When you’re cruising through the relatively smooth late elementary years with your children, the tween and teen years can feel like an oncoming freight train. There’s all the horror stories of moodiness, rebellion, and slammed doors, and, it’s true, middle and high school are tough. But they’re navigable. Two things you shouldn’t do: (1) throw up your hands in despair and give up and (2) panic and clamp down like a gulag until they’re out from under your roof.
BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF CULTURE: Is Adolescence a Helpful Category?
The word “teenager” wasn’t even a word until 1941. Fourteen to seventeen-year-olds were considered economically adults until the mid 19th century. After the Depression, when the child labor force dropped, for the first time in US history, most 14-17 year olds were in school. It wasn’t until the end of WW2 that the US saw the cultural shift to “teens,” and today we have a variety of seemingly random milestones that mark the path to adulthood. Young people can drive at 15, vote and serve in the military at 18, drink at 21 and rent a car at 25. Can you tell we’re still confused at what makes someone a responsible adult?
“These days the entertainment and leisure industry is aggressively marketing its vision of youth culture to you. That’s right, lots of people have a vested interest in making you believe that being young is all about having fun, partying, and more or less ignoring life’s responsibilities for as long as possible. It’s a culture of low expectations and endless amusement. In a former era, people moved directly from childhood to adulthood without a long season of adultlike freedoms and opportunities without the associated responsibilities and commitments.
Young adults Alex and Brett Harris, authors of Do Hard Things, tell on their blog of David Farragut, the U.S. Navy’s first admiral, who became a midshipman on the warship Essex at the age of ten. By the age of twelve he was given command of his first ship. George Washington, the first president of the United States, mastered geometry, trigonometry, and surveying at about the age of twelve, though folks in his day did not consider him particularly bright. At the age of sixteen he was named official surveyor for Culpepper County, Virginia, and would earn the equivalent of $ 100,000 in today’s dollars per year for his three-year term. After citing these examples, the Harris brothers write:
These examples astound us in our day and age, but this is because we view life through an extra social category called “adolescence,” a category that would have been completely foreign to men and women just 100 years ago. Prior to the late 1800s there were only 3 categories of age: childhood, adulthood, and old age. It was only with the coming of the early labor movement with its progressive child labor laws, coupled with new compulsory schooling laws, that a new category, called adolescence, was invented. Coined by G. Stanley Hall, who is often considered the father of American psychology, “adolescence” identified the artificial zone between childhood and adulthood when young people ceased to be children, but were no longer permitted by law to assume the normal responsibilities of adulthood, such as entering into a trade or finding gainful employment. Consequently, marriage and family had to be delayed as well, and so we invented “the teenager,” an unfortunate creature who had all the yearnings and capabilities of an adult, but none of the freedoms or responsibilities.
Teenage life became a 4-year sentence of continuing primary education and relative idleness known as “high school” (four years of schooling which would later be repeated in the first two years of college). Abolished by law were the young Farraguts and young Washingtons, who couldn’t spare the time to be children any longer than necessary. Cultivated instead was the culture we know today, where young people are allowed, encouraged, and even forced to remain quasi-children for much longer than necessary.
TEENS: What Good Are They?
Obviously, young people in middle and high school are capable, gifted, and talented. Pick any season of American Idol and the caliber of 15-16 year old vocalists is astounding. Their grasp of and dexterity with technology and the leveraging of social media for causes they believe in is impressive. They juggle crazy hectic schedules of school and part-time jobs, often serving as caregivers for siblings or others. Somehow, they also manage to play instruments, dance, remain competitive in athletics, be incredibly artistic, design complicated computer algorithms and apps, and participate in and/or lead various clubs and organizations throughout these years.
Tweens/teens are able to do all kinds of housework and yard work, baby sitting, tutoring, volunteering, club leadership, teaching classes at church or keeping the nursery, leading in scouting, creating. In all these areas, they can receive great feedback from adults who aren’t you….which is a good thing. Take advantage of other parents/teachers/coaches/pastors and influencers! None of us is in this alone.
When I compare MY life as a teenager in the 70’s and 80’s to those of my own kids throughout high school, I come out looking like a sloth– and I was in the top 10% of my high school.
It’s confusing because although these people who’ve been living in your home have grown, often sprouting taller than mom by this age, with deepening voices and changing bodies, looking like mini adults, their BRAINS haven’t kept up the pace. Yes, they can grasp calculus and physics, but the adolescent brain is NOT just an adult brain with fewer miles on it. There’s a huge restructuring going on.
They’re reckless, clueless, and rude and (1) it’s not all their fault, and (2) it’s not all hormones. They actually don’t have higher levels of hormones than your standard young adult. It’s just that their brains are reacting to these chemicals differently because they’re “seeing” them for the first time. The frontal lobe is only 80% developed. They look like young adults, but they’re still cooking.
