Responsible Adolescent Quotes

I remember a period in late adolescence when my mind would make itself drunk with images of adventurousness. This is how it will be when I grow up. I shall go there, do this, discover that, love her, and then her and her and her. I shall live as people in novels live and have lived. Which ones I was not sure, only that passion and danger, ecstasy and despair (but then more ecstasy) would be in attendance. However...who said that thing about "the littleness of life that art exaggerates"? There was a moment in my late twenties when I admitted that my adventurousness had long since petered out. I would never do those things adolescence had dreamt about. Instead, I mowed my lawn, I took holidays, I had my life. But time...how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but we were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.

There is so much woman in many a girl and too much boy in many a man.

Reverence is an emotion that we can nurture in our very young children, respect is an attitude that we instill in our children as they become school-agers, and responsibility is an act that we inspire in our children as they grow through the middle years and become adolescents.

Young people, however, tend to ignore the customs of their elders. Adolescent rebellion has been responsible for all manner of absurd costumes. The more ridiculous a certain fashion is, the more adolescents will cling to it.

No, no, because she's a mental adolescent, and being romantic, she has a death wish. So, for a brief moment of passion,she completely abandons all responsibilities.

A crude way to put the whole thing is that our presence culture is, both develeopmentally and historically, adolescent. And since adolescence is acknowledged to be the single most stressful and frightening period of human development – the stage when adulthood we claim to crave begins to present itself as a real and narrowing system of responsibilities and limitation (taxes, death) and when we yearn inside for a return to the same childish oblivion we pretend to scorn – it’s not difficult to see why we as a culture are so susceptible to art and entertainment whose primary function is escape, i. e. fantasy, adrenaline, spectacle, romance, etc.

I stumbled upon Friedrich Nietzsche when I was 17, following the usual trail of existential candies—Camus, Sartre, Beckett—that unsuspecting teenagers find in the woods. The effect was more like a drug than a philosophy. I was whirled upward—or was it downward?—into a one-man universe, a secret cult demanding that you put a gun to the head of your dearest habits and beliefs. That intoxicating whiff of half-conscious madness; that casually hair-raising evisceration of everything moral, responsible and parentally approved—these waves overwhelmed my adolescent dinghy. And even more than by his ideas—many of which I didn't understand at all, but some of which I perhaps grasped better then than I do now—I was seduced by his prose. At the end of his sentences you could hear an electric crack, like the whip of a steel blade being tested in the air. He might have been the Devil, but he had better lines than God.

These things were in my mind from the first moment I entered the vocal booth. The gratitude I had for rock and roll as it pulled me through a difficult adolescence. The joy I experienced when I danced. The moral power I gleaned in taking responsibility for one's action.-- Patti Smith

A child who suffers from PTSD has made unsuccessful attempts to get help, and as the victimization continues, he stops asking for it. He withdraws socially, because he’s never quite sure when interaction is going to lead to another incident of bullying…. Different people have different responses to stress. In Peter’s case, I saw an extreme emotional vulnerability, which, in fact, was the reason he was teased. Peter didn’t play by the codes of boys. He wasn’t a big athlete. He wasn’t tough. He was sensitive. And difference is not always respected – particularly when you’re a teenager. Adolescence is about fitting in, not standing out.

What can turn us from this deserted future, back into the sphere of our being, the great dance that joins us to our home, to each other and to other creatures, to the dead and unborn? I think it is love. I am perforce aware how baldly and embarrassingly that word now lies on the page—for we have learned at once to overuse it, abuse it, and hold it in suspicion. But I do not mean any kind of abstract love (adolescent, romantic, or "religious"), which is probably a contradiction in terms, but particular love for particular things, places, creatures, and people, requiring stands, acts, showing its successes and failures in practical or tangible effects. And it implies a responsibility just as particular, not grim or merely dutiful, but rising out of generosity. I think that this sort of love defines the effective range of human intelligence, the range within its works can be dependably beneficent. Only the action that is moved by love for the good at hand has the hope of being responsible and generous. Desire for the future produces words that cannot be stood by. But love makes language exact, because one loves only what one knows.

How much of the appeal of mountaineering lies in its simplification of interpersonal relationships, its reduction of friendship to smooth interaction (like war), its substitution of an Other (the mountain, the challenge) for the relationship itself? Behind a mystique of adventure, toughness, footloose vagabondage—all much needed antidotes to our culture’s built-in comfort and convenience—may lie a kind of adolescent refusal to take seriously aging, the frailty of others, interpersonal responsibility, weakness of all kinds, the slow and unspectacular course of life itself.… [T]op

As I discussed in the previous chapter, attachment researchers have shown that our earliest caregivers don't only feed us, dress us, and comfort us when we are upset; they shape the way our rapidly growing brain perceives reality. Our interactions with our caregivers convey what is safe and what is dangerous: whom we can count on and who will let us down; what we need to do to get our needs met. This information is embodied in the warp and woof of our brain circuitry and forms the template of how we think of ourselves and the world around us. These inner maps are remarkably stable across time. This doesn‘t mean, however, that our maps can‘t be modified by experience. A deep love relationship, particularly during adolescence, when the brain once again goes through a period of exponential change, truly can transform us. So can the birth of a child, as our babies often teach us how to love. Adults who were abused or neglected as children can still learn the beauty of intimacy and mutual trust or have a deep spiritual experience that opens them to a larger universe. In contrast, previously uncontaminated childhood maps can become so distorted by an adult rape or assault that all roads are rerouted into terror or despair. These responses are not reasonable and therefore cannot be changed simply by reframing irrational beliefs.

One of the main tasks of adolescence is to achieve an identity—not necessarily a knowledge of who we are, but a clarification of the range of what we might become, a set of self-references by which we can make sense of our responses, and justify our decisions and goals.

Much of the rebellion of today’s adolescents can be attributed to parents and other adults who put pressure on them to modify behavior that the kids feel is their own business. Children do not rebel against adults—they rebel against adults’ attempts to take away their freedom.

