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Education

Adults are sharing things a teacher said or did to them that they've never forgotten

The power of a teacher's words and deeds should never be underestimated.

teacher high-fiving a student
Photo credit: Canva

Teachers have a lasting influence throughout our lives.

Few people in our lives have the powerful influence of teachers, for better or worse. During our formative years, feedback from educators and mentors can build our confidence or crush our spirits, make us believe in our abilities, or fill us with self-doubt.

The messages we get from teachers often follows us into adulthood. When those messages are positive, that can be the voices inside our head telling us we're capable and not to give up. When the messages are negative, it can create internal obstacles we have to struggle to overcome.

People on Reddit are answering the question, "What did a teacher say or do to you that you've never forgotten?" and the answers are a testament to the immense responsibility teachers have when it comes to their words and deeds. While there are some painful recollections of uncaring or insensitive teachers, most are a reminder of how many teachers go out of their way to make a positive difference in students' lives.

Support through family issues

"My parents had just divorced and they shared custody of us. When my mother had us, she wouldn't feed us, send us a lunch, bathe or groom us so we'd show up to school tired, hungry, and dirty. When my 1st-grade teacher figured out what was going on, she started keeping a brush and wipes for me in her desk along with lunch money. She'd take me aside before other kids showed up and groom me and feed me. That was about 35 years ago and I still think about her all the time. Ironically, her name was Mrs. Severe. What a beautiful soul. I really needed that maternal care that she gave me." – Temporary-Author-641

"I became quite close with one of my band teachers in high school and viewed him as a father figure in many ways. My parents were freshly divorced, and i was floundering without a male role model at all (my father never made attempts to see me). The teacher noticed some changes in me and figured out the story. All it took was a sincere, eyeball-to-eyeball statement of 'I believe in you. You are better than you realize.' And the sun shone brighter, and the clouds parted a bit. When he retired, I made sure to go to his final school concert, and we caught up. It was amazing, but then i saw his wife of several decades. I walked over and introduced myself and thanked her for sacrificing their time together for all those years so he could be someone that his students needed in their lives. We both started crying and hugged.

Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Rizzo. You are better than you will ever realize." – woodworkLIdad

woman holding a cat

Teachers can make a difference outside of the classroom, too.

Photo by Mel Elías on Unsplash

Care and compassion

"Once on the way to school, I found a kitten and couldn't leave it behind. It was dirty, hungry, and in need of help. I had to take it with me to school. At that moment, my parents were against me having a pet... and so, after school, as I sat there crying and not knowing what to do with the kitten, my teacher approached me. She calmed me down and took the kitten with her. After that, she sometimes brought him to class. This way, we continued to communicate. She named him Inkblot. As far as I know, he lived until he was 17. I will always remember this act, as she didn't break my little heart and saved the cute kitten. Double Shot." – Wooden-Ranger-8765

"'I know there’s a senior party tonight, if any of you can’t drive at any point during the night you can call me for a ride and I’ll take you home. I won’t tell your parents or get you in trouble, I just don’t want anyone drinking and driving." — Senior biology teacher." – chateauboxer777

Understanding mental health struggles

"My freshmen science teacher noticed I was starting to have a panic attack, wrote me a note to go to my counselor and then I left to do so. He was my favorite teacher, I failed almost everything but had the best grade in his class. I will never forget that man, the teacher can make all the difference in a student's work." – bigshark276473827

"I had to miss the last 2 months of my sophomore year of high school because I went into an eating disorder treatment program, and had to spend the whole summer making up my classes. My chemistry teacher offered to meet me weekly at the local coffee shop so that she would still be able to actually teach me and make sure I understood the material (as opposed to just teaching myself out of the book like I had to do with the rest of my classes). Graduated college with a bachelors in chemistry 6 years after that." – caffa4

"In high school I was the class clown always made people laugh and was there for them. I put up a front 'the happy and cheeriest one' but I was struggling so bad with mental health issues, hated life and myself. Borderline suicidal. Anyway, one day, when I was telling a joke and 'laughing' with everyone, this one teacher took me aside and said, 'You’re such a joy to everyone, but I can see the pain in your eyes. Your place in this world matters and would be so much poorer without you. Don’t give up'. Well god damn I thought I was so good at hiding it from everyone. And it kind of broke me that someone could tell. But yea a moment I’ll never forget." – Sarkeshikian

