Let's look at what parents are up against and at why the preteen and teen years are usually the biggest challenge a family faces. There are some very definite reasons:
1. Adolescence is a real change. There are physical changes of puberty and growth spurts. There are mental changes as adult brain-wave patterns take over, and there are untold emotional and social changes and traumas.
2. At about the same time in the life of a family, parents are undergoing the equally real changes of mid-life crisis. The sparks of each change create added friction against the other.
3. We live in an era when child rearing is more difficult than ever before. Music, media, and the Internet surround our children with "other voices" from every persuasion and amorality is rampant.
4. A sixth grade teacher recently said: "I've started substitute teaching after being away for eight years. Kids have changed - I can't believe how cruel they are to each other. If it's not physical, it's verbal. It's constant, and it's intense." The Carnegie Commission report, "When Dreams and Heros Died," says today older adolescents have a "titanic mentality." They think the ship of state is headed for disaster, but they want to go first class. Their goal is not to better the world but to make a lot of money, have status, and live well. Television sitcoms teach children that put-downs are funny and cool. And a steady diet of TV commercials (the average child sees 20,000 per year) fosters a self-centered appetite for ever more things and makes it harder for parents to encourage children to think of the needs of others. The bottom line is that the society around us, perhaps more than ever before, teaches our children selfishness and cruelty.
When the changes of adolescence, the changes of mid-life, and the changes in our world and our society come together and converge within our families, we feel the pressure. Sometimes it feels like an explosion!
Can sensitivity neutralize the pressure? Can extra-centeredness become a practical, day-to-day atmosphere and pattern of life that prevents some problems and solves others? We think it can - see if you do.
Case Studies of Ordinary Adolescents
- Kelly, Peer pressure, and Morality
Kelly is as aware of peer approval as any normal fourteen-your-old boy. He's put on some inches and pounds lately and improved as a ballplayer, which has allowed him to crack the "in crowd." His new friends brag about their exploits with girls and Kelly is never sure how much of it is just talk and how much they have really done.
He wants to have something to talk about too, and while he certainly doesn't want to get in trouble, he is influenced by his peers who tell him that "there's no danger as long as you use a condom or keep it oral."
- Allison, Shyness, and Sociability
Allison, thirteen, is usually talkative, even boisterous around home. She is a bright girl, and attractive, and she has never been without opinions or hesitant to express them. So her parents have always been a little miffed when teachers told them that Allison was painfully shy at school.
Occasionally, in moments of frustration, Allison would express the pain. "No one likes me." "Everyone ignores me." "I'm so sick of sitting all by myself in the lunchroom." "When I don't eat, I'm just sitting alone in the hall trying to look busy and hoping people don't notice that I'm always by myself." "Why doesn't somebody pay attention to me?"
And, speaking of eating, she doesn't. She thinks she is fat.
- Larry, Drugs, and Independence
Larry, fifteen, has a drug problem. It's not an addiction problem so much as an experimentation problem. It's hard for him to resist trying things, particularly when his friends push him. His parents don't know much about it. They suspect that he's "on" something or other but there's not much communication between them and Larry. The only adult Larry talks to is his uncle Bill, who takes Larry hunting and fishing and who respect his confidence. In their last discussion, Larry said, "Life is boring. The only thing that makes it interesting is trying new things. The guys I hang around with are a lot more exciting than the other kids. We're finding out things for ourselves rather than just doing the old routine things that parents want their kids to do.
- Patsy, Respect, and Authority
Patsy, twelve, has recently become a know-it-all. Suddenly no one, particularly not her parents, can tell her anything. In fact, simultaneously with her becoming a know-it-all, her parents have become know-nothings. She questions everything, including their authority to tell her to do anything. She is critical of her family, of her friends, of how people dress, of how hypocritical everyone is, and of everything but herself. She is so obnoxiously outspoken about everything that she is extremely hard to be around.