When we think about the remarkably early age at which the young men went up to the University in, let us say, Tudor times, and thereafter were held fit to assume responsibility for the conduct of their own affairs, are we altogether comfortable about that artificial prolongation of intellectual childhood and adolescence into the years of physical maturity which is so marked in our own day? To postpone the acceptance of responsibility to a late date brings with it a number of psychological complications which, while they may interest the psychiatrist, are scarcely beneficial either to the individual or to society.

A crude way to put the whole thing is that our present culture is, both developmentally and historically, adolescent. And since adolescence is acknowledged to be the single most stressful and frightening period of human development--the stage when the adulthood we claim to crave begins to present itself as a real and narrowing system of responsibilities and limitations (taxes, death) and when we yearn inside for a return to the same childish oblivion we pretend to scorn--it’s not difficult to see why we as a culture are so susceptible to art and entertainment whose primary function is escape, i. e. fantasy, adrenaline, spectacle, romance, etc.

The Ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls.” Top soul (Vicarious), and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren the Secret name. This corresponds to my Director. He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in. Second soul (Jambi), and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power. LIGHT. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons. Number three (Wings/Days) is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she or it is third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. The sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense - but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel. The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the land of the dead. Number four (The Pot) is Ba, the Heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba. Number five (L.C., Lost Keys, Rosetta Stoned) is Ka, the double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the Western Lands. Number six (Instension) is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives. Number seven (Right in Two) is Sekhu, the Remains

instead of ordering them around. When they say they’re

The topics we learn from our four core subjects during our childhood and adolescent stage of our lives help us to understand the norms of common knowledge and take pride of our citizenship.

We kissed for two hours. Eventually, I led him into my bedroom and pulled off both of our shirts. He stopped me. "This might sound weird; it's not typical guy response." I froze, suddenly awkward. "I mean, if I didn't feel the way I do with you I would be all for it, but I kind of think maybe it would be good to wait. I've rushed into sex, and had it be a mistake." He shrugged apologetically. "I mean, if it's safe to assume you are experiencing the same date that I am, then I think we will have time." I was a little flabbergasted and more than a little embarrassed. How could I explain that the idea sounded like a huge relief to me, that I didn't quite understand where the impulse to start taking my clothes off came from? I had had the same experience. I rarely enjoyed first-time sex with partners, largely because I usually did it before I really knew or trusted them. Here was where the difference between what I knew and did remained wide. The shame I felt wash over me was tinged with that hatred of my own innocence. Was I still so green? So unconfident? Had I gone straight out of the extremity of sex work to the innocence of my adolescence? Where was my self-knowledge? Still, I was relieved. "Of course. I agree totally." I clutched my T-shirt to my chest and smiled at him. "And yes, I am on the same date you are on." "I thought so," he said. "I mean, I don't think you can feel like this when it's not reciprocal." He left at 2:00 A.M. and called me at 11:00 the next morning to schedule our second date.

To most people today, the name Snow White evokes visions of dwarfs whistling as they work, and a wide–eyed, fluttery princess singing, "Some day my prince will come." (A friend of mine claims this song is responsible for the problems of a whole generation of American women.) Yet the Snow White theme is one of the darkest and strangest to be found in the fairy tale canon — a chilling tale of murderous rivalry, adolescent sexual ripening, poisoned gifts, blood on snow, witchcraft, and ritual cannibalism. . .in short, not a tale originally intended for children's tender ears. Disney's well–known film version of the story, released in 1937, was ostensibly based on the German tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm. Originally titled "Snow–drop" and published in Kinder–und Hausmarchen in 1812, the Grimms' "Snow White" is a darker, chillier story than the musical Disney cartoon, yet it too had been cleaned up for publication, edited to emphasize the good Protestant values held by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. (...) Variants of Snow White were popular around the world long before the Grimms claimed it for Germany, but their version of the story (along with Walt Disney's) is the one that most people know today. Elements from the story can be traced back to the oldest oral tales of antiquity, but the earliest known written version was published in Italy in 1634.

A common and traditionally masculine marital problem is created by the husband who, once he is married, devotes all his energies to climbing mountains and none to tending to his marriage, or base camp, expecting it to be there in perfect order whenever he chooses to return to it for rest and recreation without his assuming any responsibility for its maintenance. Sooner or later this “capitalist” approach to the problem fails and he returns to find his untended base camp a shambles, his neglected wife having been hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, having run off with another man, or in some other way having renounced her job as camp caretaker. An equally common and traditionally feminine marital problem is created by the wife who, once she is married, feels that the goal of her life has been achieved. To her the base camp is the peak. She cannot understand or empathize with her husband’s need for achievements and experiences beyond the marriage and reacts to them with jealousy and never-ending demands that he devote increasingly more energy to the home. Like other “communist” resolutions of the problem, this one creates a relationship that is suffocating and stultifying, from which the husband, feeling trapped and limited, may likely flee in a moment of “mid-life crisis.” The women’s liberation movement has been helpful in pointing the way to what is obviously the only ideal resolution: marriage as a truly cooperative institution, requiring great mutual contributions and care, time and energy, but existing for the primary purpose of nurturing each of the participants for individual journeys toward his or her own individual peaks of spiritual growth. Male and female both must tend the hearth and both must venture forth. As an adolescent I used to thrill to the words of love the early American poet Ann Bradstreet spoke to her husband: “If ever two were one, then we.”20 As I have grown, however, I have come to realize that it is the separateness of the partners that enriches the union. Great marriages cannot be constructed by individuals

Through most of human history, our ancestors had children shortly after puberty, just as the members of all nonhuman species do to this day. Whether we like the idea or not, our young ancestors must have been capable of providing for their offspring, defending their families from predators, cooperating with others, and in most other respects functioning fully as adults. If they couldn't function as adults, their young could not have survived, which would have meant the swift demise of the human race. The fact that we're still here suggests that most young people are probably far more capable than we think they are. Somewhere along the line, we lost sight of – and buried – the potential of our teens.