Memorable words of wisdom

"'You’re not a good liar. You shouldn’t do it'…Probably the most useful lesson I learned in all school before college." – witblacktype

"'Those who do not have the talent can compensate for it with diligence.' It was a reply to a worry I had, and he was right." – mochi_chan

"'What good is going to the church every week if you just gonna go home and abuse your kids?' This was said during a religion class in Ireland secondary school." – timchenw

"'Get out before you get stuck.' It was simple wisdom from my 12th grade English teacher that I repeat in my mind quite often. I think he was referring to getting out of our small town, but it rings true for many things in life." – RemarkableBeach1603

"'I don't know but I can find out' - my physics teacher Mr. Gould. It's a little thing but it really stuck with me. You don't have to know everything and you don't have to appear like you do either." – DarkflowNZ
teacher standing in front of a class of students

Some teachers aren't as nurturing as others.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

The ones you had to prove wrong

"'You won't achieve anything in your life.' I am now an engineer. Every time I was studying I thought about this sentence and it motivated me to be better and work harder to prove him wrong. Even today, every time something is tuff in my life I go over it and remember this sentence, I have to prove him wrong." – No_Comment_50

"My science teacher told my parents I 'didn't belong in her class' when I was 13. It was an accelerated class and I finished the year top of her class. Still not sure whether she was a dumb cow or an evil genius." – Rosserman

"I remember in my penultimate year of school, my English teacher told my mum in a parent teacher meeting that I should drop to the lower class because hers was too advanced for me. I chose to stay in it out of spite and ended up being one of the top students in my year 🤷♀️" – tlaxette

"Ms. Fowler. My 11th grade math teacher. Told us early on in the school year, 'if you don't understand something the first time I go over it, it's because you weren't paying attention, and I will not waste my time repeating myself.' As someone who struggles with math, I learned the hard way that she meant it. I tried and tried and tried, but I just couldn't get it and she was never any help. Ended up giving up. Just putting random answers to assignments and tests. Flunked out of the class. Think my final grade was in the 20s. Was given the option to pay $150 and go to summer school where I'd just do assignments until I got a passing grade, likely have the same teacher as well. Or, flunk out, repeat the class as a senior and graduate on a lesser plan. I took option B and felt like a failure.

On the flip side. Senior year I got a new math teacher, Mr. Kerr. My grade never went under a 90 in his class. I understood things I never did the year prior. Even got decent at trigonometry. He built a confidence in me I never knew I could have." – Klown1327

The ones who believed and encouraged

"I love to sew. I have been sewing since I was a kid. In high school, I took a sewing class as an extra and was miles ahead of the other students. I made a grey, wool, floor length cloak with a red lining while everyone else was making pajama pants. My teacher graded me according to my skill and not compared to the other students. Then she found me a year later and showed me a pic in a catalog of a Renaissance-style dress she thought I'd like. It was a wedding dress but I loved it anyway. My mom took me fabric shopping and the next semester I took that class again and made the dress. My teacher stayed in with me during lunches, after school, during study periods, and guided me through making that dress. She even helped tackle the challenge of gathering many layers of heavy silk and jacquard and linings, tapping into every trick she knew to get it to work. (Zig zag stitch over dental floss finally did it.) Then she graded me according to my skill set. I got a 94. Dinged for some less than perfect hand stitching on the hem.

I then put it on and ran over to my favorite science teacher's classroom to show her (I took biology, anatomy and physiology, ap bio, and ap anatomy and physiology from her—huge science nerd here) and she stopped her class so I could get up on a desk and show off my dress.

8 years later... I wore that dress to get married. They were both at my wedding (as well as my 7th and 8th grade English teacher) and singled out as honored guests along with the moms and grandmas as people who were highly influential to me. I will never forget their support and encouragement and dedication to their craft that has inspired me for all my life. I'm 43 now. I was an x-ray tech for 20 years and I still sew regularly." – Routine-Register-575


"5th grade teacher, Mrs. W. I doodled and drew a lot as a kid. I’d finish my work, flip the page over, and cover the back with drawings. Most teachers didn’t mind as long as the work was finished, but Mrs. W loved my drawings. I’d recently gotten a 'how to draw dragons' book and kept drawing a specific one over and over to improve. She asked me one day to draw her one on a blank sheet of paper, and after I was finished, asked me to sign it, because, 'You’re going to be a famous artist one day and I want to have a signed copy of one of your original pictures!'