SO YOU GET:
high conflict
urge for independence/testing boundaries
decreased ability to think about consequences
decreased ability to think outside themselves
don’t readily learn from mistakes (repetition needed)
greater urge for dopamine/excitement: higher risk taking but impaired judgement
All this at a time when they’re making choices and decisions that can have much higher stakes. Which is why parents might want to panic and go into lockdown when their 16-year-old does something stupid.
Our job as parents is to start small and gradually open up our child’s world as they show responsibility and moral maturity. Just because they CAN turn on the TV at two doesn’t mean they GET TO. Likewise, just because they CAN drive at 15 doesn’t mean a car magically appears in the driveway at 16. Friends, car, phone, computer, privacy, etc. are not our children’s RIGHTS. Of course we would love to grant them every good thing, but NOT UNTIL THEY’VE DEMONSTRATED THEIR TRUSTWORTHINESS with such freedom.
To whom much is given, much is expected. (Luke 12:48)
Your role as parent of a tween/teen shifts from the traffic cop blowing the whistle at every step to the construction guy in charge of moving the orange cones. Move the cones out a little to test their responsiveness. If they fail, the cones come back in for a time while you work on best practices. Then, they go back out. Our tendency is to keep those cones in a tight, straight line, but that doesn’t help your young adult test and prove themselves and it doesn’t do you any favors either.
Your communication with your teen should change significantly in this period as well. You should start shifting from LECTURE to LISTEN. Instead of directive communications (in most cases), you should be ASKING QUESTIONS. This will help you gauge your child’s moral maturity. For example, if they ask you if they can go to a particular party or activity, you should not simply give them a yes or no. You should ask THEM if they think it’s wise/safe/something you’d allow and why or why not. What’s their “escape hatch” if something goes south? You’ll have final say as the adult, but they need to think through what making a wise decision looks like.
CARE & FEEDING OF TEENS:
SLEEP:
“I can’t get my son out of bed in the morning!”
Adolescents are “owls,” but they have to rise early for adult world…just b/c they’re up early, it doesn’t translate into going to bed at a decent hour. Left on their own, they’d sleep 9-10 hrs/day, but only about 15% of US teenagers get this.
They chronically lose about 3 hrs/day. Is it any wonder they’re surly and guttural at breakfast? Most teens have chronic sleep deprivation (correlated with juvenile delinquency and higher crime). With SUPER high learning & development, they have a much higher need for sleep. It’s their memory & learning consolidation time.
Right about the same time, parents are getting drowsy around 9-10pm, but teens are pumped. Just like teen girl’s PMS coincides with mom’s menopause. Maybe this is the reason some mammals eat their young??
- Those brains need good food/nutrition!
- Talk calmly about mistakes
- Don’t be shocked when they do something stupid (they 100% will) and don’t know why. What were you thinking?!!
- Communicate and relate. Emphasize the positive and be available (emotionally & physically)
- Trust but verify.
- Discovery & identity—talk about who and whose they are; talk about sex, drugs, alcohol, internet—LOTS.
- Allow questions—about faith, life, sex, etc.
- BEING THERE MATTERS. Supervision is important. Go to their games, awards nights, band concerts. Know & welcome their friends.
- When they ask you to go somewhere & do something, before answering….wait. Teens are fickle. 80% chance it won’t happen and you wasted all the energy you used freaking out. Ask them to explain why they should or shouldn’t go (testing judgement). Ask them what their escape route is if things go awry.
- Allowing more freedoms as your teen accepts responsibility
WHAT PARENTS OF TEENS SHOULD CONSIDER
- Moving to influence instead of authority
- Be aware of friendships that build up or tear down
- Get on their phones and computers
- Consider limiting social media with healthy boundaries
- Character training: time to assess!
- Find mentors who aren’t like you
- Encourage down time
- Help them discover their spiritual gifts
- Reinforce their identity in Christ
PRACTICAL STUFF TEENS SHOULD START TO WORK ON/MASTER
- Finances (read bank statement, balance account, save $, give $, budget)
- Mail (stamps, envelope, mail package)
- Fill out school forms, medical forms
- Make/change/cancel appointments
- Walk away from things (jobs, friendships, relationships)
- Tip on a bill
- Use transportation (navigate thru a city, how to find your way on subway/Uber….)
- How to clean (laundry, bathroom, kitchen)
- How to cook a decent meal (food safety!)
- What to do in a car accident/other emergency/if you’re pulled over
- How to handle stress/being overwhelmed
- How to write a resume/dress for interview/BE interviewed
- How to write a professional email
- How to vote
- How to help someone who’s drunk too much (what’s friend code)
- Send a thank you
- Handshake/greet and make conversation