Thus we arrive at the problem of the relation of religion to the negation of sexual desire. Sexual debility results in a lowering of self-confidence. In one case it is compensated by the brutalization of sexuality, to maintain sexual repression, in the other by rigid character traits. The compulsion to control one's sexuality, to maintain sexual repression, leads to the development of pathologic, emotionally tinged notions of honor and duty, bravery and self-control. But the pathology and emotionality of these psychic attitudes are strongly at variance with the reality of one's personal behavior. The man who attains genital satisfaction, is honorable, responsible, brave, and controlled, without making much of a fuss about it. These attitudes are an organic part of his personality. The man whose genitals are weakened, whose sexual structure is full of contradictions, must continually remind himself to control his sexuality, to preserve his sexual dignity, to be brave in the face of temptation, etc. The struggle to resist the temptation to masturbate is a struggle that is experienced by every adolescent and every child, without exception. All the elements of the reactionary man's structure are developed in this struggle. It is in the lower middle classes that this structure is reinforced most strongly and embedded most deeply. Every form of mysticism derives it's most active energy and, in part, also it's content from this compulsory suppression of sexuality.

But that’s just it: he needs room to develop. Kids need responsibility more than they deserve it. For most adolescents, and even for younger kids, waiting until they are mature enough to get all their homework done and to turn it in on time before giving up the enforcer role means you’ve waited too long.

CONSENSUS PROPOSED CRITERIA FOR DEVELOPMENTAL TRAUMA DISORDER A. Exposure. The child or adolescent has experienced or witnessed multiple or prolonged adverse events over a period of at least one year beginning in childhood or early adolescence, including: A. 1. Direct experience or witnessing of repeated and severe episodes of interpersonal violence; and A. 2. Significant disruptions of protective caregiving as the result of repeated changes in primary caregiver; repeated separation from the primary caregiver; or exposure to severe and persistent emotional abuse B. Affective and Physiological Dysregulation. The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies related to arousal regulation, including at least two of the following: B. 1. Inability to modulate, tolerate, or recover from extreme affect states (e.g., fear, anger, shame), including prolonged and extreme tantrums, or immobilization B. 2. Disturbances in regulation in bodily functions (e.g. persistent disturbances in sleeping, eating, and elimination; over-reactivity or under-reactivity to touch and sounds; disorganization during routine transitions) B. 3. Diminished awareness/dissociation of sensations, emotions and bodily states B. 4. Impaired capacity to describe emotions or bodily states C. Attentional and Behavioral Dysregulation: The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies related to sustained attention, learning, or coping with stress, including at least three of the following: C. 1. Preoccupation with threat, or impaired capacity to perceive threat, including misreading of safety and danger cues C. 2. Impaired capacity for self-protection, including extreme risk-taking or thrill-seeking C. 3. Maladaptive attempts at self-soothing (e.g., rocking and other rhythmical movements, compulsive masturbation) C. 4. Habitual (intentional or automatic) or reactive self-harm C. 5. Inability to initiate or sustain goal-directed behavior D. Self and Relational Dysregulation. The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies in their sense of personal identity and involvement in relationships, including at least three of the following: D. 1. Intense preoccupation with safety of the caregiver or other loved ones (including precocious caregiving) or difficulty tolerating reunion with them after separation D. 2. Persistent negative sense of self, including self-loathing, helplessness, worthlessness, ineffectiveness, or defectiveness D. 3. Extreme and persistent distrust, defiance or lack of reciprocal behavior in close relationships with adults or peers D. 4. Reactive physical or verbal aggression toward peers, caregivers, or other adults D. 5. Inappropriate (excessive or promiscuous) attempts to get intimate contact (including but not limited to sexual or physical intimacy) or excessive reliance on peers or adults for safety and reassurance D. 6. Impaired capacity to regulate empathic arousal as evidenced by lack of empathy for, or intolerance of, expressions of distress of others, or excessive responsiveness to the distress of others E. Posttraumatic Spectrum Symptoms. The child exhibits at least one symptom in at least two of the three PTSD symptom clusters B, C, & D. F. Duration of disturbance (symptoms in DTD Criteria B, C, D, and E) at least 6 months. G. Functional Impairment. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in at least two of the following areas of functioning: Scholastic Familial Peer Group Legal Health Vocational (for youth involved in, seeking or referred for employment, volunteer work or job training)

In preparing litigation on behalf of the children we were representing, it was clear that these shocking and senseless crimes couldn't be evaluated honestly without understanding the lives these children had been forced to endure. And in banning the death penalty for juveniles, the Supreme Court had paid great attention to the emerging body of medical research about adolescent development and brain science and its relevance to juvenile crime and culpability. Contemporary neurological, psychological, and sociological evidence has established that children are impaired by immature judgment, an underdeveloped capacity for self-regulation and responsibility, vulnerability to negative influences and outside pressures, and a lack of control over their own impulses and their environment.

- Child is abused, perpetrator threatens to hurt mother. Child feels protective of mother. - Struggle to escape perp reinforces feelings of mutual protection. It's Mom and I against the world. - Something necessary at the time later creates "enmeshment." Child doesn't see her actions as separate from mother. Even during normal adolescent individuation. But-- - Normal individuation doesn't happen in abuse survivors. They don't feel normal, so they-- - Act out in unhealthy or self-destructive ways, which creates-- - Fear and pain for mother, which creates-- - Guilt for child who still feels responsible for mother's emotional health. - Child seeks release from the guilt and from not feeling normal, which leads to-- - Escape to the world of other not normal people, where mother can't see her child self-destruct, which leads to-- "The bad news.

Adolescence is a stressful passage for even the most well-adjusted teenagers. It is the stage at which we must come to terms with our sexual bodies and all the anxieties and responsibilities of becoming an adult. This task is especially difficult for children who have been sexually abused, who feel ashamed and disgusted by their bodies and fear that becoming more sexually desirable will only put them at greater risk of victimization.

While that sense of familiarity in a stressed life of adult responsibilities is understandable, as we’ve seen, it may also be a reason why the adult-adolescent relationship is filled at times with tension. Adults desire things to stay the same; adolescents are driven to create a new world. This is part of the source of what can become intense friction, sometimes destructively so, that can create pain in everyone, adolescent and adult alike.

