It’s Catch-22 isn’t it? We maintain a safe distance from hurt kids and we never get to the point where we are trusted, significant, effective; or we commit and invest ourselves in a relationship and we find ourselves getting hurt.

When we are confronted by destructive behaviour and hostility from a youth we are working with, we are commonly tempted to become defended, angry and rejecting in return. We owe it both to ourselves and to the kids to ask "Why do I feel this way?" (This level of self-inquiry is really your work, and what follows are only some ideas onto which you may want to stitch your own.)

None of us can escape having done our homework on this youngster to establish whether we are dealing with
(a) someone who lost out on some knowledge, skills and learning and for whom we can be teacher, guide and mentor; or
(b) someone who still lives in a world of rejection, abandonment and betrayal. Probably we are here dealing with child (b), who longs for attachment and affection – but has come to expect nothing and will take some convincing. So why are we feeling defended and angry?

One pivotal reason for our negative reaction to difficult youth, of course, is our own frustration. We are not seeing improvement in the youth’s behaviour or attitudes, so our own skills and performance are on the line — and our self-image gets dented. Also we are ourselves often the target of attack and hostility — and our ego gets dented.  If these things are getting at us, we are facing in exactly the wrong way. When we are more concerned about ourselves, we have little to give. We have knowingly, as consenting adults, entered the life space of troubled youth, and we know that there will be issues flying about, many of them about adults. "So why do I feel this way?"

For one thing, this youth’s rage may be stirring up our own sediment, the deeper stuff of our own human nature and experience which we thought was long buried and where we don’t really want to go right now. We have to confront and recognise this if we are to reach empathy with this young person — if we're going to know how he or she really feels.

And we may realise that there is no quick fix for this kid, no words of good advice and then walking away. To really attend to this kid will mean going the distance, the long walk, with lots more tough behaviour yet to come ... also where we don’t really want to go right now.

It’s Catch-22, isn’t it?