Dear children, please silence your pain.

Feeling alone among others: this is the common denominator of the experiences of today's adolescents according to Matteo Lancini , psychologist and psychotherapist, president of the Minotauro Foundation. "And feeling alone among others is much worse than feeling alone by yourself," he notes. In his latest book, Call me an adult. How to relate to adolescents (Raffaello Cortina Editore) Lancini focuses on the theme of the relationship between adults and adolescents, "the only true form of prevention" - he says - in an era in which "much of adolescent discomfort is linked to the lack of an authentic relationship, which is lacking precisely because it is tiring. It involves recognizing that children are different from us, doing things we don't like, feeling emotions we don't like."

Let's be clear, today's parents listen to their children infinitely more than they have been listened to: and yet it is not enough. "With our children, from a very early age, we have made a pact centered on listening and understanding, but in fact we interrupt that pact the moment they express emotions, needs or uncomfortable needs, that bother us, that ask us to change our plans, to reorganize our lives". Let's just say that every time our children "break"... the pact is broken. Typically this happens in adolescence: "Sadness, fear, anger are emotions that we adults, caught up in our lives, not only do not see, but do not legitimize". Lancini does not believe that today's problem is overprotective parents ("the "snowplow mom" and the plus-mother are phenomena linked to the society of narcissism, more typical of the 1990s than today", he explains): "We ask kids today not to feel negative and disturbing emotions, which is something different from protection. Or rather, our aim is to protect ourselves, first and foremost from our sense of inadequacy. We tell kids to always stay on the surface and then we scold them because they are not deep. We call education what is instead the inability to welcome our children's most disturbing experiences and we clear our conscience by saying that it's the smartphones' fault. We are not bad, we are just too fragile".

From the body to friendship, from anger to relationships, in the new issue of VITA, Adolescents, what we don't see , seven experts discuss seven key words and dismantle what we think we know about today's teenagers, so different from the ones we were. If you have a subscription, read Adolescents, what we don't see now and thank you for your support. If you want to subscribe, you can do so at this link .