Une très jolie jeune fille, traitée avec des égards constants et des attentions démesurées par l'ensemble de la population masculine, y compris par ceux - l'immense majorité - qui n'ont plus aucun espoir d'en obtenir une faveur d'ordre sexuel, et même à vrai dire tout particulièrement par eux, avec une émulation abjecte confinant chez certains quinquagénaires au gâtisme pur et simple, une très jolie jeune fille devant qui tous les visages s'ouvrent, toutes les difficultés s'aplanissent, accueillie partout comme si elle était la reine du monde, devient naturellement une espèce de monstre d'égoïsme et de vanité autosatisfaite. La beauté physique joue ici exactement Ie même rôle que la noblesse de sang sous l'Ancien Régime, et la brève conscience qu'elles pourraient prendre à l'adolescence de l'origine purement accidentelle de leur rang cède rapidement la place chez la plupart des très jolies jeunes filles à une sensation de supériorité innée, naturelle, instinctive, qui les place entièrement en dehors, et largement au-dessus du reste de l'humanité. Chacun autour d'elle n'ayant pour objectif que de lui éviter toute peine, et de prévenir Ie moindre de ses désirs, c'est tout uniment (sic) qu'une très jolie jeune fille en vient à considérer Ie reste du monde comme composé d'autant de serviteurs, elle-même n'ayant pour seule tâche que d'entretenir sa propre valeur érotique - dans l'attente de rencontrer un garçon digne d'en recevoir l'hommage. La seule chose qui puisse la sauver sur le plan moral, c'est d'avoir la responsabilité concrète d'un être plus faible, d'être directement et personnellement responsable de la satisfaction de ses besoins physiques, de sa santé, de sa survie - cet être pouvant être un frère ou une soeur plus jeune, un animal domestique, peu importe. (La possibilité d'une île, Daniel 1,15)

[S]in in popular Christianity is often understood individualistically, obscuring the reality of “social sin.” An emphasis upon sin most often leads to introspection about what I have done wrong. Of course, such introspection can be helpful, but it clouds the fact that much of human suffering and misery is not because of our individual sins, but because of collective sin. For example, when it is emphasized that Jesus “died for our sins” (and thus for your sins and my sins), our sins are seen as responsible for Jesus’ death. But it wasn’t individual sins that caused Jesus’ death. He wasn’t killed because of the impure thoughts of adolescents or our everyday deceptions or our selfishness. The point is not that these don’t matter. The point, rather, is that these were not what caused Jesus’ death. Rather, Jesus was killed because of what might be called “social sin,” namely, the domination system of his day. The common individualistic understanding of sin typically domesticates the political passion of the Bible and Jesus.

Neurotransmitters are chemical-like substances that travel between nerve cells across a synapse and determine whether a nerve signal keeps going or halts. Levels of two of these neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin, decrease during adolescence. The decrease in dopamine results in mood changes and problems with emotional control. The decrease in serotonin results in decreased impulse control. A third neurotransmitter, melatonin, increases in adolescence. Melatonin is responsible for circadian rhythms and the sleep–wake cycle. Its increase results in a need for greater sleep.

Why do adolescents’ peers have such social power? For starters, adolescents are more social and more complexly social than children or adults. For example, a 2013 study showed that teens average more than four hundred Facebook friends, far more than do adults.22 Moreover, teen sociality is particularly about affect, and responsiveness to emotional signaling—recall the greater limbic and lesser frontal cortical response to emotional faces in adolescents. And teens don’t rack up four hundred Facebook friends for data for their sociology doctorates. Instead there is the frantic need to belong.

When Does Social Anxiety Appear? Social anxiety can develop at any age. Many people remember feeling afraid during social situations as early as kindergarten. Others don’t develop symptoms until they are adults. However, social anxiety most commonly appears in adolescence, between the ages of 15 and 20. When you think about the changes that are taking place in your life at this time, this fact makes a lot of sense. As a teenager, you are expected to act more like an adult than a child. You are beginning to take on adult responsibilities and see yourself as a part of society. Meeting the expectations of others and making a good impression are very important. As a result, you may worry about what others think of you and be afraid of acting incorrectly.

On the day you’re born, you’re given a little plot of rich and fertile soil, slightly different from everyone else’s. And right away, your family and your culture start to plant things and tend the garden for you, until you’re old enough to take over its care yourself. They plant language and attitudes and knowledge about love and safety and bodies and sex. And they teach you how to tend your garden, because as you transition through adolescence into adulthood, you’ll take on full responsibility for its care. And you didn’t choose any of that. You didn’t choose your plot of land, the seeds that were planted, or the way your garden was tended in the early years of your life. As you reach adolescence, you begin to take care of the garden on your own. And you may find that your family and culture have planted some beautiful, healthy things that are thriving in a well-tended garden. And you may notice some things you want to change. Maybe the strategies you were taught for cultivating the garden are inefficient, so you need to find different ways of taking care of it so that it will thrive (that’s in chapter 3).

