You may not be surprised to hear me tell you that a lot of teens today are taking longer to “grow up”. This despite the fact that today’s teens are highly intelligent, conscientious, capable and even eager to take on more responsibility. Yes, even yours. But when a 15 year-old can’t do her own laundry, a 16 year-old can’t get himself up in the morning, a 17 year-old blames the teacher for a bad grade, an 18 year-old can’t schedule and keep his own appointments, something’s wrong. These are teens that are clearly not prepared for the adult world. Increasingly, I’m seeing teens who did very well in high school, back at home before the end of their first year of college. These young adults are struggling along with their parents to figure out what went wrong.
In many cases, despite our best intentions, we’re letting our teens down. When we label our kids as lazy or unmotivated, we short change them and ourselves. There’s a biological imperative we all have to nurture and protect our children. But when we don’t become aware of this instinct and learn to gradually reign it in as they get older, we end up creating teens and young adults who are left with untapped intelligence, less resilience, and an inability to survive and thrive on their own in the adult world.
If we want our teens to grow up and be as mature as we think they should be, many of us will need to do some things differently. Below is a list of 5 tips that will help you do just that. Some of these ideas come from the book “Escaping The Endless Adolescence” by Joseph Allen and Claudia Worell Allen, which I recommend if you’re interested in taking these ideas further.
1. Problem solve with your teen as often as possible. Many teens today are not equipped to deal with disappointments, unexpected events, or difficult decisions. As parents we’re often quick to either lecure, punish or ignore. In each case, we miss essential opportunities to help our kids learn by participating in the process of solving their own problems and learning from their mistakes. For example, instead of reactively taking away her phone for being out all night, talk about your worries and frustrations and try to understand where she was coming from. Then talk about a plan that will work for each of you (you’ll need to see concrete actions on her part, she’ll need to know that you still believe in her).
2. Provide adult experiences. Teens need and want to feel like they’re participating in the world in a real way that actually matters.
Some things that matter: Going grocery shopping for the family, scheduling her own Dr.’s appointment, participating in high level sports or extra-curricular activities, volunteering by coming into direct contact with people in need.
Some things that don’t matter: Getting paid $10 an hour to sit pool side as a lifeguard, “community service” tasks like picking up garbage or washing off graffiti, taking a full load of AP or IB classes, or an “internship” that involves copying, filing and getting homework done. None of these things are wrong or bad of course, but from the perspective of most teens it doesn’t give them the experience of participating in the adult world.
3. Expect more. While teens can be moody and impulsive, they’re also intelligent, creative and very capable of stepping up and contributing…when we believe in them. We often have low expectations of teens because we erroneously believe that they’re incapable, we think we’re nurturing and helping them, or because we feel that the time, effort and stress required just isn’t worth it. If we can overcome these obstacles and expect more from our teens, they’ll eventually rise to the occasion.
4. Nurture other adult relationships. While it’s normal for your teen to push away from you, it’s not normal, or healthy, for him not to have any other adults to turn to. Unfortunately this is the case for many teens today. Teens need and want other adults in their lives. As parents we need to make the effort to find and nurture these relationships. When teens don’t have adults in their lives, they become overly reliant on their peers for important information and guidance.
5. Let her fail. A teen came to see me after flunking out of her first semester of an elite college. In high school she was a valedictorian and state champion athlete. What was the problem? She never learned how to handle disappointment, criticism or failure. She was good at everything she tried and avoided circumstances that could lead to failure. She lived in a bubble of constant praise and adulation until that bubble popped in a place where she wasn’t impressive and things no longer came easy. We need to help teens understand that failure is an essential ingredient to long term success and happiness in the adult world.
Teen’s want to feel like they’re a part of the adult community. When we ignore this need they try to act like adults in very superficial and often dangerous ways on their own. Watching our teens struggle and fail can be very painful. Getting them to do the things we ask can be time consuming and frustrating. But if we don’t teach them how to be adults now then we’ll be setting them up for a rude awakening when they enter the adult world.