It was such a small thing, but it made me feel really good. She ended up passing away relatively suddenly from cancer when I was a sophomore in college, going to school for 3D art. She was on my mind during the portfolio review at the end of the term. I wished I could’ve shown her some of the art I’d created. She crosses my mind a couple of times a year ever since and I always get teary-eyed thinking about her." – soap-bucket

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Teacher goes above and beyond for a biology lesson by wearing an anatomically correct suit

That's one way to keep students engaged!

@mikemoratinos/X

Veronica Duque wearing her famous anatomy suit

Being an educator in the American public school system is one of the hardest jobs in our nation. Not only is the work itself challenging, but with constant battles for educational funding and a student body increasingly tethered to their electronic devices, most teachers in America and around the world are navigating uncharted territory when it comes to finding ways to keep their students engaged in their studies.

And that's why when Verónica Duque came across a form-fitting, anatomical bodysuit while doing some online shopping, she thought it would be perfect visual aid to convey vital information (pun intended) to her students in Spain, in a way they'd actually remember.

Turns out, the entire internet would remember it too.

Duque's husband tweeted a collage of images from the classroom lesson, which quickly went viral, with nearly 70,000 likes. Loosely translated, the tweet from her husband Michael reads: "Very proud of this volcano of ideas that I am lucky to have as a wife. Today she explained the human body to her students in a very original way. Great Veronica !!!"

In an interview with Bored Panda, Duque explained the thought process that led her to presenting her third-grade-class with a unique approach to learning.

"I was surfing the internet when an ad of an AliExpress swimsuit popped up," she said. "Knowing how hard it is for kids this young to visualize the disposition of internal organs, I thought it was worth giving it a try."

anatomy, anatomical suit, teachers, science, cool teachers, science class, amazonThis is a teacher who cares. assets.rebelmouse.io

Online retailers like Amazon have a number of similar anatomical bodysuits for sale. While most people apparently purchase them for Halloween costumes or as gag gifts, it's now likely that Duque's viral moment will inspire some other educators around the world to take a similar approach to teaching the body basics to their students.

anatomy, anatomical suit, teachers, science, cool teachers, science class, amazonHalloween costume, check. Amazon

While some on Twitter were critical of the suit, the vast majority have praised Duque for her innovative approach to teaching. And the anatomical bodysuit is reportedly far from her first creative endeavor in the classroom.

"I decided long ago to use disguises for history lessons," she told Bored Panda. "I'm also using cardboard crowns for my students to learn grammatical categories such as nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Different grammar kingdoms, so to say."

And when it comes to the inevitable, made-up controversy that tends to latch itself onto virtually anyone that goes viral, Duque said she says there's another far more controversial stereotype she hopes her brief moment of fame will help address.

"I'd like society to stop considering teachers to be lazy bureaucratic public servants," she said. "We're certainly not." Get this teacher a raise!

What really works about Duque's presentation is that it engages students in a sensorial experiences, which helps lessons stick (and let's face it, anything that engages he sense nowadays is a godsend). But there are other methods teachers/parents can try that don't involve wearing a suit with guts on 'em.

Here are some suggestions for hands-on "DIY experiments", courtesy of the Little Medical School website:

1. Building the respiratory system by creating a model lung with straws, balloons, bottles, and duct tape

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

2. Sculpting Body parts with Play Doh

(Grab free printable mats on 123Homeschool4Me)

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

3. Build a functioning heart model

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Of course, these lessons are a little more geared towards younger students, but at the same time, it could provide some inspiration for how to get students more involved in their own learning, just like Duque did.

This article originally appeared six years ago.

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Former Amish woman is showing people how to make cost effective food and it looks delicious

Homemade organic jelly out of three ingredients? Yes, please.