to be open and straightforward about their needs for attention in a social setting. It is equally rare for members of a group in American culture to honestly and openly express needs that might be in conflict with that individual’s needs. This value of not just honestly but also openly fully revealing the true feelings and needs present in the group is vital for it’s members to feel emotional safe. It is also vital to keeping the group energy up and for giving the feedback that allows it’s members to know themselves, where they stand in relation to others and for spiritual/psychological growth. Usually group members will simply not object to an individual’s request to take the floor—but then act out in a passive-aggressive manner, by making noise or jokes, or looking at their watches. Sometimes they will take the even more violent and insidious action of going brain-dead while pasting a jack-o’-lantern smile on their faces. Often when someone asks to read something or play a song in a social setting, the response is a polite, lifeless “That would be nice.” In this case, N.I.C.E. means “No Integrity or Congruence Expressed” or “Not Into Communicating Emotion.” So while the sharer is exposing his or her vulnerable creation, others are talking, whispering to each other, or sitting looking like they are waiting for the dental assistant to tell them to come on back. No wonder it’s so scary to ask for people’s attention. In “nice” cultures, you are probably not going to get a straight, open answer. People let themselves be oppressed by someone’s request—and then blame that someone for not being psychic enough to know that “Yes” meant “No.” When were we ever taught to negotiate our needs in relation to a group of people? In a classroom? Never! The teacher is expected to take all the responsibility for controlling who gets heard, about what, and for how long. There is no real opportunity to learn how to nonviolently negotiate for the floor. The only way I was able to pirate away a little of the group’s attention in the school I attended was through adolescent antics like making myself fart to get a few giggles, or asking the teacher questions like, “Why do they call them hemorrhoids and not asteroids?” or “If a number two pencil is so popular, why is it still number two,” or “What is another word for thesaurus?” Some educational psychologists say that western culture schools are designed to socialize children into what is really a caste system disguised as a democracy. And in once sense it is probably good preparation for the lack of true democratic dynamics in our culture’s daily living. I can remember several bosses in my past reminding me “This is not a democracy, this is a job.” I remember many experiences in social groups, church groups, and volunteer organizations in which the person with the loudest voice, most shaming language, or outstanding skills for guilting others, controlled the direction of the group. Other times the pain and chaos of the group discussion becomes so great that people start begging for a tyrant to take charge. Many times people become so frustrated, confused and anxious that they would prefer the order that oppression brings to the struggle that goes on in groups without “democracy skills.” I have much different experiences in groups I work with in Europe and in certain intentional communities such as the Lost Valley Educational Center in Eugene, Oregon, where the majority of people have learned “democracy skills.” I can not remember one job, school, church group, volunteer organization or town meeting in mainstream America where “democracy skills” were taught or practiced.

Six million women were abused in 1991. One in every six was pregnant." --- Sally Jessy Raphael Abuse against women is more than a crime of violence. It is a statement about society's view of women and itself. Women have been viewed as property, tools of pleasure, and underlings. The people who support these views forget that women are the mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, and nieces who raise the fathers, sons, uncles, brothers, and nephews. Women are the creative force of the world. The world's treatment of women will be reflected in the things men create. Every man of color has an ancestral obligation to get clear regarding his views about women. Childhood pains, adolescent disappointments, adult misconceptions must be mended and forgiven. Every woman of color has a responsibility to all women of color to reveal the violence against her, to heal her wounds, and do everything in her power to make sure another woman is healed." Mantra: I Am every woman; Reflection: Consider the women in your life who have been victims of physical or sexual abuse. What can you do today to help one woman heal or to end the painful cycle for future generations? ----Iyanla Vanzant, from Acts of Faith: Daily Meditations for People of Color

This Dr. Wilburforce was wonderful! He sounded as if he had had adolescent children. He said that adolescence was a difficult period but entirely normal and his sympathies were with the parents, not the adolescents. He said that there was entirely too much “understanding,” actually excusing of the adolescent, his lack of manners, selfishness, tantrums, and so on. He thought that the most intelligent approach to the problem was to understand that the adolescent, just by the nature of the beast, is going to chafe and rebel and he needs something specific to chafe and rebel against. Lay down strict rules of behavior and enforce them. Rebelling against nothing is very frustrating. Demand that the adolescent go along with the family routine. Do not allow him to keep the household in a continual uproar. …Instead of giving your child too much freedom, too much money, and all the responsibility for his actions, try giving him limited freedom and money, a strict code of behavior, and oceans and gallons and mountains of love. Not the deep-hidden-river I-bore-you-so-I-will-have-to-like-you type of love, but the visible, hug-and-kiss, lavish-compliment, interested-audience kind. Tell your adolescent he is brilliant, handsome, charming, witty, and lovable. Tell him every day. Tell him even when you are taking away the keys of the car and would like to kick him. Assure him and reassure him and re-reassure him. Love is the most important element in human relationships. You can never give a child too much love.

The first result of this randomized trial was predictable from prior studies: in the control group, children with the short variant-i.e., the "high risk" form of the gene- were twice as likely to veer toward high-risk behaviors, including binge drinking, drug use, and sexual promiscuity as adolescents, confirming earlier studies that had suggested an increased risk within this genetic subgroup. The second result was more provocative: these very children were also the most likely to respond to the social interventions. In the intervention group, children with the high-risk allele were most strongly and rapidly "normalized"-i.e., the most drastically affected subjects were also the best responders. In a parallel study, orphaned infants with the short variant of 5HTTLRP appeared more impulsive and socially disturbed than their long-variant counterparts as baseline-but were also the most likely to benefit from placement in a more nurturing foster-care environment. In both cases, it seems, the short variant encodes a hyperactive "stress sensor" for psychic susceptibility, but also a sensor most likely to respond to an intervention that targets the susceptibility. The most brittle or fragile forms of psyche are the most likely to be distorted by trauma-inducing environments-but are also the most likely to be restored by targeted interventions. It is as if resilience itself has a genetic core: some humans are born resilient (but are less responsive to interventions), while others are born sensitive (but more likely to respond to changes in their environments.)

I got a call a while ago from one of 20/20’s reporters, who wanted to talk to me about deforestation. The next “myth” Stossel is going to debunk, she said, is that this continent is being deforested. After all, as the timber industry says, there are more trees on this continent today than there were seventy years ago. She wanted a response from an environmentalist. I told her that 95 percent of this continent’s native forests are gone, and that the creatures who live in these forests are gone or going. She reiterated the timber industry claim, and said that Stossel was going to use that as the basis for saying, “Give me a break! Deforestation isn’t happening!” I said the timber industry’s statement has two unstated premises, and reminded her of the first rule of propaganda: if you can slide your premises by people, you’ve got them. The first premise is the insane presumption that a ten-inch seedling is the same as a two-thousand-year-old tree. Sure, there may be more seedlings today, but there are a hell of a lot fewer ancient trees. And many big timber corporations cut trees on a fifty-year rotation, meaning that the trees will never even enter adolescence so long as civilization stands. The second is the equally insane presumption that a monocrop of Douglas firs (on a fifty-year rotation!)393 is the same as a healthy forest, that a forest is just a bunch of the same kind of trees growing on a hillside instead of what it really is, a web of relationships shimmering amongst, for example, salmon, voles, fungi, salamanders, murrelets, trees, ferns, and so on all working and living together. Pretty basic stuff.

