Post Post Post Post Adolescence

Ready or Not, Here Life Comes by Mel Levine, M.D. is a look at how our society makes it hard for kids to grow into productive adults and offers advice for helping young people make the transition. Dr. Levine is not the only person making this observation. Diana West has written about the American culture of prolonging adolescence into late adulthood in her new book, The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization.

While the prediction of the end of Western civilization is a little drastic, there is a phenomenon, probably developing out of the youth culture of the 60's, which has redefined what adulthood means in the U.S. It has signaled not the end of aging toward adulthood, an inescapable process, but the end of the acceptance of responsibility for the greater good in favor of individual will/desire (me, me, me) and an end to an acceptance of the realities of life in favor of denial, role confusion (the parent now often needs parenting), and family chaos, as well as chaos for the young individual.

The pain this phenomenon is causing is not evident until one listens to the stories of young people now struggling to understand what happened to them through their teen years. Too frequently we hear about people who were excellent students throughout high school - award winners, honor roll students, superior athletes, students who barely studied and made good grades - but who are barely making it after high school. Others are just derailed by the system or passed along for other reasons. But one common theme is that throughout their lives they have never been interested in the lives of adults. Young people today identify with other young people almost exclusively without preparation for moving into adulthood.

Staying young at heart is one thing, but remaining juvenile is completely different, having deliterious effects on the individual and his family. What can a parent do? Dr. Levine suggests achieving the right mixes, but that is a tricky process guaged only by the wisdom of the parent. Some practical advice to achieve the balance and divert catastrophe before your child is out of high school is as follows:

1. Praise and criticism: Every six criticisms should be balanced by four praises.

2. Discipline and freedom: Autonomous things that do not pose a threat to the teen's safety (clean bedroom, etc.) shoud be free from parental control. Things affecting safety and others (shared bedrooms or bathrooms, curfew) should be regulated by the parents.

3. Parental Intervention: Parents should do more listening than advising. Kids rarely listen to us, anyway, and by not advising and solving problems, we help our teens learn to solve problems themselves. Unless you want your 55-year-old child still running to you to solve everything, you'd better listen to that one!

4. Interaction with adults: Dr. Levine recommends that parents should see to it that their children have conversations with adults regularly who are not teachers or relatives. They should have a chance to interact with and observe adults to get a feel for what adulthood is like.

5. Leisure and Work: Dr. Levine advocates for 75% work, 25% leisure.

If you have a post high school or particularly post-college child who is having difficulty be aware of that bad, even lethal tactics to take are preaching, lecturing, criticizing, accusing, and showing drastic disappointment. Instead try tolerance, listening and simple advice, getting help for your child, and most of all showing respect for your child as a person. He/she is, after all, an adult.