# Adolescence during war: becoming yourself amid uncertainty

## Epigraph

“So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.” — Immanuel Kant, *Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals*, Section II, Thomas Kingsmill Abbott translation. The complete selected imperative is quoted, not the entire argument; the selected end-and-means context was read. This addresses ethical action, rather than testing a teenager's intelligence, prescribing treatment, or cancelling necessary protection. The historical grounding in reason becomes no condition here for dignity, care, or being heard.

## What this article is about

War may occupy almost every conversation about a teenager: location, education, coping, or becoming difficult. Yet friendship, attraction, embarrassment, curiosity, personal views, and wanting some decisions remain within that life. An ordinary question about a haircut or meeting may trigger conflict because the times seem too serious for such concerns. This article concerns growing up during uncertainty rather than afterward. It distinguishes independence, actual limits, and adult responsibilities. A teenager should not rescue a family, prove maturity through danger, or surrender a personal life in gratitude. Changed behavior establishes neither diagnosis nor cause. A real threat, unsafe behavior, or a personal wish to harm requires appropriate urgent help; discussion of boundaries must not delay protection.

## I. Two kinds of time within one life

Family life may acquire a shared calendar: before war, after relocation, since separation. Other events happen for a teenager: a friendship, a changed relationship with the body, wanting to be heard, a first serious attraction. They need not stop until earlier conditions return. These are parts of one life rather than competitors with the larger tragedy.

An adult may consider a concern trivial. For the teenager, conversation with a friend can involve belonging, respect, and remaining themselves. Every experience need not be equally urgent to be real. Today's protection and a question about personal life have different dimensions, with each retaining importance in its own area. Urgency should clarify priorities rather than invalidate the person.

War cannot be appointed the sole cause of every change in advance. Circumstances, relationships, health, and development may operate together. WHO considers adolescent mental health through multiple factors, including environment, peer pressure, and identity exploration. This is neither an individual diagnosis nor a forecast of a particular person's fate. [WHO](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health)

“They grew up quickly” may recognize a genuine ability. It may also conceal assigned adult work. Organizing one task does not remove a need for others' participation. Someone can be independent in one area and inexperienced elsewhere. One success grants no permanent appointment to handle everything without support or make every decision alone.

For example, a teenager helps with a new language and is then expected to translate every request and family decision. The first contribution may have helped. Continuous responsibility is a different role. War having “made someone an adult” cannot justify it. Adults need actual ways to organize assistance as well as appreciation of the teenager's ability.

The opposite picture can also confine: “After what happened, you cannot decide anything.” Needing protection does not mean having no view. Actual abilities and circumstances can be considered without a global label of helplessness. Independence neither switches on completely one day nor disappears completely after a difficult event. Each question deserves its own consideration.

## II. A personal view need not match

A teenager may differ over music, belief, a future home, or family history. Difference proves neither lack of love nor ingratitude. During war, disagreement may feel particularly painful when adults hear rejection of everything the family endured. Actual dangerous actions need distinction from words that simply fail to match an adult's expectation or preferred account.

Listening does not require accepting every conclusion. Meaning can be clarified, another view stated, and respect retained. UNICEF encourages hearing teenagers' views and avoiding power struggles. This gives a direction for communication rather than a guarantee that the correct sentence will remove conflict. [UNICEF](https://www.unicef.org/parenting/child-care/how-support-your-teen-during-stressful-times)

Our example: “I understand you don't want to join this discussion publicly. I'd like to hear what concerns you if you want to explain.” That is an invitation rather than a concealed loyalty test. A complete inner report need not arrive immediately. If a specific risk exists, adults can name it separately without demanding acceptance of their entire worldview.

A personal view may still change. Doubt, awkward expression, or no prepared position is not a defect of character. A final answer about nation, tradition, or belief should not be the price of belonging at home. A teenager need not represent every peer or defend family reputation whenever someone asks a question about war.