Our failure to keep our children attached to us and to the other adults responsible for them has not only taken away their shields but put a sword in the hands of their peers. When peers replace parents, children lose their vital protection against the thoughtlessness of others. The vulnerability of a child in such circumstances can easily be overwhelmed. The resulting pain is more than many children can bear. Studies have been unequivocal in their findings that the best protection for a child, even through adolescence, is a strong attachment with an adult. The most impressive of these studies involved ninety thousand adolescents from eighty different communities chosen to make the sample as representative of the United States as possible. The primary finding was that teenagers with strong emotional ties to their parents were much less likely to exhibit drug and alcohol problems, attempt suicide, or engage in violent behavior and early sexual activity. Such adolescents, in other words, were at greatly reduced risk for the problems that stem from being defended against vulnerability. Shielding them from stress and protecting their emotional health and functioning were strong attachments with their parents. This was also the conclusion of the noted American psychologist Julius Segal, a brilliant pioneer of research into what makes young people resilient. Summarizing studies from around the world, he concluded that the most important factor keeping children from being overwhelmed by stress was “the presence in their lives of a charismatic adult — a person with whom they identify and from whom they gather strength.” As Dr. Segal has also said, “Nothing will work in the absence of an indestructible link of caring between parent and child.” Peers should never have come to matter that much — certainly not more than parents or teachers or other adult attachment figures. Taunts and rejection by peers sting, of course, but they shouldn't cut to the quick, should not be so devastating. The profound dejection of an excluded child reveals a much more serious attachment problem than it does a peer-rejection problem.

As Dr. Fauci’s policies took hold globally, 300 million humans fell into dire poverty, food insecurity, and starvation. “Globally, the impact of lockdowns on health programs, food production, and supply chains plunged millions of people into severe hunger and malnutrition,” said Alex Gutentag in Tablet Magazine.27 According to the Associated Press (AP), during 2020, 10,000 children died each month due to virus-linked hunger from global lockdowns. In addition, 500,000 children per month experienced wasting and stunting from malnutrition—up 6.7 million from last year’s total of 47 million—which can “permanently damage children physically and mentally, transforming individual tragedies into a generational catastrophe.”28 In 2020, disruptions to health and nutrition services killed 228,000 children in South Asia.29 Deferred medical treatments for cancers, kidney failure, and diabetes killed hundreds of thousands of people and created epidemics of cardiovascular disease and undiagnosed cancer. Unemployment shock is expected to cause 890,000 additional deaths over the next 15 years.30,31 The lockdown disintegrated vital food chains, dramatically increased rates of child abuse, suicide, addiction, alcoholism, obesity, mental illness, as well as debilitating developmental delays, isolation, depression, and severe educational deficits in young children. One-third of teens and young adults reported worsening mental health during the pandemic. According to an Ohio State University study,32 suicide rates among children rose 50 percent.33 An August 11, 2021 study by Brown University found that infants born during the quarantine were short, on average, 22 IQ points as measured by Baylor scale tests.34 Some 93,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2020—a 30 percent rise over 2019.35 “Overdoses from synthetic opioids increased by 38.4 percent,36 and 11 percent of US adults considered suicide in June 2020.37 Three million children disappeared from public school systems, and ERs saw a 31 percent increase in adolescent mental health visits,”38,39 according to Gutentag. Record numbers of young children failed to reach crucial developmental milestones.40,41 Millions of hospital and nursing home patients died alone without comfort or a final goodbye from their families. Dr. Fauci admitted that he never assessed the costs of desolation, poverty, unhealthy isolation, and depression fostered by his countermeasures. “I don’t give advice about economic things,”42 Dr. Fauci explained. “I don’t give advice about anything other than public health,” he continued, even though he was so clearly among those responsible for the economic and social costs.

To be truly mature as an early adolescent means you’re able to be a good, loyal friend, supportive, hardworking and responsible,” Dr. Allen said. “But that doesn’t get a lot of airplay on Monday morning in a ninth-grade homeroom.

EMOTIONAL INFANTS • Look for others to take care of them • Have great difficulty entering into the world of others • Are driven by need for instant gratification • Use others as objects to meet their needs EMOTIONAL CHILDREN • Are content and happy as long as they receive what they want • Unravel quickly from stress, disappointments, trials • Interpret disagreements as personal offenses • Are easily hurt • Complain, withdraw, manipulate, take revenge, become sarcastic when they don’t get their way • Have great difficulty calmly discussing their needs and wants in a mature, loving way EMOTIONAL ADOLESCENTS • Tend to often be defensive • Are threatened and alarmed by criticism • Keep score of what they give so they can ask for something later in return • Deal with conflict poorly, often blaming, appeasing, going to a third party, pouting, or ignoring the issue entirely • Become preoccupied with themselves • Have great difficulty truly listening to another person’s pain, disappointments, or needs • Are critical and judgmental EMOTIONAL ADULTS • Are able to ask for what they need, want, or prefer—clearly, directly, honestly • Recognize, manage, and take responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings • Can, when under stress, state their own beliefs and values without becoming adversarial • Respect others without having to change them • Give people room to make mistakes and not be perfect • Appreciate people for who they are—the good, bad, and ugly—not for what they give back • Accurately assess their own limits, strengths, and weaknesses and are able to freely discuss them with others • Are deeply in tune with their own emotional world and able to enter into the feelings, needs, and concerns of others without losing themselves • Have the capacity to resolve conflict maturely and negotiate solutions that consider the perspectives of others

Kurt Campbell, the senior official responsible for US policy in East Asia in the State Department in Obama’s first term, went further: ‘We would not be a member of the East Asia Summit today if not for Kevin Rudd.’ Rudd influenced other elements of US policy, says Campbell, including America’s so-called Asia pivot. ‘The real person on the outside who influenced US policy in Asia is Kevin Rudd. I have no reason to exaggerate. That’s a fact. He was extraordinarily effective. No bullshit.

