. The adults involved could be clearer about what they needed before judging whether he had met it.

I could speak honestly with him because we had spent time building a relationship. I cared about him beyond any one task. That gave us room to talk about responsibility without making him feel that a missed deadline defined his whole character. He responded well to being heard and to having expectations made explicit.

I also encouraged him to gain experience in a setting outside the one he knew. A different workplace could give him clearer structures and a chance to discover what he could do without the assumptions people had already formed about him. He chose to take that step. I value the adult he has become, but I would never claim that one conversation or one mentor made his life turn out a certain way. He made his own decisions, and many people and experiences shaped him.

What research can tell us

My story cannot establish why another young person misses a deadline. Research does offer two useful, narrower points.

In a study of school-based mentoring, researchers examined both young people's ratings of relationship quality and mentors' use of goal setting and feedback. They found that the combination was associated with better outcomes than treating closeness and practical guidance as competing approaches. The study was conducted in school mentoring, so it does not prove that the same approach caused the change I saw in a work setting. It supports asking how trust, clear goals, and feedback can work together. Lyons, McQuillin, and Henderson (2019).

A meta-analysis of workplace studies found that unclear roles were associated with lower job satisfaction and, more weakly, lower performance. That research concerns workers across organizations, not teenagers specifically. It gives us a reason to examine ambiguous expectations before deciding that the person's character is the entire problem. Abramis (1994).

Neither finding means every missed commitment is someone else's fault. It means that a label like “difficult” tells us less than a careful look at the agreement and the relationship.

See the person and set the standard

When a young person disappoints you, it can be tempting to choose one of two stories: they have talent, so the rules should not apply; or they missed a deadline, so their talent does not matter. I don't think either story helps them grow.

Try asking what they understood, explaining what you needed, and making the next agreement specific. Give them room to tell you when an expectation is unrealistic or a change has altered the work. Then follow up on what each person agreed to do.

Seeing potential means taking it seriously enough to help someone build the habits that let others rely on them. Holding a standard works better when the standard is visible. A young person can be both creative and accountable. An adult can be both caring and clear.