Silence also has different meanings. Someone may protect privacy, lack words, struggle, or feel unsafe speaking. One sign cannot settle the cause. An accessible route to help can remain while specific needs receive attention. Refusal to discuss everything should not prove danger; actual danger equally should not disappear under the name of privacy. Both require attention to circumstances.

Adults may need their own listener to tolerate difference. That is an adult need rather than the child's task. Teenagers should not reassure through agreement, abandon questions for a parent's sleep, or explain that every family decision was perfect. A relationship can continue between people who share no final interpretation of what happened or what should come next.

## III. Real choices need real options and support

“Decide for yourself now” can sound like freedom while withholding information, resources, and help. A genuine choice requires understanding its scope and known circumstances. Preferred activities and a legal residence decision are different questions. They cannot be bundled together as independence and transferred to the teenager in full simply because adult capacity is low.

Influence, responsibility for a manageable action, and responsibility for the whole outcome differ. Participation need not include ending war, finding money, or making relocation succeed. An adult decision should not later become “your choice” merely because the teenager was heard. Being included in discussion is not agreement to carry every consequence or solve missing resources.

Conditions may restrict options. Naming what is actually available is more honest than a decorative choice with one permitted answer. Disappointment does not necessarily mean refusing to understand. A loss may matter even when adults cannot remove it. Recognition creates no missing resource, but keeps the conversation accurate rather than turning an unavailable option into a failure of attitude.

For example, choosing between accessible ways of participating in education guarantees neither admission, recognized documents, nor identical rights everywhere. Relevant responsible people need to clarify actual conditions. Teenagers should not untangle contradictory requirements alone or establish personal worth by passing each administrative obstacle. Asking adults for practical involvement need not invalidate the preference itself.

Limits can be connected to particular needs and revisited when conditions change. Adult fear does not automatically explain every prohibition. Wanting freedom equally cannot make a dangerous option safe. This article decides no permissible journey, outing, or legal decision age. Such questions require facts and suitable competent assistance rather than a universal rule about adolescent ability.

A manageable independent action can have room without becoming a test of complete adulthood. Perfect judgment is not a condition for taking someone’s view seriously. A mistake needs consideration and appropriate help rather than a final verdict of incapacity. Necessary protection remains; it should not turn every initiative into misconduct or every request for participation into proof of immaturity.

## IV. Peers are relationships as well as influences

Friendship is sometimes treated only as risk or distraction. For a teenager, it may also hold recognition, humor, shared history, and difference from the family world. War can interrupt familiar closeness without making a need for relationships a whim. Every friend need not immediately be judged according to usefulness for recovery or approved emotional progress.

UNICEF leaves room for friends and personal space within adolescent support. This is no general permission for every meeting or online contact. Particular possibilities depend on circumstances. Relationships can matter without every form being safe, available, or necessarily beyond adult participation. [UNICEF](https://www.unicef.org/parenting/child-care/how-support-your-teen-during-stressful-times)

Earlier friends can remain important while new closeness develops. No single group need prove loyalty. New laughter cannot establish an earlier life forgotten. An old conversation may become difficult because conditions differ without making either person a traitor. Relationships can change without a compulsory moral verdict on everyone involved or a demand to rank their suffering.

Different experiences may complicate understanding. One wants to discuss war, another music; one expects quick replies, another is unavailable. A specific difficulty can be named without concluding friendship impossible. Detailed evidence of suffering should not buy ordinary conversation or prove absence justified. Teenagers need not turn every connection into testimony before being allowed to belong.

Bullying and coercion are protection concerns rather than an unavoidable price of joining a group. Humiliation should not be required for socializing. Appropriate adult responses depend on circumstances, with urgency for present danger. Group membership alone cannot prove safety, just as being alone cannot diagnose someone or explain their whole inner life. An actual concern needs more specific attention.

A friend should not be expected to provide professional support around the clock. Serious danger should not be answered solely by a promise to keep every secret. Teenagers can seek adult and professional support rather than resolve everything for someone else. This does not require revealing every private conversation to an audience; necessary protection and ordinary curiosity remain different concerns.