Photo credit: Canva and Wikimedia

Former Amish woman shows people how to make cost effective food

Making tasty organic foods can be a challenge, especially when you're cooking for children or you're on a tight budget. Let's face it: most of us have become used to the convenience of being able to pick up things like jelly or granola bars from the grocery store. Trying to eat healthier usually means breaking the budget and spending a lot of extra time reading ingredients on packaging, then researching what those ingredients actually are.

Of course, eating whole unprocessed foods like fruits and vegetables is always a healthy option, but they're just not as fun as the snack foods we've come to love. How can we get the fluffy deliciousness of giant Jet-Puffed marshmallows in a healthier version? Turns out Lovina Zook has the answer.

Zook grew up Swartzentruber Amish, so she was not exposed to technology or other modern conveniences until after she left the Amish religion. Fortunately for us, though, all the knowledge she gleaned from her simplistic childhood remains.

Zook has been using her knowledge of making homemade foods, treats, and everyday products to teach others on social media to make healthier, homemade versions of their guilty pleasures. Her simplistic recipes that are typically cost effective have been a huge hit; her how-to videos regularly rack up millions of views. Zook's video on making homemade butter has nearly 20 million views and the recipe is only two ingredients, heavy whipping cream and salt. In the video about making butter, she says that a gallon of cream makes 3 lbs. of butter and you're also left with a good amount of buttermilk which can be used for baking or making pancakes.

@literallyjust_a_girl Very easy and delicious!
♬ original sound - Lovina

One person commented, "She’s teaching everyone to live more affordably and i love this," Another wrote, "Girrrrrrrrrrllllllllll you are saving Americans money."

Zook's video on making three ingredient grape jelly has 17.4 million views. The recipe makes several jars of grape jelly by using really simple organic ingredients: organic grape juice, organic raw cane sugar (but white sugar will work as well), and pectin. She boils it up while whisking and, in a few minutes, she's pouring the liquid into mason jars. She turns them upside down to cool and when she comes back it's perfectly smooth grape jelly. Her recipe made five jars of jelly for likely the price of one jar of store-bought jelly.

"I don’t care what anyone says, this is the best beginner-to-intermediate cooking channel on TikTok," one viewer comments.

@literallyjust_a_girl This full recipe is in my Amish cookbook with 120+ other recipes on sale on my website right now
♬ original sound - Lovina

Another writes, "Amish food is the most organic, chemical free, delicious homemade food out there! We can definitely learn something from the Amish! Thanks for your videos and wisdom!"

In a few more recent videos, she shows her followers how to make homemade marshmallows, granola bars, graham crackers and even Velveeta cheese. Her page is a plethora of knowledge and affordable recipes that don't take a lot of time to learn.

As a show of support, people have also flocked to her page to shut down some viewers who were poking fun at her eye contact with the camera and accent.

@literallyjust_a_girl My Amish cookbook has over 150 recipes and is on a big sale right now only available on my website ➡️
♬ original sound - Lovina

As someone who grew up without access to technology, she's not accustomed to all the understood social norms of regular Internet use. As far as her accent, most Swartzentruber Amish speak Pennsylvania German, also known as Pennsylvania Dutch. It may be unique, but it doesn't stop her from sharing her knowledge.

One person writes in support of Zook, "I just saw somebody talk about how people were making fun of you for looking into the camera. Do not change who you are. You do great on here and don’t look down ever." Another person joined in by saying, "love this! please continue to educate us with these fantastic homemade recipes. And for everyone else who wants to step in with rude comments, please keep it to yourself and move on."

@literallyjust_a_girl Replying to @stronghandstogether ♬ original sound - Lovina

We certainly hope Zook continues to share her knowledge with the world as the economy changes and people aim to put healthier foods into their bodies. Since starting her page, Zook has been able to earn an income and recently released a digital cookbook that has more than 150 Amish recipes, many of which she has made on her social media pages. Hopefully she'll keep cooking and sharing secrets to eating healthy on a budget.

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American English includes one of the rarest sounds on Earth, but we use it all the time

Er…this is odd.

Photo credit: Canva

Learning to make sounds we didn't grow up with can be tricky.

When (or if) kids learn phonics at school, they're taught the symbols that go with sounds of their country's native language or languages. People all around the world grow up learning to make specific sounds with their mouths by imitating the language(s) they are immersed in, which can leave us completely unaware of how many other sounds there are until we hear a language that's far different from our own.

