<p>The title is hilarious. Wasn’t it just in early 2000s that we were talking about teenagers growing up too fast during the age of Britney Spears?</p>
<p>Grow up too fast to be an adolescent and then stopped the growth?</p>
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<p>Had to laugh.</p>
<p>The older generation has always found something to criticize in the younger, as if this was a new phenomenon. Thus was it ever.</p>
<p>To me it depends on what one means by “grown up”. </p>
<p>For much of the history of the human race it meant following a blue print and entering it lock step.</p>
<p>It takes longer to grow up today because there are so many more tasks too complete.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is anything we can do about this unless we create a simpler economy in which it is easy to get a job to scrape together the money for rent.</p>
<p>I <em>do</em> think the article makes sense when it critiques the educational system (and I am an educator.) It’s true the we recycle the same information in an endless loop with only a slight increase in complexity at each junction.</p>
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<p>I agree. To some people, being an adult implies financial independence. Others perceive it as financial independence combined with maintaining one’s own residence. Others view “maturity” as the ability to navigate life’s slings and arrows without having to constantly receive advice and instructions from one’s parents. The list could probably go on…</p>
<p>I don’t think the article does the book justice if it comes across as “criticizing” the younger generation, which the authors do not do at all. The author is a psychologist who works with troubled kids, and this book is based on his observations and insights gained through his work. He is very sympathetic to both kids and their parents.
I read much of this book online before I bought it- you can find it on Amazon. I think when you actually read about his experiences and ideas, most parents will see value there.
He’s not looking at the entire generation and saying we’ve all failed, but rather at a subset of kids who are not reaching the autonomy or maturity we might expect, given their circumstances, and examining the environment to explain why they are not moving forward in their lives.<br>
You don’t have to be on CC long to know that there are many kids who are struggling- kids from caring families who have been given many opportunities. I think this author has some valuable insights for any family with a young adult who is not functioning well or who is behaving in destructive ways.</p>
<p>And I’ll just throw out there that the idea of (a) kids growing up too fast in one context (watching R rated movies at the age of 6, seeing all kinds of stuff on the internet, becoming cynical about role models, etc) and (b) not developing maturity and self reliance by the end of teenager-hood are not necessarily contradictory.</p>
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<p>My grandfather grew up “poorer than anything” and he worked his entire adult life in a factory so that his daughter would not. He’s not alone in having that reaction to the “benefit” of alleged earlier brain development.</p>
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<p>Well said. I have often argued that the reason society focuses on the privledged few is because it’s so easy to mock. Tackling the real problems like poverty, neglect and so on are complex, expensive and time consuming. So we collectively pretend that the problem is too much instead dealing the crushing reality of what too little renders.</p>
<p>The author isn’t mocking anyone. He’s a psychologist in the business of helping young people who need guidance who happened to write a book about his observations.
He’s also not saying that the problem is “too much,” but rather not the right thing.
All you need to do is read some of the recent threads on CC to know that he definitely has an audience. Just because he isn’t dealing with the problems of poverty and neglect doesn’t make his observations trivial. It’s what the author knows- why wouldn’t he share it, even if there are other pressing needs in our society as well?
Frankly, I’m surprised by how many parents on this thread are so critical of the author when they haven’t read his work. I’m nearly 60 and have raised two kids, read dozens of books on child rearing, have a degree in child-development and a teaching credential, several years of teaching under my belt, and I still learned a lot from his book.<br>
Our world is different than it was when we were growing up in it, and an effort to understand how that might affect our own kids is worth exploring. I can understand not agreeing - ok. But to dismiss the effort to understand? I don’t get that at all.</p>
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<p>He’s not giving the book away for free. He didn’t happen to write a book, he decided that writing a book was a good use of his time and hopefully would pay off. </p>
<p>His motivation may be to help people but he’s also a businessman. </p>
<p>I simply do not accept him premise. I disagree that the world is so different now that we need new approaches to parenting. Wanting to learn how manage new technology in regards to ones children is one thing, pretending that the landscape is so changed that we actually need yet another book about it is another.</p>
<p>I read a lot, including child development. It’s made me very skeptical that there is anything new under the sun. Or, rather, it can be damn hard to find the one new insight among the hundreds of books hawked to insecure parents every year.</p>
<p>My personal feeling is that we have made parents so legally responsible for the mistakes their kids might make growing up, and we have created so many zero tolerance rules, as well as such increased legal and school consequences for mistakes, that it is no wonder parents frequently feel overwhelmed with keeping kids safe from themselves and others.</p>
<p>There used to be a bigger tolerance for the learning that goes on and forgiveness for errors in thinking and action, an understanding that there is a “learning curve” to being a teenager and a legal understanding that parents cannot possibly know or control every little thing thier kids are doing.</p>
<p>I think, more than anything else, this has really contributed to the tight control parents feel obligated to hold.</p>
<p>You can actually ‘see’ this attitude even on CC when someone gets in trouble, or someone’s kids gets in trouble. “What didn’t the parents do? What did the parents do?”</p>
<p>People didn’t used to think that way in such a knee jerk fashion. My .02c.</p>
<p>“I disagree that the world is so different now that we need new approaches to parenting.”