## V. Bodies, attraction, and personal space

A changing body and first relationships may occupy attention amid wider danger. Interest in appearance or attraction need not be abandoned to prove grief serious. A person remains someone living rather than only someone who endured. This article establishes no consent age, medical decision, or relationship rule for a particular jurisdiction. Personal interest does not settle those questions.

A teenager may feel embarrassed that a private concern seems small beside war. Adults can listen without ridicule or demanding every detail first. Taking experience seriously does not approve every action. Feelings, a specific health question, and circumstances requiring protection from coercion or harm can be distinguished. The child's need should not disappear within a dispute over the correct attitude.

Privacy need not be proved through secrecy about everything. Personal correspondence can coexist with needing trustworthy assistance. Care also creates no automatic permission to publish relationships, appearance, or experiences. This article offers no account hacking, settings changes, body checks, or home investigation to reassure adults. Specific risks require an appropriate response rather than a blanket inspection of private life.

Not wanting to discuss attraction with a parent does not prove distrust of everyone. Suitable reliable information and assistance should be accessible when needed. Competence, consent, and confidentiality conditions need clarification in the particular system; none can be universally promised here. Access to appropriate medical assistance should not be made conditional on sharing every intimate detail with the whole family.

Lost clothing, personal space, or access to care may matter. “Everyone is struggling” cannot answer a specific need. Available and unavailable resources can be acknowledged without judging a body or demanding immediate love for change. Dignity does not depend on matching a group or maintaining an earlier appearance. A particular concern can matter without explaining the whole condition.

There may also be no romantic interest, no wish to discuss appearance, or a different pace. No compulsory calendar needs catching up. Adolescent life is no more reducible to romance than to grades or tragedy. The person needs room without a correct version of development to prove war did not interfere with living or that recovery has reached an expected stage.

## VI. Helping without replacing adults

Teenagers can contribute at home and may want to help. That participation deserves recognition. Manageable help nevertheless differs from maintaining parents' functioning, raising siblings, or making dangerous decisions. Noticing others' needs cannot oblige someone to surrender their own and remain the household's most composed person. An ability to help is not unlimited capacity or an appointment to every responsibility.

“We cannot manage without you” may express real dependence on a missing resource. It cannot make that dependence an appropriate child assignment. Adults need assistance reorganizing tasks. Permission to rest is insufficient if nobody else performs the work and responsibility silently returns at the first difficulty. Actual relief concerns what happens as well as what is kindly said.

For example, an older sibling constantly comforts a younger one while adults discuss difficult matters. One incident cannot describe the whole family. Yet disappearing time for learning, friendship, and personal needs makes the actual role important. Loss of a personal life should not be praised as special spiritual maturity or the only correct way to love relatives.

An adult can acknowledge fear and tiredness without appointing a child therapist. Teenagers should not monitor parental condition, supervise every decision, or promise never to cause distress. Adult listeners and appropriate support are needed for the parent. UNICEF also recognizes caregivers' needs without making the teenager the means to fulfill them. [UNICEF](https://www.unicef.org/parenting/child-care/how-support-your-teen-during-stressful-times)

A real handover needs another participant and agreement rather than a new encouraging sentence. Missing help remains unresolved. A teenager should not be declared relieved while necessary care still depends on them. No particular service can be promised to provide everything immediately; actual participation needs checking. An administrative reply alone cannot establish that the task has been taken over.

Adults have limits too. These can be acknowledged without competition over suffering. A parent's need, a child's need, and a missing resource may coexist. Seeing all three is more accurate than blaming the teenager or demanding adult inexhaustibility. Seeking assistance does not cancel necessary present protection and care. Neither person's limits make the other's need unreal.

## VII. Disagreement, risk, and actual danger

Not every argument is a threat, and calmness cannot prove safety. Actual circumstances matter. A sharp reply establishes neither diagnosis, substance use, nor the cause of behavior. It may need conversation and a boundary. Real harm and threat require appropriate action rather than an explanation based on difficult adolescence. A global judgment should not replace a response to the event.

