Okay, I got this from Greg Koukl's Stand to Reason. On his July 13, 2003 radio program, about halfway through, he starts talking about this topic. I had to type down his words (that took a while.) This is only a segment of what he says, but it is the main gist of it. (You can click on the link if you want to hear more of it.)
I post this here, because I didn't know where else to post it that would allow folks of any age to post their thoughts. Anyway:
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Historians have noted that since World War II, well, since the turn of the (last) century, there has been a change in our view of adolesence. Before that, and you can see this in period pictures that capture the sense of the times before that... "Old Yeller" for example, and "How Green was my Valley."
Before that, young kids moved from childhood into adulthood very rapidly. The community expected them to take their stations of responsibility in the adult world, to make a contribution, and they prepared them for it. It was an expectation right from the get-go.
And many of those young adults not only could read, and write, and compose lucidly, they could do it in Latin, Greek as well as English. They knew a trade. They could play one or more musical instruments. They knew their Bibles. Sometimes they knew the Greek and the Hebrew. In other words, these are young people that were equiped to engage the world of grown-ups. It was a world they were hungry to be part of and, even though by even today's standards, they were still youngsters.
But something changed at the beginning of the 20th century. And expectations began to change. A whole new developmental concept began to emerge and it's called "teenagers". And what is a teenager? It's a person form 13-19 that, from our perspective now -- and here's what I want to emphasize, that what is changed is our perspective. Human beings haven't changed, our perspective has changed and our expectations have changed.
Now we have this arificial grouping of people, we call them teenagers. Those from 13 to 19 who are caught in this "vortex" between child and adult, and we don't know how to deal with that. They are captive to raging hormones and rushing passions. They can't be reasoned with. (This is our view.) They can't be talked to, they speak another language. They have no self-control. They're people from whom we expect little and consequently, I think, give little. In church, we babysit them. In age-appropriate youth groups give them something to play with and pray they won't wreck anything. After all, "they're just teenagers."
And it's almost as if our attitude is if parents and children both emerge from the ordeal sane and uninjured, not in jail or on drugs - that's a success story. And in those occasions when one breaks away from the pack and actually acts like an adult, for goodness sake, they excel - this is considered a novelty.
Well, I'll tell you, the young adults that I met - they don't accept that assesment. It is an assement, I think, that is largely the point of view of America with regards to teenagers. I can't promise this, but I am going to try to never use the phrase "teenagers" again. I don't want people to think they're "just teenagers." I want them to think that they are young adults. And that the trajectory of their lives is taking them forward to adulthood and not backwards toward pre-adolescence.
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What are your thoughts? Is the notion of adolesence dangerous? Do teenagers "act that way" because they have long been expected to? Should we dispose of the idea and instead treat them like young adults and equip (and expect) them to behave as young adults, ready to engage the grown up world?
I post this here, because I didn't know where else to post it that would allow folks of any age to post their thoughts. Anyway:
***
Historians have noted that since World War II, well, since the turn of the (last) century, there has been a change in our view of adolesence. Before that, and you can see this in period pictures that capture the sense of the times before that... "Old Yeller" for example, and "How Green was my Valley."
Before that, young kids moved from childhood into adulthood very rapidly. The community expected them to take their stations of responsibility in the adult world, to make a contribution, and they prepared them for it. It was an expectation right from the get-go.
And many of those young adults not only could read, and write, and compose lucidly, they could do it in Latin, Greek as well as English. They knew a trade. They could play one or more musical instruments. They knew their Bibles. Sometimes they knew the Greek and the Hebrew. In other words, these are young people that were equiped to engage the world of grown-ups. It was a world they were hungry to be part of and, even though by even today's standards, they were still youngsters.
But something changed at the beginning of the 20th century. And expectations began to change. A whole new developmental concept began to emerge and it's called "teenagers". And what is a teenager? It's a person form 13-19 that, from our perspective now -- and here's what I want to emphasize, that what is changed is our perspective. Human beings haven't changed, our perspective has changed and our expectations have changed.
Now we have this arificial grouping of people, we call them teenagers. Those from 13 to 19 who are caught in this "vortex" between child and adult, and we don't know how to deal with that. They are captive to raging hormones and rushing passions. They can't be reasoned with. (This is our view.) They can't be talked to, they speak another language. They have no self-control. They're people from whom we expect little and consequently, I think, give little. In church, we babysit them. In age-appropriate youth groups give them something to play with and pray they won't wreck anything. After all, "they're just teenagers."
And it's almost as if our attitude is if parents and children both emerge from the ordeal sane and uninjured, not in jail or on drugs - that's a success story. And in those occasions when one breaks away from the pack and actually acts like an adult, for goodness sake, they excel - this is considered a novelty.
Well, I'll tell you, the young adults that I met - they don't accept that assesment. It is an assement, I think, that is largely the point of view of America with regards to teenagers. I can't promise this, but I am going to try to never use the phrase "teenagers" again. I don't want people to think they're "just teenagers." I want them to think that they are young adults. And that the trajectory of their lives is taking them forward to adulthood and not backwards toward pre-adolescence.
***
What are your thoughts? Is the notion of adolesence dangerous? Do teenagers "act that way" because they have long been expected to? Should we dispose of the idea and instead treat them like young adults and equip (and expect) them to behave as young adults, ready to engage the grown up world?
