How to Be a Normal Teenager
Spend time with people who are doing "positive activities" that you want to do., Be happier by not hanging around people who act out in negative, too wild or crazy ways., Pay attention to the body language of others., Be a good listener and wait for...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Spend time with people who are doing "positive activities" that you want to do.
It's getting increasingly easy to spend too much time alone.
While some solitude can be good, even loners have to come out to work, play or eat sometimes.
To act normally and behave in a well-adjusted manner (not too different), it's important to spend time around other people, socializing and learning from them, so you can interact more directly and easily get involved.
Just being around a variety of people in a coffee shop, or at a restaurant, or at the movies, can help you learn about others and feel less isolated.
This will make you more comfortable in your own skin, which in turn will make you more experienced at opening up and interacting.
Find places where you're likely to run into like-minded people.
Love comics? Quit buying them online and hit up your local comic shop.
Love to make art? Head to an art class, craft store or the museum.
Take a class in one of your interests and talk some with others learning the same topic or skill.
Get in a choir or take music lessons.
Some churches have music school and sport activities.
Online friends exist in a gray area.
They're "real" a lot of the time, but our interactions online are much different than our up close, mano-a-mano interactions.
Try to balance your time socializing online with at least as much, if not more, face-to-face interactions. -
Step 2: Be happier by not hanging around people who act out in negative
Having a pessimistic, excitable, or silly friend is fine, but if being around them makes you uncomfortable, consider whether you should keep them as a friend.
They may get themselves and you into unwanted difficulties and disgrace, so to speak.
Avoid getting closer or hooked up with hateful, troubled, mean, destructive or violent persons.
If you're good at something, offer up your help to those who may need it.
When asked for, give your opinion or assistance.
Don't go looking for trouble; let it come to you (and try to stay out of it). , When you're around people, keep an eye out for any clues they might give regarding how to behave 'normally' in situations.
Mirror the behavior of others, if it makes you comfortable.
When you're in the library and everyone looks very studious, quiet, and absorbed in their work, it's probably not the best time to start cutting up and trying to make jokes.
If everyone's dancing at a school dance, it might be normal to dance, but you don't have to.
It's normal to feel both ways.
If your neighbor at the lunch table keeps trying to make eye contact and smiles continuously at you, it's probably a good time for a conversation, if you feel open.
Try being friendly.
Available communicating people often have open posture – shoulders back, head up, not too relaxed.
Relaxing but not acting open may be about, instead, acting tired, sleepy, angry, shy or grumpy.
Arms and legs crossed may be a sign that they are satisfied to sit alone, not looking to be friendly.
Learn to recognize and not act that way in your own interactions.
If people are uncommunicative or closed off to you – head down, arms crossed – they probably don't want to talk.
If you press the issue, it's possible that you might make them feel uncomfortable.
Learn to recognize this and disengage from the conversation or interaction.
Give them some space. , When you're talking with someone, or with a group of people, try to balance listening and talking in equal measure.
You don't have to be the one to contribute the most if you want to be noticed – it's just as important to be an active listener.
Look at the person who's talking, nod your head to show that you're listening, and really listen to what is being said.Stay on topic.
If everyone in a group is going around telling stories about their weekend, tell a story about your weekend, if you have one.
It would be kind of strange to break the spirit of the moment: "I had to watch my dad eat pickled herring.
He eats weird stuff all the time." Hopefully, that's not really about your weekend! Don't hijack a conversation and take it elsewhere, or else, expect groans and protests at your breaking the line of thought
- unless it's time to change the topic! Listening doesn't mean looking across the room or thinking of what you're going to say until a moment of silence appears in a conversation for you to fill.
However, listening means actively receiving and responding to what the other is saying nicely, not just trying to think of what you're going to say next to top that bit.
Accept the others' points as worthwhile
- even if you've heard it already.
Then without a yawn or cut-down say, "Hey, yeah,
- but have you ever ___..."
A teenager is an individual who wants to be seen as mature and experienced as one's peers.