Independence need not be proved through a dangerous journey, violence, bodily risk, or refusing assistance. War does not oblige a teenager to act as an adult participant in conflict. This article provides no routes, recruitment guidance, or weapon instructions. Asking for protection removes neither dignity nor courage. A personal voice should not have to earn attention through demonstrated fearlessness.

Where postponement creates no risk, adults may seek a better time to talk. A pause must not abandon necessary care or delay urgent help. There is no universal instruction here to leave, lock away, restrain, or leave someone alone. Particular protection needs a suitable response to actual circumstances rather than a household technique for ending an argument.

Respecting a view can coexist with preventing harm. Teenagers need not accept the adult worldview before receiving help; adults need not call every action permissible to show respect. Discussion can concern what happened and what is necessary now rather than judgment of the whole person or promises of absolute control. Both dignity and specific protective responsibilities remain relevant.

If an adult caused harm, war, workload, and gratitude for earlier care cannot require the teenager to justify it. Suitable assistance and protection are needed. Parental difficulty does not make an event harmless. Neither a particular outcome nor identical legal procedures everywhere can be promised. A concern can be reported without a final conclusion about responsibility already established.

When behavior is unsafe or the teenager expresses a wish to harm themselves or others, NIMH recommends seeking help immediately. Several failed family conversations need not come first. No unverified local contacts appear here, and these words should not be dismissed as adolescent drama. [NIMH](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/children-and-mental-health)

## VIII. The future can remain open

“What will you become?” may assume a stable world, clear documents, and several years available to plan. Teenagers may lack those conditions while still considering a future. A dream, an available next step, and what remains undecidable need distinction. Uncertainty does not mean missing ability or unwillingness to try. A temporary lack of options cannot define the person's entire potential.

Interest in a profession need not immediately become the family's shared escape plan. A personal intention should not oblige someone to relocate, provide for, and reassure everyone. Nor must a future prove loyalty to a nation or gratitude to a host location. The teenager's life is not the sole resource for resolving the adults' history or completing their hopes.

Particular educational and legal conditions require checking with appropriate sources and responsible people. Preference guarantees no access, registration is not admission, and promised support is not received support. A blocked route also cannot prove someone unsuitable for every occupation. External obstacles deserve their actual names rather than being turned into a personal deficiency or a failure to want success enough.

Adults can help clarify conditions without taking over the entire choice. One practical answer may matter more than a grand plan demanded as proof of motivation. Someone else's success sets no deadline for this teenager. Changed intentions need not make earlier effort pointless. An incomplete decision can remain open without being treated as an accusation against the family.

Lost time cannot be returned by promising greater strength. Regret can coexist with present life. One next step need not compensate for the whole loss. Interrupted school years deserve their own discussion; here, a teenager need not prove optimism before plans matter. Adults can take a concern seriously without making its expression depend on a positive conclusion.

Tagore's image of a world without fear is a prayerful aspiration rather than an instruction to stop being afraid. It allows thought about a future without humiliation. It promises no country's, family's, or route's safety. Dignity can remain with doubt, caution, and a need for assistance. A raised head need not mean facing everything alone.

## IX. Help without becoming a diagnosis

Concerns can be described through what troubles someone and interferes with life rather than a predetermined single explanation. Tiredness, changed communication, or difficulty studying cannot diagnose a condition alone. Serious changes also should not be dismissed as hormones or character. Possible causes need appropriate professional consideration when help is needed rather than a household conclusion about the teenager's identity.

NIMH identifies duration, significant distress, and interference with ordinary life as grounds for assistance. These are not three conditions required together, nor a demand to wait weeks when things are already serious. Serious acute physical deterioration needs suitable urgent medical help instead of waiting for psychological adaptation discussions. [NIMH](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/children-and-mental-health)

Purpose, language access, concerns, and confidentiality conditions can be discussed. Identical promises cannot apply across places and ages. Known conditions should be understandable to the teenager where possible. Professional help should not become a family threat: “They will fix you if you disagree.” Disagreement with an adult is not the problem a clinician is automatically appointed to remove.