- Becky, Dating, and Old-Fashioned Parents
Becky, who just turned fourteen, has been dating only for the last couple of months. The trouble is that she is dating the wrong kind of boys, or at least her parents think so. "What do you do that attracts that kind of boy?" her mother has said. "Can't you try to go out with someone a little more clean-cut?" Becky, predictably, argues that there is nothing wrong with the boys she dates. Some of them just have a little different world view than her parents and certain other nineteenth-century beings she knows.
- Jeremy, Motivation, and the Question of "Why?"
Jeremy, thirteen, is lazy. He's a bright enough boy; his IQ tests have always confirmed that. But he is also, according to the school counselor, a "severe underachiever." His best grades are mediocre. His favorite activity is computer games. He has some friends, but unfortunately most of them are of his same ilk. They are on the Internet five or six hours a day.
His folks have tried everything, from bribery to punishment and penalties of all kinds. Jeremy's favorite response, to everything from "Get your room straightened up" to "You can't succeed without good grades," is "Why?"
- Diedra, Sensitivity, and the Cruelty of Children
Diedra, eleven, seems to be a model child in many ways. She is intelligent, friendly, well liked, a leader in almost everything. She is the apple of everyone's eye, particularly her parents and teachers.
But Diedra isn't very sensitive to other people's needs. She assumes that everyone else is as happy as she. It hasn't occurred to her that her own security and self-esteem could be shared or given as a gift to other children who need it.
She is like so many children her age, openly critical and sometimes abusive of children who are a little different, a little shy, a little out of place. This criticism sometimes takes the form of ridicule and outright cruelty.
- Laura, Self-Esteem, and the Right Friends
Laura, thirteen, has started to talk a lot lately about being depressed. In fact, she does more than talk about it! She is negative about everything. She expects the worst and she gets it.
She peps up a little when she is with her friends. But they are, in her parents' eyes, mostly the wrong type. Her mother has urged her to make friends with more of the kids in her neighborhood, to which Laura makes a horrible face and replies, "Mom, that depresses me."
- Conrad, Maturity, and Moodiness
Conrad, even though he is nearly fourteen, is very immature. He relies on his parents as much or more than his eleven-year-old brother. He gets sick quite often and seems to enjoy staying home in bed where his mother can wait on him hand and foot. He cries often and tends to sulk when he doesn't get his way. And he must sulk at other times, too, because he sulks often and it's not very often that he doesn't get his way.
He likes computers and lately he has been spending most of his time in his bedroom with his laptop.
- Norman, Hyperactivity, and Attention Span
Norman's mom describes him as "a twelve year old, hyperactive, social butterfly who never lights." From the time he was a small boy, Norm has loved people. He would bring a different friend home from school every afternoon if he was allowed to.
But he can't stay with anything. His attention span is about five seconds long. He's been taking piano lessons for nearly three years and has made very little progress because he can't discipline himself to practice. Grades, sports, and other interests suffer for the same lack of discipline.
- Lisa, Honesty, and Rationalization
When Lisa was smaller, her parents were sometimes amused with the imaginative excuses she came up with. Her untruths were so creative. It was hard to get mad at her for them.
But she is twelve now, and her little lies have ceased to be amusing. Her account of things is always whatever is most convenient or advantageous for her, whether it is true or not. With this dishonesty has come a remarkable ability to rationalize.
Both abilities combined recently in a case or two of shoplifting. She hasn't told her parents, of course, and will deny it if she is every asked. And if she is ever caught she will explain that the store deserves it because their prices are too high.
- Glen, Tidiness, and Responsibility
Glen, who is fourteen, has never been very tidy. His messy room and general untidiness have been a problem of long duration, but one his parents have tolerated in the hope that he would grow out of it. Instead, it has become worse. He can never find anything. His own room is literally hard to get into or out of. And he leaves what his mother calls a "trail of disaster" in every room he passes through.
- Jill, Fad Consciousness, and Non-consideration of Family
The absolute highlight of thirteen-year-old Jill's week is her shopping trip to the mall on Saturdays. She also re-watches all reality shows she has recorded.
She screams when she finds her sister wearing the only shoes she currently likes and stubbornly refuses to go to school until she gets them back. And she simply cannot understand why her mother cannot seem to remember to wash her clothes every day.
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