Has anyone here read "The Case Against Adolescence"?

[Donna in OH]

I just finished this book (written by Robert Epstein) and I am rethinking my parenting in some fundamental ways.

 

The premise is that the stage we know as adolescence results from an artificial extension of childhood.

 

I find myself caught between my heart's desire of raising strong, capable individuals and the fact that, much to my dismay, I have become an overprotective parent.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Donna

[K&Rs Mom]

I haven't read it, but am interested in the theory. It seems like we (American culture) treat our kids like babies until about 5, then like teenagers until about 25, then, finally, they are expected to act like an adult sometime around the time they turn 30.

 

When dh turned 29, MIL called him and asked, "so how is it to really be an adult now?" Uh, at the time he had been married for 8 years and had 2 children - but suddenly the calendar says he's supposed to be an adult? :confused: Thankfully he had already accepted his responsibilities and was supporting his family just like a grownup should.

 

Once upon a time, children were apprenticed out at age 12, expected to start learning a trade and moving toward full independence. I'm not saying that was the best way either, they are still very young, but I think pushing responsibility back by 10+ years was too far. Just my opinion....

[*anj*]

I haven't read that either, but I am also quite interested in the theory. I agree that we as a society are guilty of allowing people to wallow in childhood for far too long. I also think that the whole concept of "teenage years" is a relatively new phenomenon. Before (roughly) the 1950's, you were either a child or a young adult. We don't expect young people to be responsible for their actions until they are around 30 years old.

 

We refer to college students as "kids."

 

A couple of weeks ago there was a flap about a comment that someone made to Chelsea Clinton while she was campaigning for her mother. People were saying "Leave the kid alone" and "The children of candidates shouldn't be expected to address these issues." But Chelsea is 28 years old. She isn't a child, a kid.

I don't mention that to start a discussion about the appropriateness of the comments. It's just an illustration to make my point.

[Liz CA]

I just finished this book (written by Robert Epstein) and I am rethinking my parenting in some fundamental ways.

 

The premise is that the stage we know as adolescence results from an artificial extension of childhood.

 

I find myself caught between my heart's desire of raising strong, capable individuals and the fact that, much to my dismay, I have become an overprotective parent.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Donna

 

heard about this concept. It warrants some consideration IMHO. Many years ago, young men, aged 15 and older were apprenticed in some trade and basically lived like adults. Young women learned domestic duties and it was expected they perform on a near adult level.

Are we babying our young men and women too long? Perhaps. I am all for transferring responsibility onto their shoulders. My 17 yo needs to know he is responsible for his learning, his grades, his room, his clothes, and a myriad of other choices he makes. It does not mean we won't still guide or help if he asks. I am somehow keenly aware that legally he will be treated as an adult in one short year and I am trying to step way back, one day - one issue at a time.

[CLHCO]

It was last year or so and I may be confusing it with other books at this point.

 

I think he took a few parts too far but the main point was certainly valid. Teens do not need to be treated as psychotic and confused beasts we just must control. Instead they should have full adult opportunity and responsibility. Where I seem to differ from the author is that they should be doing these things with the full advice and councel of adults, specifically those out working and living as adults in the real world, though not in a contrived and programmed atmosphere. He seems to want to provide freedoms further than I would agree with, though the dialog with teens should be fully participating with adults, even in areas they are not granted the same freedom, if that makes sense. I don't believe in completely letting loose of all restrictions if they're going to still live and breathe among only other teens. I think having them walk along adults instead of other teens is more where the key lies, not letting it all loose.

 

I think the ideal would look like an internship where you are actually doing the work but under supervision and the advisory of a "professional", which could simply mean helping to balance the home budget for the family, cooking, electrical work, research, and even making decisions on their life direction and study. That seems so obvious, since they'll need to do all that as adults, but it really isn't these days.

 

Balancing this is tricky though. We have put standard education expectations and opportunities for teens in such a tight box that you almost have no choice but to direct every breath of a teen to prepare them for college with a set number of hours in school, set curriculum, programmed course of study, etc. Even if interests are not college because, well, it's all "in case they do" and because they have to have a diploma by this age with this study, etc. They have no choice. Parents want to ensure they're ready for whatever so they put them through the regimen.

 

I do agree with him on many points but it's a pie in the sky. We can't even have our teens help with Habitat for Humanity due to laws, but I suppose this won't change unless we start that dialog.

[Jill- OK]

...whenever these conversations come up, I can't help but think that, sure, 100 years ago, boys were 'men' at fifteen, girls were married and having kids, but...folks also didn't live as long.

 

I don't think that 'adolescence' is an artificial extension of childhood...I think that longer life spans, generally speaking, have created a new stage of life. (I also think that the construct of 'high school' has done that, too; made a sort of gap between childhood and college/adulthood). Not saying it's good or bad, just saying that, regardless...we don't live 100 years ago.

