Skip to main content

"Nothing"


If you have any experience of teenagers, you'll be very familiar with the response of "nothing" when you ask them "What did you do at school today?"

They're not being sullen, uncommunicative, or rude.
They're not 'so addicted to their screens they've forgotten how to have a conversation with real people!'  
They're not keeping secrets.

What did you do at work today?
What did you do when you went out earlier?
What did you do at the weekend?

I suspect a significant number of you, at least initially, thought "nothing" or "nothing much".

Clearly, 'nothing' doesn't actually mean nothing, either when we say it as adults, or when children say it.

A proof of this: Ask a five year old what they did at school - but make sure you have at least an hour to listen to the answer!

Ask a teenager, without judgement, what happens in a gaming stream, or what's going on in the book they're reading, or how their latest art project is going - you'll almost certainly find yourself in a very interesting, perhaps quite intense, but wholly adult conversation.

'Nothing' most often means "nothing that matters."

And we can engage with that. Not by demanding to know 'why you're doing things that don't matter!' (in the case of teenagers and school, because they're legally obliged to.)  Not by sneering that 'it's down to you to make things matter, you know!', but simply by accepting the fact that this individual is not currently engaged in something which offers them any sense of meaning, or which they feel will take them anywhere in their life.

"That's a shame - what would you rather have been doing?"
The answer which may come first might be "Dunno."
This, again, is an opportunity; make time, in an unobtrusive way, to come alongside that person while they are enjoying something. Listen to them while they are talking about something they're passionate about. (Yes, even if it's 10pm, and you just want to sit down with the News and begin to unwind from the day. Yes, even if it's 8am on a Sunday morning, and you want a lie-in.) 
Over time, you'll come to understand what's important to that person - what matters to them.

And then you can start exploring how to resolve the fact that they're spending a considerable amount of their time doing something that doesn't matter to them.

Beyond learning how to be curious about people who aren't us, how to 'read the room' so you know what energy to bring (and how to identify what energy you're bringing, and know how to alter it), how to read, write, follow and conduct an argument centred on the issues, rather than the personalities involved, and how to carry out basic maths, is there really any need for children to be in school if it doesn't matter to them?

"But I wouldn't be able to go to work if my kid wasn't in school!"

Wouldn't you? Does 'work' have to be something that mostly benefits someone else? Couldn't you bring your children in on creating a business that would benefit you, and them? If we removed the obligation for children to attend school once they'd acquired the functional knowledge we've discussed, might we not see a wide variety of childcare settings, focused on different skills, personalities, and interests - meaning you could still go to work?

Start with 'nothing'.
Accept it as a complete sentence, and a statement full of meaning.

Let me know where you end up from there.



 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What Your Boss (and HR) Say When They Think You're Not In the Room

  Today, I attended a webinar on "Capability and Ill-health in the Workplace".  It was hosted by a corporate insurer who provides HR consultancy services. Those attending were business leaders and HR representatives, and the Q&A at the end made it clear they believed they were only in a "room" with other  leaders and HR reps. Their attitudes around long-term ill health and disability were immediately presented as: . This is an intolerable and ridiculous burden to us as employers . This is too expensive . These people are taking the piss . It's not going to be fair to able-bodied people who have to pick up their slack. This is also the attitude I've personally, directly  encountered as someone trying to work whilst also being disabled.  It's the attitude that lost me my last job - a job I mostly enjoyed, and a role I'd hoped to build a career from. Employers. HATE. Disabled. And. Chronically. Ill.  Employees. They do not  want to employ disabled p...

Forget Retirement Planning, and Turn to Honour Planning

  The current trend of advice and focus, particularly financial advice and focus, is "sacrifice, go all in on work, work, work, save and invest through your 20s and 30s, which is the best decades of your life  for compound growth! so you can have an absolutely amazing retirement, with enough money to do everything you want, and not worry  about money, because there won't be social security!" This feeds into a wider toxic focus of positioning work as "the thing that exists in opposition to the life we deserve  to live."  In reality, work is part of  life.  Retirement  is actually the thing that exists in opposition to life. The vision that's being sold is "if you sacrifice all fun and socialising, and just grind through your 20s and 30s, you'll get to have this wonderful, rewarding retirement" - but the reality is, many of us will not be in good enough health by the time we reach our 60s or 70s to actually do  much of anything.  Many of u...

How Do I Treat Trans Staff Following the Supreme Court's Ruling?

  The Supreme Court's recent ruling that "woman" refers to "someone who was biologically female at birth" only directly connects to roles specifically reserved for women , which have to follow a specific process to authorise gender exclusion against men.  It does not  mean "I want my organisation to be female-dominant, so I don't have to employ trans women anymore!"  Nor does it mean that you "aren't allowed" to continue respecting the gender - and names and pronouns - of trans people who currently work for you, and those you "don't think look like women" - who probably actually aren't  trans. For Boards, who are being legally obliged towards demonstrating equity, the real diversity is diversity of approach.   Here at The Productive Pessimist , we work very much in alignment with Leandro Herrero 's style of management - and very much agree with his statement: "If you have two people who think exactly the sam...