I have just started helping in a youth club in a deprived area. I will sound naive here but last week I felt a bit unnerved.
My dc are only 9 and 7 and the only teenagers I know are well mannered with visitors (but not to their parents!). The club has an arrangement with the police to let them smoke outside; otherwise they'd want to leave and come back in all the time - kids who didn't look much older than my ds (must be 11) smoking, and one calling his teacher a bitch (I know they do it all the time!). My nerves were jangling.
I enjoy meeting them so don't want to stop going (and I will have teens myself before too long), but I made the mistake of talking about school to some of them - most didn't mind, one showing me pictures of a school trip, but they probably would rather talk about something else.
Sadly these kids do not get much attention from what I've heard.
Life's changed since I was a teenager. What are they into these days?! Without being too intrusive with them, obviously they want to hang around with their friends but need caring adults around.