Teens Are Not The Problem, They Are Part of The Solution - Op-ed

Why are teens part of the solution? Even more than adults. I believe teens are idealists, who believe in making the world a better place for themselves and others, even with these days' challenges.

If we return to history we find out that teens successfully inspired many social movements and made significant changes in drawing the map of nowadays.

Passionate, mature, and inspirational are just some of the words that can describe the youths who led the recent uprising in Egypt. During my work and meetings for different initiatives, I see that their actions show a new generation of young people who are pro-active in defending their rights and dignity as well as working hard with a real passion to develop their country and make significant fingerprints in the lives of others.

Twenty percent of Egypt's population is between the ages of 10 and 19, and from here comes their crucial and effective role to develop and build this country, and from here also came to my idea that at this point they should never be addressed as a problem, but that we have to think about them positively as a solution.

The trending unplanned video with Freska boy (Dr. Ibrahim) made it clear to me that we have potential inspirational youth who continue fighting their poor conditions and continue creating meaningful and lasting change for their families, communities, and the world.

In my journey with 118 youth coming from unprivileged areas all over Egypt, and who passed the last year in High school in conditions that never happened before, and whose stories twisted between poverty, death of parents, long working hours to support themselves, until closing the schools and having to study alone made me see the miracle inside each one of them.

Each one of these youth can be considered as a lesson to learn from, how to succeed, excel, and make the impossible possible.

So how can teens help fight COVID-19? They can do so by spreading social norms that encourage responsible behaviors: social distancing, wearing a face mask, and self-quarantining after exposure.

Since social norms are socially shared definitions of the way people do behave or should behave, and they spread rapidly through social networks, then it is their responsibility to have the ownership to spreading the right ones.

Social norms are particularly important during the teenage years, as teens are highly sensitive to social evaluation; they readily conform to peer norms to earn the respect of their peers.

Teens can spread social norms, for example, by modeling responsible behaviors and praising such behaviors in others, both in real life and on social media. To inspire change in others, teens can emphasize their similarity to others and articulate clear goals with expected outcomes.

Teens can do so, for example, by posting a photo of themselves wearing a face mask in public and adding a hashtag that explains why they did so: #protectingmybelovedones. Indeed, other teens are more likely to follow social norms when they feel similar to the person introducing these norms, and when they know what these norms intend to achieve.

Such initiatives have proven effective, both in research and in real life. For example, teen influencer & athlete Mohamed Farag joined the ‘I stay home for…’ challenge on Instagram. Posting a photo of himself at home in his pajamas, he told his followers that he stays home to protect his loved ones: “My mother protected me my whole life, now it’s time for me to protect her.” His message inspired change in many of his 3 million followers.

Of course, not all teens have millions of followers. To be sure, smaller-scale initiatives can be even more successful in inspiring change in local communities. Indeed, all teens are part of social networks, and many can activate their networks via social media to help beat the pandemic.

As parents, teachers, experts, or researchers, we have the responsibility to support teens to become change-makers. We can do so by providing teens with the time and resources they need to start teen-led initiatives.

Doing so, we should accord them respect and cultivate their sense of autonomy. Whenever we can, we should help their initiatives become visible or even go viral via newspapers, blogs, or social media. Teens have the power, but we can help them get started, working towards the common goal of beating the pandemic.

I am looking forward to sharing with you soon the success stories of our inspirational change agents in the (Inspiring Scholarship Initiative), led by Terous Misr Foundation.

Hatem M. Khater, a Philosophy Ph.D. holder from the University of Pennsylvania in Organizational Strategic Management.