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Parenting
with Gary & Anne Marie: Adolescence / Teenagers
The Reality of Adolescence
It has been suggested that
defining the period of adolescence and applying it socially to our teens is
the actual root cause of teen-parent conflict. Although this view is held by
only a small portion of the clinical population, it is worthy of some comment.
The premise is best stated this way: Adolescence is an artificial secondary
stage of development thrust upon twenty-first-century man by the industrial
revolution. As such, it serves only to reinforce delayed maturity in children.
The "myth of adolescence,"
as this view is commonly called, presupposes that delayed maturity is bad for
children and is the probable cause of teen rebellion. But in order to exist,
this view forces a redefinition of the words maturity and adulthood by removing
them from their normative, historical, biological, intellectual, and moral usage.
Does a child become an adult when he matures, or does he mature when he becomes
an adult? What is maturity? What is adulthood?
Growing up has more than
one aspect to it. Before we can put the challenge of adolescence into perspective,
we first must look at the four classes of maturity-legal, physical, social/intellectual,
and moral. How a society views these four levels of maturity highly influences
how they view adolescence in general.
Legal Maturity
Legal maturity is defined by statute or by custom, not by experience. Every
people group in the world follows some generally accepted guideline that marks
a child's "rite of passage" into adulthood. This is typically a rather
formal definition and marks the child's inclusion into the adult community with
all its rights and responsibilities.
For example, in America
most states allow a sixteen-year-old the legal right to drive a car. But that
sixteen-year-old cannot legally vote until he is eighteen. He can legally play
the California lottery as an eighteen-year-old, but he cannot legally buy alcoholic
beverages until he is twenty-one. Of course, the mere passage of time does not
signal maturity at all levels. We know that "legal age" does not necessarily
indicate that a teen is adult like emotionally, socially, financially, or spiritually.
Yet in a legal sense, the child is now an adult.
Physical Maturity
All humans of every tongue, tribe, and nation follow the same patterns of physical
growth and development. As a result, every person reaches physical maturity
at approximately the same time. Physical growth is rapid during infancy and
early childhood, followed by a slower pace just before puberty. A spurt of rapid
growth follows puberty, extending into mid-adolescence; then it plateaus and
slows down until adulthood. Between eighteen and twenty years of age, the skeletal
growth process ends. This is marked by two events: the achievement of maximum
body growth (height) and ossification of the sacral bones. Physical maturity,
then, is marked both by the attainment of maximum growth and the cessation of
growth.
Social/Intellectual Maturity
Legal adulthood is fairly objective. A child reaches a prescribed age assigned
by the society, and he is declared "legally of age." Physical maturity
can also be objectively observed. In contrast, social/intellectual maturity
has no such benchmark, but is highly influenced by each society.
To explain this class of
maturity, we'll begin by defining the terms social maturity and intellectual
maturity. Social maturity refers to one's readiness to be an active participant
in social policy and the good of the society at large. Intellectual maturity
speaks to the minimum level of intellectual and academic attainment necessary
to function in the adult community. From those two definitions, it can be said
that the level of social/intellectual maturity required before one can enter
the adult community is determined by the simplicity or complexity of each society.
Every society sets its own
minimum social/intellectual standard that must be met before a person is accepted
as an adult. This basic law establishes the length of adolescence within every
society. As parents, we can gain important insights by taking a look at this
basic law in four different cultural settings: primitive-tribal, pre- and mid-industrial
America, postmodern America, and historical Judaism.
Primitive-Tribal
Societies
Anthropologists who have
worked with primitive tribes show that in such societies children can pass directly
from childhood into adulthood, without going through an adolescence phase. This
happens because preparation for adulthood in such settings presents few of the
social, intellectual, or moral challenges that are common to advanced societies.
We have personally witnessed the social/intellectual phenomenon in primitive
settings. Many of the skills needed to participate in the adult community-for
example, fishing, hunting, and crop planting-are actually gained before the
onset of puberty. Primitive simplicity does not move children into adulthood
earlier, but brings adult status closer in age to childhood. This last point
is further demonstrated by examining adolescence in preindustrial America.
Pre- and
Mid-Industrial America
The social and intellectual
skills needed to participate as an adult a hundred years ago were far less demanding
than they are today. At the turn of the twentieth century, it was not uncommon
for girls and boys to marry at fourteen or fifteen years of age and set up housekeeping.