 

I would go along with the idea that teens are more capable than many imagine them to be, but our personal tack is to tell them that they can take their time in finding a career/life focus, and do it right. They've got room and board here. (But they do have to have *some* sort of job, if they're 18 and not going to school fulltime).

 

We use a funnel concept for pairing responsibilities and freedoms with our kids; the older you get, the more responsibilities you're given, but you also have gradually increasing freedoms. We talk regularly about their futures, make *tenative* plans, and listen to their ideas. I fully expect both of my older kids to get part time jobs as soon as they're old enough, they're planning to go to college (and pay for it) and they have a lot of responsibilties here at home.

 

But I consider them kids. They consider themselves children, too, and I think that's okay. If you live to be 80, you've got a lot of time to do plenty of things, and I'm in no rush to get them to full blown adulthood before I think they're ready.

 

JMO.

[Nestof3]

We don't follow the "teen" years thinking -- never did with our oldest. We have always treated growing up as: you are born, and you continue to mature until one day people begin treating you as an adult and you begin behaving as one. For us, it has always been about maturity -- even many of what society would deem "adults" do not act as such. We have never felt the need to segment this growth into stages. When our son began going through puberty, we let him know he was becoming a man, that he needed to ask himself things like, "If I were a man, how would I handle this?" We never held him to some high standard as though he had achieved adulthood, but we wanted him to begin aiming himself.

 

Our son uses the requirements for biblical elder (which he taped to his bed post) as his vision. He says all men should strive for that -- not just those recognized as elder within the body.

[CLHCO]

...whenever these conversations come up, I can't help but think that, sure, 100 years ago, boys were 'men' at fifteen, girls were married and having kids, but...folks also didn't live as long.

 

 

 

I think the issue here stems from the health of teens, mostly socially and mentally. In truth, their brains are not different at 14 just because they may live longer in old age. If anything, the physical maturity age has decreased in the last 100 years. When you take brains that are the same as those that were capable of so much more 100 years ago and put them on a diet of dumbing down and control, then artificially slow down how long until they can be treated with the respect and responsibility, it's no wonder they chafe against it.

 

I agree that we have far more opportunity to study and prepare in today’s world since we're not hunting for food to survive but that hasn't changed a teen's need to grow up. In fact, our delay in growing up hasn't changed a woman's most fertile years or greatest health for child bearing. She's just not mentally and emotionally ready, probably due more to a society change than a change in brain functioning.

 

I wouldn't want to go back 100 years, personally. I see what you're saying and there are advantages to what we have today, but the key would be more to balance the leisure we currently have with the biological nature. The author is pointing out more that we have not biologically changed and this must be taken into consideration in our society and treatment of children, not really to idealize days in the past. The references to the past are to point to the capabilities only.

[Jill- OK]

...the capabilities, mostly...just not that the full realization of them is necessarily a good thing, when we're looking at an 80-year life span. (The point about fertility is a good one...but look at how many women are waiting until their thirties and forties to have kids, nowadays, as compared to the average childbearing age a century, or heck, even a generation ago).

 

I would agree that treating a teen as a child seems odd, and I do think that many folks these days probably exacerbate the conflict that seems to go along with adolescence, by doing that. That's one of the reasons I mentioned the 'funnel' system, in my other post; it just makes so much sense to me, when talking about parenting teens. If you're old enough to have heavier responsibilities, you're old enough to have some more freedom.

 

I think the prospect of giving freedom to a teen might seem daunting, in this day and age, because a lot of the 'messing up' that can happen has such permanent affects, and our society as a whole is waaay different, now. I know many people who would wholeheartedly agree that we can expect much more from teens...but would be scared to let them loose at 16 or 17. :-o

 

And I can't say that I wouldn't be frightened, either, lol.

 

I'm somewhere in the middle, probably. :-) Aware that they're more mature and capable of more than I give them credit for, and willing to think outside of the "This is What Adolescence Is" societal box, but hesitant to throw them fully into adulthood, when there are soooo many years ahead.

[Nestof3]

whenever these conversations come up, I can't help but think that, sure, 100 years ago, boys were 'men' at fifteen, girls were married and having kids, but...folks also didn't live as long.

 

 

I'm not following why living a longer life span would lead someone to believe that they should mature more slowly. I don't think people thought, "Okay -- I'm not going to live long, so let me hurry up and grow up."

 

I don't think that is what happened at all. I think young men and young women began having more free time, less purpose and less supervision when family roles began changing.

[Jill- OK]

...just not be in a hurry to get into big life decisions. That's all.

 

Just an opinion. :-)

 

Like I said about the trend towards older parents...some of these things are simply reflective of it being a different time and yes, living longer. Not that that's bad or good...I just don't think it's as easily transferrable...the way 'teens' lived a hundred years ago, compared to today.