Even the common foreign languages that American school kids learn have sounds that can be tricky to get down. The rolled "r" in Spanish. The nuances of French vowel pronunciations. The glottal stops in German. The sound that's a mix between "r" and "l" in Japanese. And for people learning English, one of the trickiest sounds to get down is "er," as in the American pronunciation of "bird," "world," "summer," or "percent."

Oddly enough, for as common as the "er" sound is in English, it's linguistically rare. According to the Linguistics Channel @human1011, the "er" sound is found in less than 1% of the world's languages, rarer than the click consonants found in some languages in East and Southern Africa.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

As rare as the sound is, there are a lot of people in the world who use it, mainly because it's also used in Mandarin Chinese, or at least many variations of it. So, while there aren't many languages that use it, by sheer numbers of people, it's not that uncommon.

"So, a sound that's so rare that it's in less than 1% of the world's languages just happens to exist in the two most spoken languages on Earth? Can that really be a coincidence?" the @human1011 video asks. Well, yes. English and Chinese don't share a common linguistic root, so those sounds just happened to evolve in very different parts of the planet. According to some people in the comments of the video, there are regional dialects in Brazil where the "er" sound is used and in certain parts of the Netherlands as well.

Pronouncing the "er" sound is hard if you don't grow up with it, largely because it's all about the placement and shape of the tongue inside the mouth combined with the way the lips are positioned. That combination is physically tricky to show someone. This video, from a non-native-English-speaker does a good job of explaining the mouth movements that create the sound.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

What's particularly interesting about the "er" sound in American English is that it functions as a vowel sound. Most of us learned that the vowels in English are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y, and that's true as far as written vowels go, but vowel sounds are different. In the word "bird," the letter "i" is a vowel, but doesn't make any of the "i" sounds that we learned in school. Instead, the "ir" combine to make the "er" vowel sound. It's called an r-controlled vowel, and we see it in tons of words like "work," "were," "burn," "skirt," etc.

Learn something new every day, right?

Here's another video that explains the physical aspects of articulating the r-controlled vowel sound.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Most of us don't think about the fact that sounds we pronounce without even thinking about it have to be specifically learned and practiced by people who didn't grow up with them. It's not until we start trying to learn a language that's different from our own that we see how many sounds we have to work hard to make, sometimes even having to train our mouth muscles in ways they've never been used before.

It's also a good reminder to be patient and kind with people who are learning a language. It's not easy, and anyone making an effort to communicate in someone else's language deserves our grace and kudos.

You can follow @human1011 on YouTube for more interesting linguistics trivia.

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'Alone Australia' winner beautifully describes her grief after losing 3-year-old to cancer

"Death is a doorway…"

The Imperfect Podcast/Instagram (courtesy of Gina Chick)

Gina Chick shares her grief journey on The Imperfect Podcast.

Losing a child is every parent's worst fear, one that most of us don't dare try to imagine. But it happens, and there's wisdom in listening to those who have experienced it rather than avoiding the subject altogether. Everyone's grief journey is different, of course, and bereaved parents may be at any phase of that journey at any given time, but it's enlightening to hear from someone who's traveled far enough down their own path of grief to be able to reflect and put into words how it's affected them.

New Zealand author and Alone Australia winner Gina Chick is one of those people. She lost her three-year-old daughter Blaise to cancer 10 years ago and shares what coming to terms with that loss has been like for her.

"Having and losing Blaise has given me the resilience to dance with life in ways I never would have imagined," Chick wrote for ABC Australia in 2023. "Dancing with grief over the past decade has taught me how to be with what is, rather than what I wish could be. Or should be. It's taught me to turn a challenge inside out to find the blessing in the lesson."

Chick, who spent 67 days alone in the Tasmanian wilderness to win on Alone, was a guest on The Imperfect Podcast. When the host asked her what it's like to lose a child, her response was just beautiful.

"I can't say what it's like to lose a child, but I can say what it's like to lose mine," she said. "The actual losing part, death, is such a doorway. And a body without someone in it is like, oh, like I understood life by having my daughter not have it in her body anymore."

"It was such a visceral and profound experience. To be able to midwife her out of life with the same presence that we brought her in was beautiful," she said. "And I said yes. I said yes to the grief. I said yes to that journey. And it meant that whenever I was grieving, I just went with it."