War does not make every change PTSD, nor peer interest substance use. Appearance, messages, and home questioning cannot replace assessment. This article offers no tests, medicines, exercises, or treatment protocol. A clinical label need not be accepted first to raise what is difficult, unsafe, or obstructing life. Questions can be brought without the answer already selected by relatives.

A queue and a sent request are not assistance received. Inaccessibility remains a concern that can be raised further, especially with deterioration. Teenagers should not organize an entire system alone or answer for unavailable professionals. Adult support includes participation in fact as well as permission to seek help eventually if everything becomes unbearable. The present need remains relevant while waiting.

Wishes and decisions outside an appointment can continue. Necessary treatment does not remove someone as friend, student, or person with tastes and doubts. Dignity is not measured by improvement speed or family convenience. Respect for separateness nevertheless preserves actual care and protection when needed. Neither diagnosis nor refusal of a label should consume the person's entire story.

## X. Neither compulsory hero nor permanent victim

A teenager's story need not end by proving war offered useful experience. Positive meaning may remain unavailable while life continues. Laughter cancels no loss, and sadness disproves no contribution from others. An identical response every day should not establish whether the past or current need is real. Other people cannot require an emotional performance as evidence that assistance mattered.

Kant's distinction between end and means prompts an ethical question: whose need does expected behavior serve? The teenager's, or a convenient family image, report, or reconciliation? This is a bounded use of the idea rather than a diagnostic or legal conclusion. A person does not become less worthy when unable to formulate an interest persuasively or reason in the expected way.

Tagore's aspiration addresses a wider world through religious language. It is not transferred into a teenager's compulsory faith or national role. The image allows a question about living without bowing to humiliation. It requires neither risk, fearlessness, nor rejection of necessary help as evidence of freedom. The poem does not decide what is safe in a particular situation.

Ordinary decisions can also matter: an interest, something not shared publicly, a question asked, or a request for participation. They need not become achievements or recovery exercises. Sometimes the person's involvement matters more than how persuasively independence is displayed to an adult observer. Personal life should not be reduced to a continuing examination of whether development is proceeding correctly.

Close people can remain alongside one another without matching every view. That needs actual boundaries, time, accessible help, and responses to particular harm as well as beautiful words. A teenager should not preserve family closeness alone through correct behavior. Adult participation remains adult even when a young person has many skills and can help with important matters.

A final future need not be selected for today's person to matter. They are neither a draft of a convenient adult nor proof of how war should be endured. Growing unevenly, needing support, and having a personal voice can coexist. Independence gains substance when that voice receives serious attention and necessary care actually continues rather than being withdrawn to test maturity.

## What this means in practice

Distinguish protection concerns, personal preferences, and adult tasks. Teenagers can join discussion without carrying all consequences of war and family decisions. Clarify real options and conditions rather than offer an impossible choice. Administrative and legal problems should not be left to them alone. Participation matters without making every outcome their responsibility.

Listen for specific meaning without requiring a complete inner report. Disagreement, privacy, and interest in peers cannot establish danger or diagnosis by themselves. Actual reports of harm deserve serious attention regardless of an adult's reputation. Immediate threat must not wait for a convenient conversation or emotional agreement with the person arranging protection.

Friendship, attraction, and interests should not be rewards for absence of grief. Their value cannot make every form safe. Particular limits require facts rather than power struggles alone. This article instructs no dangerous action, digital surveillance, treatment, or universal decision about permissible independence. Real circumstances need suitable consideration rather than a single rule for all teenagers.

Check whether manageable help has become permanent adult work. Relief from a task needs an actual replacement. Parents and helpers also require support; a teenager's silence cannot supply it. Inaccessible assistance remains an unresolved need rather than proof that everyone must cope alone. Current protection and necessary care continue while arrangements are being addressed.