 

Not saying that some of the views don't have merit--I agree with many of them--I just don't think that 'adolescence' as a stage is that bad of an idea, considering how society is set up now (high school, college, attitudes of most *other* teenagers concerning relationships, etc.).

[Peela]

I have read studies that a young person's actual brain doesn't mature properly until their early twenties. How much of that is nature or nurture, I don't know...the study I am thinking of in particular definitely considered it nature. And it seems to correlate with what I see around me.

Our society is not so much geared to "mere survival" as past generations. I think that gives us the luxury of adolescence.

It's all very well idealising, but would you send your own 14 year out to work in the mines? Quit his education? Or allow your 15yo daughter to stop her education to get married and have children? Most of us wouldn't, because we feel that more education will give them more opportunities in life. We don't want to stop their education so that they can subsist at a basic survival level. Ask any person in a third world country. Education is something to be grateful for- millions don't get one, and are stuck in poverty, unable to get out.

However, I would agree that we tend to overprotect and molycoddle our children, as well as teens. We should be keeping our little ones much closer, rather than plinking them in daycare, and allowing our older kids more freedom as they reach for it. I love Scouts for that...dd13 is about to go away for 9 days, thousands of kms away, to do a cultural exchange program with aborigines living a fairly traditional lifestyle- apart from the drug addiction and alcoholism.

Like many ideas it has some merits and one could get something from it, but I am not convinced I would swallow the whole idea.

[Chris in VA]

I agree with you, Peela. I like the way you phrased just about everything!

The prefrontal cortex, seat of decision making, is not mature until one is out of the teens. Perhaps there weren't as many decisions to make, "way back when."

[Pamela H in Texas]

I haven't read the book but I can tell you that most people I know infantalize their teens. They are still controlling them, punishing, running their lives. Though I still direct my teens somewhat, it was very important to me that by the time they were teens they had the life skills they needed as well as plenty of practice using them. However, I think it means one has to parent differently from the get-go. I don't think simply moving back what we now consider the teen years is the answer. Kids need better guidance and teaching along the way, opportunity to learn and grow.

 

It is VERY hard to parent so differently in this world though and it does depend somewhat on the kid. It was a whole lot easier for me to turn the reigns over to my older child because she readily grasped them and ran with the opportunity and responsibility. I tend to, unfortunately, run things a little more than I'd like with my younger child. And at 13, I still see him as more of a child than I have my older one since she was 6! But I've really strived to do better in that regard. And he steps up to the plate really well when I step back :)

 

Anyway, I haven't read the rest of the thread and I am not sure I'm even really on topic in terms of what the book talks about, but hopefully this is a little contribution.

[Mrs Mungo]

I agree a little bit with both sides.

 

The bit I feel most strongly about is letting teens feel a sense of personal responsibility for some things and *not* treating teens as kids.

 

I will never forget when those two West Point students killed their newborn and their lawyer was on TV excusing their behavior by saying they were just kids under a lot of pressure. NO! In a very short time they would have been LEADERS in the US military!!! They were NOT kids!

[Pamela H in Texas]

I agree with Peela that you wouldn't go ALL the way the other way. Even the Bible talks about the bloom of youth. So I think it's always been that young people had some differences. Along that same vein though, Jesus had children listening to his teachings also. It's about balance which is something I think our society is majorly lacking :( We're having kids grow up too fast and in inappropriate ways in some ways and holding them back babying them in others. No wonder preteens and teens and young adults are so confused!

[Suzanne in ABQ]

John Taylor Gatto has a lot to say about this subject (at least he did when I heard him speak, and read his books, about 5 years ago). He pointed to the extended childhood of our young people, which is brought about by over programming, over scheduling, making all decisions for them, spoon feeding them every tidbit of information they receive. By the time they reach teen age, they are programmed to just wait for someone to tell them what to learn next, what to do next.

[Peela]

John Taylor Gatto has a lot to say about this subject (at least he did when I heard him speak, and read his books, about 5 years ago). He pointed to the extended childhood of our young people, which is brought about by over programming, over scheduling, making all decisions for them, spoon feeding them every tidbit of information they receive. By the time they reach teen age, they are programmed to just wait for someone to tell them what to learn next, what to do next.

 

I do think thats a good point. I really love the Teenage Liberation Handbook, which encourages teenagers to take their life into their own hands and make intelligent decisions about their lives. It empowers them.

I do have quite a strong opinion about training children for the Rat Race- training them to accept authority and depend on it, and slowly go through the expected hoops of life.. But I think I still prefer to provide a supportive environment those teen years to encourage them to find their feet and their wings...rather than expecting too much, too soon. We live in different times.

We have a wierd society that promotes soft porn in young children in their clothing, yet condemns too much independence. Twisted.