Chick explains that she has expressed her grief in every possible way, which is what makes her able to talk about it so calmly now.

"I can honestly say that having her was the greatest gift of my life, and losing her was the second greatest gift of my life," she said. "Because of her and because of losing her, I am stronger, I am calmer, I have more presence, I have more ability to hold people, I have more compassion. I'm a much better human. And the gift of her leaving is a gift that I walk around with every day, so every person who I touch or speak to, that's her. So, it's like her gift is me in the world, or me in the world is her gift."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

People were deeply moved by her answer.

"I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything this profound and beautiful and brutal and uplifting."

"Beautiful words ❤️ I feel this very much! I lost my angel daughter 14 months ago."

"I'm stunned by this post that I just found while randomly scrolling. Your words have spoken what I have felt in my heart, but can rarely verbalise accurately. Kissing my son's forehead while he laid on the mortuary bench, I've never shaken off the knowing that even though I was holding and kissing him, *he* wasn't there. Also, I rarely say this, but perversely, his loss was the greatest gift I've ever had. His loss taught me about love and humanity in a way that I would never have learned in an entire lifetime of living. Thank you for this wonderful post. You've touched the heart of a stranger in Ireland with this, and I am grateful to you for it."

"Wow. this woman is the embodiment of what it is to be able to appreciate the depth of tragedy, sit with it, process it, and come out on the other side with having your understanding transformed without your heart being hardened. It's such a rare thing to be able to witness - thank you for sharing!"

grief, death, loss, gina chick, aloneGrieving the loss of a loved one is uniquely personal.Photo credit: Canva

Many people who have lost children or other close loved ones shared that Chick's words brought them a sense of peace. But the writer had more to say, adding additional commentary to her video after thousands of people responded.

"I’d like to add something, for anyone who is going through deep loss and has been touched or triggered by this reel…

Losing someone who is woven into your cells, your being, your entire life, is something I would never want anyone to feel. And yet, so many of us are here. Feeling the unfeelable. Accepting the unacceptable. Thinking the unthinkable. Bearing the unbearable.

I do not for one second think or say my journey is like anyone else’s. Grief is as individual as a fingerprint. A heart print. We all do the best we can with what we have. Sometimes hopeless, sometimes numb, sometimes rage full, sometimes graceful, mostly graceless and clumsy and awful. Often all of these in one day. Hanging on by our fingernails. One day at a time.

In this clip I’ve spoken only about my journey and lessons. I don’t presume for a heartbeat that anyone else will have the same response. Grief has its own mystery.

For me, part of my journey has been a gradual acceptance of the gifts of grief. Grief is the flipside of the coin of love. The size of our grief is the size of our love for that which has been lost. That’s how big the pain is.

grief, love, grieving losing a loved one, losing a child, gina chick"Grief is the flipside of the coin of love." - Gina ChickPhoto credit: Canva

Leaning into it has brought me solace. For others it may be the opposite. Whatever gets us through, that’s all that matters.

We live in a culture that has lost its rituals and ceremonies. We don’t have a roadmap for grief.
People don’t know what to say to us. We can feel alone and lost.

I send deepest love and respect to anyone on this path of raw pure pain and loss, however it looks. I can’t know your individual flavour of pain, but I send you love, and I say I see you, and this sucks so hard, and I’m sorry you’re going through this, and I hope you find some peace, somewhere, in the storm.

The gifts I’ve discovered here for myself are wrought in blood and anguish. I’ve collected them slowly, and they give me stepping stones through my grief. But I would be horrified to think anyone would compare their own process and think this is right or wrong. It’s just my way. Every path is the right one, because it’s ours.

grief, grief journey, path of healing, losing a loved one, gina chick"Every path is the right one, because it’s ours." - Gina ChickPhoto credit: Canva

I urge everyone on this thread to treat each other’s paths and hearts with exquisite kindness. The pain of losing someone who is part of you is indescribable.

Let’s hold each other with tenderness and compassion, and be each other’s lights in the dark."

You can find more of Gina's grief journey in her book, We Are the Stars: A misfit's story of love, connection and the glorious power of letting gohere, and on her website ginachick.com.