Australia’s default stance in its dealings with the world is not one of leadership. More often, it is derivative and responsive. It usually takes its lead from the United States when it can and deals with crises when it must. Or as the former director-general of the Office of National Assessments Allan Gyngell puts it: ‘How much has to do with leadership and how much is sitting around waiting for something to happen and looking at what the Americans are doing and saying, “we will have a bit of that, but not too much”?

The UN Security Council is the only body empowered to authorise the international use of military force. Australia commonly sends troops abroad under UN mandates, in recent years to East Timor and Afghanistan. So why would Australia not want its voice heard at the table that shapes the mandates? Or are we only good enough to risk our troops’ lives to carry out missions designed by others? This is an intolerable idea, and Abbott’s response was a remarkable act of oppositionism. The choice was between seeing the government fail and the nation succeed. The Abbott opposition preferred to see the government fail.

The standard theory is that DID is caused by trauma, especially childhood physical and sexual abuse. Painful thoughts and feelings connected to the trauma are then linked to imaginary friends, fanciful creations of the mind that are common among children. During highly stressful situations, the imaginary friends become more prominent and may function in place of the self. The child begins to dissociate, which means that he is experiencing the start of separate personalities or identities. During adolescence, the imaginary friends complete the split from self and develop their own personalities or identities. The identities, often called alters, develop as needed in response to the abuse and the emotions that go along with it. For example, shame may result in an alter that is weak and allows itself to be hurt; anger may produce one that seeks revenge and is hostile; fear may create an alter that is protective. The alter most closely associated with an individual’s original identity is called the host. Alters are usually aware of at least some of their fellow alters and of the host. The host often does not realize when a transition takes place between one identity and another. Months or years may pass with another identity in control while the host is not conscious of it. Some alters are described as frightening and violent. Their negative behaviors may include self-mutilation, suicide, violence, and murder.36

Marriage and family therapist Ryan Pannell defines prolonged adolescence as having too much privilege and not enough responsibility.

In earlier periods of history, adolescence was virtually unknown . . . Today, the span between childhood and adulthood may extend over ten years. Deferred adulthood is synonymous with deferred responsibility.

Teaching – even running a boarding school – is another form of arrested adolescence. Even in their responsibilities, they are all playing Peter Pan, the real world something that happens outside these ivy-covered walls.

I was now able to logically decipher my behavior and analyze my actions. I understood all the conditioning that the exploitation and disgrace had in creating the different personality parts and behavioral traits that dwelt in my depths. I started to understand how criticism and insults painfully intensified my ignominious impression of myself, causing me to take everything personally. The numb, confused, and skeptic defender parts now made sense to me. I could see how they contributed to the various problems I incurred throughout my life. I comprehended why I mistrusted and did pernicious things to loved ones—for fear they would do them to me first. The need to self-medicate made sense. I began to recognize the urge for porn. The need to commit acts of perversion was a result of my adolescent mind being manipulated and programmed to believe it was acceptable. I perceived that the reason why I wanted to be humiliated sexually was because the shameful part from the humiliation of the maltreatment wanted to be reinforced. The logic of it all—how all the parts fit together, their roles and reasons for being—became apparent to me. I opened my eyes for a brief moment. Keith was leaning forward with his right elbow resting on his leg, his hand supporting his chin, staring at me as if he was trying to analyze my thoughts. I gazed off in a distance, remembering my numerous misbehaviors. I could trace the main contributing factor for why I acted the way I did to the resulting ignominy from the desecration. But the most significant understanding I had was, that even though it wasn’t my fault, I was still responsible for my behavior. My lengthy musings came to a halt when Keith said, “Marco? Where are you now ... tell me what you’re seeing, thinking.” I proceeded to explain to him my current revelation. “Excellent work, Marco,” Keith said, cracking a smile. “Now think about your next step.” My next step was to cleanse and reprogram the inadequate part. I closed my eyes again and began to concentrate. The only way to accomplish this was to create a tangible picture in my mind of the inadequate part being exorcised of all its imperfect characteristics. Once I was able to concentrate on this step, I looked up into his gaze. “I see myself overlooking a canyon during a sunset. As the sun descends, I envision its rays reflecting off the sparse layers of cloud cover, creating a beautiful multi-layer spectrum of blazing colors. I imagine a cool breeze flowing across my body, as a warm illuminating light from above shines on me and creates a white-out effect that is the cleanest, brightest white I can imagine. I picture the whiteness as a soothing cleansing treatment for the blackness within. I’m feeling as pure and clean as the brilliant color itself.” "And now how do you want to orchestrate the inadequate part?" I stood up and puffed out my chest. "I want it to be the exact opposite—confident, strong, and stable. It should be at peace with itself and not paranoid about what other people think.” Sitting back down, I folded my hands over my crossed knees. “I don't want to feel as if I have to worry about working to exhaustion in my personal life. On the job, or in the gym, I shouldn’t feel I have to be perfect in order to be accepted in society. I want to move past that. I want to feel good and proud of myself. But most of all, I want to feel morally acceptable." I now had a better understanding of the inadequate part, its defender parts, and what they wanted. I was able to see the un-blending taking place within me. The unburdening and bearing witness process got me to the point of reprogramming the misconception that the inadequate part thought about itself. I could go straight to the visualization technique of cleansing and reprogramming the part whenever I felt its symptoms coming on. CHAPTER

people who learned finger movements right before sleep versus those who learned these movements but did not go to sleep immediately after their lesson. The Brown scientists were able to show that learners who “slept on it” showed better accuracy than those who did not, and this translated into more measurable activity during slow-wave sleep in the supplementary parts of the motor cortex responsible for coordinating patterned activity.

the court placed me at the Starr Commonwealth, a residential boys’ home where I lived for the next seven years. Even after “graduating” from Starr as a nineteen-year-old, the odyssey continued. Starr and its staff abandoned me to the streets, leaving me to fend for myself, an angry, lonely, largely antisocial and ill-prepared adolescent with no family and no support services to help me make the difficult transition into a society that now expected me to function as a responsible adult.