Actually, the authors are not recommending a new approach. Rather, they are advocating going back to a society where teenagers have actual responsibilities and interactions with adults pre-college, rather than cocooning them into a world of only peer interaction. This helps them transition into the adult world.</p>
<p>Maybe all of the uncertainties of today have created parents who feel out of control and in response to this fear they end up trying to control their children, making all of the decisions for them so the teens don’t make the wrong decision. In addition, the media helps all of the “bad things” that go on among some teenagers get blown out of proportion. Yes, we have teen pregnancies, but not all teens get pregnant or get someone pregnant, yes, we have teens or drugs and who drink to much, but not all are like that. I think some parents convince their selves that unless they control their teens, they will all turn out bad. Fear makes us want to control, and too many parents are afraid.</p>
<p>proudmom…</p>
<p>I really agree with what you are saying, and I think you put it very well.</p>
<p>Maybe one of the questions we might want to be asking is how to decrease the fear in parenting. My personal opinion is that as long as we keep increasing the penalties for mistakes kids make, we keep increasing the anxiety parents feel, which is relatively unfortunate.</p>
<p>Proud_Mom, that’s very insightful. </p>
<p>I was just thinking about the old Disney movie, “That Darn Cat” (the black-and-white version) and reflecting on how differently teenagers (in that film, Hayley Mills and her boyfriend) were portrayed then, as opposed to today. </p>
<p>Today it’s like there’s a subtext of “Teenagers! You can’t trust them!” Whereas in that movie teenagers doing very teenage things (going out to surfer films in a convertible car) weren’t regarded with that air of disapproval.</p>
<p>I read the book about a month ago, after it was recommended by a relative, and I found it extremely helpful. The Newsweek article does not do a good job of summarizing it and some of the posts here by people who have not read the book are really off the mark. The book was discussed in another thread last month, and every poster who had read the book was very positive. Here is one of my posts:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/995368-help-mom-major-decision-about-her-son.html#post1065568993[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/995368-help-mom-major-decision-about-her-son.html#post1065568993</a></p>
<p>The authors are not suggesting throwing away our educational system or going back to the days of child labor. I don’t remember anything about exposing our children to danger. What the authors are proposing is adding certain kinds of experiences that may be missing from some adolescents’ lives. They also advocate continuing efforts to include teenagers in family/adult life, rather than just giving in to the notion that teens should occupy a “bubble” composed of agemates. </p>
<p>I found the book wise and profoundly helpful.</p>
<p>Thank you, NYmomof2. That’s what I would have expected the book to be about.</p>
<p>I have read articles on this before. Kids used to leave school and get a job (or apprenticeship) by age 14. They absolutely had enough book learning for most purposes, now it was time to finish growing up into useful adulthood, among adults. It was only a privileged few who delayed adulthood by attending college, beginning at age 16 or 17. (When my mother was a girl, high school only went up to grade 11.)</p>
<p>Now, in our highly technological society, so much more education is needed, but this also serves to delay the responsibilities of adulthood (yay college fun.)</p>
<p>That’s why I’m a believer in the co-op program, which alternates life in the real world with college semesters or quarters.</p>
<p>Very good point about co-op programs, mommusic. This kind of opportunity was not mentioned in the book, but it is exactly what the authors prescribe. </p>
<p>It’s also important to note that the focus of the book is explaining why SOME teens struggle, and suggesting experiences that can be helpful.</p>
<p>I have noticed that most kids at around 12 or 13 go through period when they think ALL adults are lame, even close friends of the family, and certainly their parents. But most of them gradually come out of it and learn to relate to adults as people, at least when their interests coincide (thinking of my kids and computer science or music.)</p>
<p>But sometimes kids go through college thinking adults are the enemy or else useless–only see them as teachers, not as colleagues in learning, or bosses, not mentors. (I mean when the adults actually are helpful, and not the “you kids get off my lawn” type.) :D</p>
<p>An example in the book that people on this board might relate to is about a high school senior whose parents did everything for her - her father even wrote her college essay. She had gotten into a really good college but was very anxious about attending because she didn’t feel she could do anything herself. The author was able to work with the family to find ways to give the opportunity to make her small accomplishments - had to work with the parents so they didn’t do the things for her first. These small wins translated to greater confidence in herself and she was able to leave for college in a less anxious state.</p>
<p>I found the idea of “scaffolding” mentioned by the author very helpful. This idea is that with the appropriate help, that children can accomplish things that are beyond their normal level of competence. The type of help that works is not to do things for the kids (see above example) but rather to give them the clues they need to do it themselves. This is more work in the short run (Its easier to do it myself!) but in the long run,helps kids develop these competencies. This idea was developed/observed previously only for younger children.</p>
<p>An example of how scaffolding might be applied illustrated in the book is driving. Statistically, kids have more accidents. But really it is lack of experience and that first year drivers (no matter how old) have more accidents. He recommends that if we set up a condition for a first year of driving is under closely supervised conditions - only with an adult, only in certain hours, etc- then they get past that first year of practice in a supervised, safer way, then they can drive safely at a younger age. I know when my son had his permit, I made a point of having him drive even when it would have been much easier/less stressful to drive myself. My son told me that he had much more experience driving than any of his friends, probably because they didn’t want to put up with the stress all the time.</p>
<p>I have an expression - Short term loss, long term gain. By allowing them to do things themselves or with only little guidance it takes longer and requires more patience from me but proves greatly beneficial down the road. It’s just what you’re calling “scaffolding.”</p>