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Mom exposes 5 reasons why girls are skipping the tween phase, going straight from child to teenager

Kids used to watch Hannah Montana; now they're obsessed with their skincare routines.

via Canva/Photos

Tweens reading their composition books to each other.

Have you heard the recent stories about nine-year-old girls who have become obsessed with skincare routines? These days, instead of wanting to get a gift certificate to Claire’s for their birthday, they prefer Sephora. How about the 10-year-olds obsessed with watching adult shows on Netflix instead of age-appropriate content on Disney+? It's all evidence of a disturbing trend: young girls seem to be growing up faster and skipping the awkward tween phase altogether.

Ashley Embers, a parenting YouTuber with over 127,000 subscribers, explored this topic in a compelling video that gives five reasons why young girls are skipping the valuable tween phase and acting like teenagers. This troubling trend is caused by changes in media, marketing, smartphone use, and how young girls socialize.

Why are tweens acting more like teenagers?

“This small sliver of time between childhood and teenage life was once a transitional phase where children would start to find their place in the world, but now they bypass their awkward stage altogether and jump straight into behaving like adults,” Embers opens her video.

Here are Ashley Embers' five reasons why childhood is being cut short for many tween girls.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

1. Tweens are abandoned by retail

“One of the reasons that preteens have fizzled out is because they don't have designated stores for them anymore,” Embers says. Growing up, when departing from childhood, you would get stores designed explicitly for that transition into teenhood. Think Pink by Victoria's Secret, Claire's, Justice, and Ardene. These stores got you out of the childish styles of clothing and accessories while still keeping everything age-appropriate.”

2. Social media has a bigger influence on tween fashion

“A big reason for the lack of preteen stores is because children's fashion influence is now coming from TikTok and Instagram rather than their peers at school,” Embers says. "The problem is that most of the creators on these platforms are over the age of 13, unless you go through the loophole of having a parent-run account, and this means that the kids who are going on these platforms are being influenced primarily by adults and teenagers.”

tween, pre-teen, girls 9 to 12, tween fashion, girls, middle schoolTween girls volunteering.via Canva/Photos


3. The demise of pre-teen media

In the video, Embers says that two types of media are just not as relevant for preteens anymore: television shows, specifically Disney programming, and magazines such as Tiger Beat or J-14.

"The cream of the crop was the Disney Channel. The shows from Disney were iconic and such a big part of so many people's upbringing, think of Lizzie McGuire, Ned's Declassified, Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, Sweet Life of Zach and Cody, That's So Raven," Embers says. "The thing that made these shows so special is that they taught us about the transition from childhood to adulthood. They addressed things like crushes, navigating cliques in school, conflict with friends and parents, and just finding out who you are, and what you want to be."

Embers says that kids watched these shows after school and could talk about them with their friends the next day or watch them together. But nowadays, people watch television at their own pace, and that communal spirit is gone.


4. Advertising has changed

There has been a significant shift in how tweens interact with advertising in the era of social media. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1998, which prohibits social media platforms or online services directed at children under 13. Embers says that even though kids 13 and under shouldn’t be using many of these online platforms, they still do and are exposed to advertising for adult products, because it’s illegal to sell them anything else. This has affected tween tastes by making them advanced for their age. “We got ads for things like toys and games, and kids now are getting ads for Stanley Cups and wrinkle-free straws,” Embers says.


5. Overexposure to crisis

Once a tween is given a smartphone or their friends have them, they are exposed to many of the world's horrors. This causes them to lose the innocence of childhood and become worried about politics, natural disasters, inequality, and violent crime at a time when their brains aren’t developed enough to process them.

"There is increased exposure to violent or sexual content at a younger age which causes a desensitization and normalization because children's brains aren't fully developed to process this in a way that an adult brain can," Dr. Willough Jenkins, an inpatient director of psychiatry at Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, said, according to Embers.

Embers’ reasoning for the end of the tween era may be distressing to many. Still, she concludes the video with a silver lining: schools and parents are beginning to crack down on smartphone use among tweens and teens, and we may be on the precipice of positive change. "The effects we're seeing of social media on kids are still so new that there's still time to rewrite the story for these kids," she says. "With all the research coming out about the damages of phones on children, things are starting to change."

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