Significant distress or disruption can justify appropriate professional assistance without a compulsory wait. Unsafe behavior or a personal wish to harm oneself or others requires immediate suitable help. A teenager can remain a separate person without becoming a fearless hero, a diagnosis, or the family's only support. Dignity and actual care belong together.

## Key quotation

“[…] Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.” — Rabindranath Tagore, *Gitanjali*, 35, the author's own English translation from Bengali. This is the complete selected closing prayer; […] marks preceding lines, and the entire selected poem 35 was read. Its image of freedom develops through absence of fear, open knowledge, truthful words, and widening thought and action; the close prays for the country. It requires no teenager to believe, be fearless, rescue a nation, or prove maturity through heroism. Fear is no moral failure; poetic hope guarantees no safety.

## Connections between traditions

**Kant and Tagore: a person's place in a decision and an image of free life.** In the selected Section II, Kant requires treating humanity in oneself and another also as an end rather than merely as a means; his imperative rests on an argument about reason and unconditional worth. In the selected poem 35, Tagore relates a prayerful image of a free country to open knowledge, truthful words, an undivided world, and thought widening into action. These are not identical proofs. The bounded common question in our comparison is whether a person retains room for a voice and development when only useful results are wanted from them.

In a conversation about a friend or permanent family translation work, this helps an adult check two distinct sides: is the teenager being used only to reassure others, and does actual space remain for friendship, education, and thought? A real available option and an adult actually taking responsibility are needed; a beautiful promise of freedom replaces neither. The philosophical imperative must not become a reasoning test or permission to cancel protection. The poetic prayer for a country appoints no child its rescuer and demands no faith, fearlessness, agreement, or political loyalty in exchange for care. Neither source establishes a clinical decision, local scope of independence, or safety of a particular meeting. Those conditions require separate checks; urgent help must not wait for philosophical agreement.

## Sources

- [UNICEF, How to support your teen during stressful times](https://www.unicef.org/parenting/child-care/how-support-your-teen-during-stressful-times). Entire main text read; revision date unknown. Independence, friends, listening, and caregiver support used. The article cites IASC, but that guidance was not separately read. Schedules, breathing, compulsory gratitude, and universal pauses not prescribed.
- [WHO, Mental health of adolescents](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health). Entire main text and reference list read; September 1, 2025. Multiple factors and environment used, rather than statistics, individual prognosis, diagnostic lists, or treatment protocols. Linked studies and guides not separately read.
- [NIMH, Children and Mental Health: Is This Just a Stage?](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/children-and-mental-health). Entire main text and rights read during WAR-135; revised 2024, NIH 24-MH-8085. Help grounds and urgency without a compulsory wait, tests, medicines, or US contacts.
- [Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Thomas Kingsmill Abbott](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5682/5682-h/5682-h.htm). Title information, selected humanity-as-end passage, and metadata read during WAR-124. Neither whole treatise nor German original; first English edition date not separately established. US public-domain status with jurisdictional qualification; Russian rendering ours.
- [Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, 35](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7164/7164-h/7164-h.htm). Entire poem, title information, and metadata read during WAR-137. Author's own English translation from Bengali, not Yeats's translation; not the whole collection. This English edition's year not separately established. US public-domain status; other jurisdictions unchecked. Russian rendering ours.

## Tags

teenagers and war, adolescence, uncertainty, independence, personal voice, dignity, actual choices, boundaries, privacy, peers, friendship, first relationships, body, personal interests, family, child responsibility, caregiver support, parental role, safety, protection, professional help, plans, identity, no diagnosis from behavior, Kant, Rabindranath Tagore, respect, United Wisdom

## About the authors

Andrey Zarinsh is the author and founder of United Wisdom. He explores inner transformation, the unity of traditions, intercultural dialogue, and contemporary spiritual discipline. Instagram: @andrey.zarinsh.

Maria Evilkut is a co-author of United Wisdom. Alongside her research, she seeks to test these ideas in practice and observe how the principles of unity and mutual understanding work in real life between people and cultures. Instagram: @ilkutki.