A simpler life meant a simpler transition into adulthood and a shorter period
of adolescence. This does not mean children back then matured sooner, but rather
that what was required for social and intellectual maturity was far less demanding
than today.
Postmodern
America
The phrase "postmodern
America" is a relatively new societal classification that marks another
level of social/intellectual advancement. Today we live in the Age of Information.
This term speaks to the volumes of knowledge currently available to average
citizens. Both the volume and complexity of new information highly influences
the length of adolescence in our day.
We live in an age of microchip
technology. We talk of cyberspace, virtual reality, fiber optics, Web sites,
multitasking, and gigabytes. Adulthood in America, as well as in our European
and Asian industrialized counterparts, requires the attainment of a variety
of sophisticated skills and abilities unimagined just fifty years ago. The very
complexity of the American adult life evokes a type of moratorium on early entry
into adulthood. That's why a period of adolescent ripening is absolutely necessary
in our current day. There is simply too much to learn. Society does not have
confidence to allow a fifteen-year-old to drive a bus, fly a commercial airliner,
handle the rigors of an emergency room doctor or public schoolteacher, compete
in the bond market, design bridges, build skyscrapers, or handle a thousand
other intellectually demanding and skill-intensive jobs.
The intricacies of modern
adulthood will not allow teenagers to participate on an equal footing with adults.
Adolescents lack a type of wisdom and judgment that is gained through time,
with age and experience. The period of adolescence in our postmodern America
is necessary to better prepare our teens to compete effectively as adults.
Historical
Judaism
The "youth"
phase in historical Judaism linked childhood with adulthood. It was a secondary
phase very similar in nature to the adolescent phase found in preindustrial
America. In Bible times, maturity was not synonymous with adulthood. That distinction
is important to grasp.
A minor reached "maturity" at thirteen, but adulthood came later,
usually at around eighteen to twenty years of age. Maturity in the Hebrew culture
spoke of a mixture of certain legal rights and moral obligations. It was a time
when a child entered the adult world as a participant in religious and social
ceremonies.
The Jewish
Bar Mitzvah (which refers to the time when one becomes a son of the Mosaic Law)
served this purpose for boys. It marked the beginning of a youth's independent
legal status and the age of moral responsibility. At this point, a youth became
a moral equal with his parents. He could legally buy and trade in the marketplace,
be a witness in court, and even be married; but he was not "adult enough"
to sell inherited real estate (the minimum age for such matters as this was
eighteen), nor could he be a judge until he was twenty-one.
Biblically,
God defined adulthood in Numbers 14:29. This Old Testament passage is the only
narrative in Scripture that speaks to the age of adult accountability. You may
remember that God declared that those twenty years of age and older (except
for Caleb and Joshua) would die in the wilderness for their sin of unbelief.
The punishment was pronounced on the "adult population."
An examination
of social/intellectual maturity in four different cultural settings makes one
thing clear: The parameters of adolescence are governed by the adult demands
of the culture in which an individual lives. The simpler the society, the sooner
a child moves into adulthood. The more complex it is, the longer the adolescent
transition. This is true of our society. That is why we believe that the period
of adolescence is not a myth but a necessary reality.
Moral Maturity
It is natural to think that moral maturity follows the same growth patterns
as does physical or social/intellectual maturity. Many assume that, since a
child tends to mature in each of these categories just before entrance to adulthood,
personal morality follows suit. This is not so. Such thinking actually delays
moral maturity by removing from parents a sense of urgency. Childhood is the
period for imparting moral instruction and directing moral training, but please
note that adolescence is when principles of right living, thinking, and acting
should be realized.
In the Christian context,
moral maturity (thinking and acting in harmony with God's moral law) should
show itself between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. By the time children reach
the teen years, they should have begun acquiring a moral code to which they
adhere with increasing frequency. Adherence is dependent upon three things:
moral knowledge (what does God's moral law say?), moral reason (what does the
law mean?), and parental example (how valid is the law in the life of those
insisting on it?). Moral maturity means your teen not only knows right from
wrong, but he or she also knows why right is right and wrong is wrong.
If these three steps can
be achieved in your home, a great family experience will be yours. Why? Because
the greatest influence on relationships are the values of the heart. Common
values unify; conflicting values war against intimate healthy relationships,
especially in the teen years. You want your teen to be your moral equal long
before he or she reaches adulthood physically, socially, or intellectually.
(More Articles by Gary Ezzo / Anne Marie Ezzo)
Article
by Gary Ezzo / Anne Marie Ezzo