Due to this (while you strive to become the best you), it can often be tempting to get pushed or pulled into things you might not be ready for, or even interested in.
Smoking, drinking, experimenting with the thrills of asking for dates, actually going on dates (when parents permit), holding hands, hugging, kissing and deciding your approach to love, expressing your new found state of being a teen...
Balancing all these aspects is what normal teenagers confront in their everyday lives.
While there's not just one "set" way to approach each of these aspects, what you should know is that it's your decision
- to stand for your values, beliefs and to accept your responsibility to understand the consequences of conduct and behavior in close relationships.
It's your life.
Make your choices
- the right ones
- to draw your best boundaries close to your "heart".
The closer you set your daily life boundaries to your present norms and accepted "truths"(where you're coming from), the sooner you can be well adjusted in your way.
You'll be able to avoid other way-out freaky or boring stuff and be able to expand and extend your near-boundaries, launching out near your everyday "unusual-stuff". "Keep it real! Keep it simple!" is easier than going off track or out into the far off unknown.
Wanting to fit in is normal, and it's true that engaging in risky behaviors seems like a way to fit in and get people to "respect" you, but why would you compromise your personality and beliefs? If you're not being yourself, it's not you they're respecting, or even noticing.
Keep it cool:
Another good boundary to keep in mind is secrecy.
It's okay to keep some things to yourself.
It's almost too easy to put every event, success and failure, every frustration, anger and joy, up on Facebook as a status update.
Does it all really need to be there for everyone to see and "dis" you? You give the answer. , For a teenager, there's nothing more critical than having a space all to your own.
Make your room as unique as you are, filled with posters or candles, records or drawings.
Fill it with yourself.
Paint it whatever color you want and fill it with things you like to look at.
Take some time thinking about what would make the ideal room and get permission to make it that way.
If you don't have your own room, find somewhere you feel comfortable that you can spend time in.
Take a walk out into the yard or the woods; find a great sitting park bench, or find a table by a window that you love at the library, or spend time in a friend's basement den.
Try to find somewhere quiet and available to you where you can find peace. -
Step 3: too wild or crazy ways.
-
Step 4: Pay attention to the body language of others.
-
Step 5: Be a good listener and wait for your turn to speak.
-
Step 6: Draw your personal boundaries.
-
Step 7: Make your room an awesome sanctuary.
Detailed Guide
It's getting increasingly easy to spend too much time alone.
While some solitude can be good, even loners have to come out to work, play or eat sometimes.
To act normally and behave in a well-adjusted manner (not too different), it's important to spend time around other people, socializing and learning from them, so you can interact more directly and easily get involved.
Just being around a variety of people in a coffee shop, or at a restaurant, or at the movies, can help you learn about others and feel less isolated.
This will make you more comfortable in your own skin, which in turn will make you more experienced at opening up and interacting.
Find places where you're likely to run into like-minded people.
Love comics? Quit buying them online and hit up your local comic shop.
Love to make art? Head to an art class, craft store or the museum.
Take a class in one of your interests and talk some with others learning the same topic or skill.
Get in a choir or take music lessons.
Some churches have music school and sport activities.
Online friends exist in a gray area.
They're "real" a lot of the time, but our interactions online are much different than our up close, mano-a-mano interactions.
Try to balance your time socializing online with at least as much, if not more, face-to-face interactions.
Having a pessimistic, excitable, or silly friend is fine, but if being around them makes you uncomfortable, consider whether you should keep them as a friend.
They may get themselves and you into unwanted difficulties and disgrace, so to speak.
Avoid getting closer or hooked up with hateful, troubled, mean, destructive or violent persons.
If you're good at something, offer up your help to those who may need it.
When asked for, give your opinion or assistance.
Don't go looking for trouble; let it come to you (and try to stay out of it). , When you're around people, keep an eye out for any clues they might give regarding how to behave 'normally' in situations.
Mirror the behavior of others, if it makes you comfortable.
When you're in the library and everyone looks very studious, quiet, and absorbed in their work, it's probably not the best time to start cutting up and trying to make jokes.
