How Being Ignored Shapes a Young Mind's Choices

"The room carried a quiet stillness that afternoon as the young adults gathered for the restorative justice session. Their stories held old wounds, many of them shaped in childhood spaces where silence felt safer than truth. Mateo, 22 years old, entered softly and selected a seat near the edge of the circle, his posture revealing the weight of years spent swallowing words. On that day, however, he chose to speak."

"He looked down for a moment before raising his eyes, and the first sentence came out with a mixture of relief and pain: "I grew up in silence." He explained that the silence began at home, where exhaustion and survival left no space for questions or comfort. Then he described how that same silence followed him into school, a place that should have offered care but instead reinforced the sense that he did not matter."

Mateo, a 22-year-old, enters a restorative justice circle and reveals a childhood marked by pervasive silence rooted in exhaustion and survival at home. Silence followed him into school where visible signs of poverty—damp uniforms and worn shoes—went unnoticed by teachers who saw only a quiet child. Years of swallowed emotions accumulated, and the resulting harm stemmed from unmet needs rather than anger. Chronic stress and invisible adult responsibilities disrupted learning and made survival feel more urgent than schoolwork. When young people are heard and given care, they can choose safer, healthier paths and alter trajectories shaped by neglect.

Read at Psychology Today