If everyone's dancing at a school dance, it might be normal to dance, but you don't have to.
It's normal to feel both ways.
If your neighbor at the lunch table keeps trying to make eye contact and smiles continuously at you, it's probably a good time for a conversation, if you feel open.
Try being friendly.
Available communicating people often have open posture – shoulders back, head up, not too relaxed.
Relaxing but not acting open may be about, instead, acting tired, sleepy, angry, shy or grumpy.
Arms and legs crossed may be a sign that they are satisfied to sit alone, not looking to be friendly.
Learn to recognize and not act that way in your own interactions.
If people are uncommunicative or closed off to you – head down, arms crossed – they probably don't want to talk.
If you press the issue, it's possible that you might make them feel uncomfortable.
Learn to recognize this and disengage from the conversation or interaction.
Give them some space. , When you're talking with someone, or with a group of people, try to balance listening and talking in equal measure.
You don't have to be the one to contribute the most if you want to be noticed – it's just as important to be an active listener.
Look at the person who's talking, nod your head to show that you're listening, and really listen to what is being said.Stay on topic.
If everyone in a group is going around telling stories about their weekend, tell a story about your weekend, if you have one.
It would be kind of strange to break the spirit of the moment: "I had to watch my dad eat pickled herring.
He eats weird stuff all the time." Hopefully, that's not really about your weekend! Don't hijack a conversation and take it elsewhere, or else, expect groans and protests at your breaking the line of thought
- unless it's time to change the topic! Listening doesn't mean looking across the room or thinking of what you're going to say until a moment of silence appears in a conversation for you to fill.
However, listening means actively receiving and responding to what the other is saying nicely, not just trying to think of what you're going to say next to top that bit.
Accept the others' points as worthwhile
- even if you've heard it already.
Then without a yawn or cut-down say, "Hey, yeah,
- but have you ever ___..."
A teenager is an individual who wants to be seen as mature and experienced as one's peers.
Due to this (while you strive to become the best you), it can often be tempting to get pushed or pulled into things you might not be ready for, or even interested in.
Smoking, drinking, experimenting with the thrills of asking for dates, actually going on dates (when parents permit), holding hands, hugging, kissing and deciding your approach to love, expressing your new found state of being a teen...
Balancing all these aspects is what normal teenagers confront in their everyday lives.
While there's not just one "set" way to approach each of these aspects, what you should know is that it's your decision
- to stand for your values, beliefs and to accept your responsibility to understand the consequences of conduct and behavior in close relationships.
It's your life.
Make your choices
- the right ones
- to draw your best boundaries close to your "heart".
The closer you set your daily life boundaries to your present norms and accepted "truths"(where you're coming from), the sooner you can be well adjusted in your way.
You'll be able to avoid other way-out freaky or boring stuff and be able to expand and extend your near-boundaries, launching out near your everyday "unusual-stuff". "Keep it real! Keep it simple!" is easier than going off track or out into the far off unknown.
Wanting to fit in is normal, and it's true that engaging in risky behaviors seems like a way to fit in and get people to "respect" you, but why would you compromise your personality and beliefs? If you're not being yourself, it's not you they're respecting, or even noticing.
Keep it cool:
Another good boundary to keep in mind is secrecy.
It's okay to keep some things to yourself.
It's almost too easy to put every event, success and failure, every frustration, anger and joy, up on Facebook as a status update.
Does it all really need to be there for everyone to see and "dis" you? You give the answer. , For a teenager, there's nothing more critical than having a space all to your own.
Make your room as unique as you are, filled with posters or candles, records or drawings.
Fill it with yourself.
Paint it whatever color you want and fill it with things you like to look at.
Take some time thinking about what would make the ideal room and get permission to make it that way.
If you don't have your own room, find somewhere you feel comfortable that you can spend time in.
Take a walk out into the yard or the woods; find a great sitting park bench, or find a table by a window that you love at the library, or spend time in a friend's basement den.
Try to find somewhere quiet and available to you where you can find peace.
About the Author
George Davis
Professional writer focused on creating easy-to-follow hobbies tutorials.
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