Conclusion: Adulthood at Last, Ready or Not We have seen in this chapter that the feeling of being in-between is a common part of being an emerging adult. Entering adulthood is no longer as definite and clear-cut as getting married. On the contrary, the road to young adulthood is circuitous, and the end of it usually does not come until the late twenties. Young people reach adulthood not because of a single event, but as a consequence of the gradual process of becoming self-sufficient and learning to stand alone. As they gradually take responsibility for themselves, make independent decisions, and pay their own way through life, the feeling grows in them that they have become adults. However, they view this achievement with mixed emotions. The independence of emerging adulthood is welcome, and they take pride in being able to take care of themselves without relying on their parents’ assistance. Nevertheless, the responsibilities of adulthood can be onerous and stressful, and emerging adults sometimes look back with nostalgia on a childhood and adolescence that seem easier in some ways than their lives now. Claims that most emerging adults experience a “quarterlife crisis”35 in their twenties may be exaggerated; life satisfaction and well-being go up from adolescence to emerging adulthood, for most people. But even if it is not exactly a “crisis,” emerging adulthood is experienced as a time of new and not always welcome responsibilities, a time of not just exhilarating independence and exploration but stress and anxiety as well. Despite the difficulties that come along with managing their own lives, most emerging adults look forward to a future they believe is filled with promise. Whether their lives now are moving along nicely or appear to be going nowhere, they almost unanimously believe that eventually they will be able to create for themselves the kind of life they want. They will find their soul mate, or at least a loving and compatible marriage partner. They will find that dream job, or at least a job that will be enjoyable and meaningful. Eventually this happy vision of the future will be tested against reality, and for many of them the result will be a jarring collision that will force them to readjust their expectations. But during emerging adulthood everything still seems possible. Nearly everyone still believes their dreams will prevail, whatever perils the world may hold for others. Are they too optimistic? Oh yes, at least from the perspective of their elders, who know all too well the likely fate of youthful dreams. Yet is important to understand their optimism as a source of strength, as a psychological resource they will need to draw upon during a stage of life that is often difficult. Given their high expectations for life, they are almost certain to fall short, but it is their self-belief that allows them to get up again after they have been knocked down, even multiple times. They may be optimistic, but the belief that they will ultimately succeed in their pursuit of happiness gives them the confidence and energy to make it through the stresses and uncertainty of the emerging adult years. NOTES Preface to the Second Edition 1.

Because much of our brain development occurs during adolescence, childhood, and even earlier, the social norms that shape our early life experiences may have particularly large effects on our psychology. For example, a growing body of evidence suggests that we may have evolved to make enduring calibrations to aspects of our physiology, psychology, and motivations based on stress and other environmental cues experienced before age five. As adults, these early calibrations may influence our self-control, risk-taking, stress responses, norm internalizations, and relationships. By shaping our early lives, cultural evolution can manipulate our brains, hormones, decision-making, and even our longevity.40

The cooperative mentality can orient us to be egalitarian in our ways of thinking. Recent evidence suggests that egalitarian attitudes produce more healthy responses when people are confronted with stressful social encounters than biased, competitive and non-egalitarian attitudes.13 There’s also growing evidence that fostering cooperative attitudes and behaviours in children and adolescents (in contrast to competitive and individualistic ones) promotes positive relationships, improved mental and physical health and higher achievements.14 In addition, it’s increasingly thought that cooperative groups will out-compete competitive/individualistic ones in the long term. In fact, business is finding out that the internet is a good source for problem-solving because people simply like to share their thoughts and ideas for free! It’s sad that, in the face of this, governments continue to buy into the business model that competition creates efficiency. Within the NHS, for example, we’re increasingly split into small competing groups called ‘business units’. Fostering high levels of cooperation would be far better.

Human reason is not the way to escape from devilish sin. Lafferty mocked its limitations. Arrive at Easterwine catalogues the use of human reason to discover the meaning of the universe—in “synthetic love essence”: “Institute members were out now trying to read patterns and shapes in the fluorescence of sea-lice, in snail-slime patterns, in the cross sections of marrow of rock-badger bones, in paddle-fish trails, in nine-year-flight-way designs, in constellations, in ballads (especially in roundels which never do find their own round), in the polterghostly unbalance of a hiatus-human species known as the adolescents, in the cross-timbers, in spark-worm responses.” We will not find what we are looking for in the fluorescence of sea-lice.

Too many of the teenagers I encounter in my practice and across the country are late in developing what it will take to function as an adult and create adult relationships: agency, independence, intimacy, fortitude, and self-reliance. Often it's because their community (not just parents but also peers, teachers, and extended family) is focused exclusively on the high-school paper chase and fails to encourage these qualities. I try desperately to convince these teens and their parents that delaying the emotional work of adolescence is dangerous. "We're discovering that the brain during adolescence is very malleable, very plastic," Steinberg says. "It has a heightened capacity to change in response to experience. That cuts both ways: On the one hand it means that the brain is especially susceptible to toxic experiences that can harm it, but it also means that the brain is susceptible to positive influences that can promote growth. That's an opportunity we're squandering.

Kids were being sent away simply for being alive in a place where war had been declared against us. And the propaganda, the rationalizing of how much we needed to be destroyed, we the generation called super-predators, was promoted by people who were Republican and Democrat, and, save for a few, Black as well as white. It was such convenient reasoning: the hoisting of responsibility on the narrow, non-voting shoulders (and after too many busts, never-voting shoulders) of 13 year olds, 14, 15 and 16 year olds, thereby absolving grown people of any responsibility themselves. As soon as you said drugs, as soon as you said gangs, you didn’t have to talk about what it meant to throw a bunch of adolescents together in a community with no resources, no outlets, no art classes, no mentorship, no love but from their families who were being harmed, cut daily, themselves.

Melissa Lavery holds an M.S. in Psychology with an emphasis on Child and Adolescent Development. Ms. Lavery is responsible for a significant amount of proofing and editing, which has assisted with refining the work that follows.

I was intrigued. Young people like Amanda are not often best friends with their mothers. And yet the affection between them was clear. Sensing also, however, her mother’s disapproval of Amanda’s lifestyle, I asked what was the bond that had allowed her to remain close to her mother. Amanda replied, “For as long as I can remember, every night of my life I end the day by getting in bed with my mother and snuggling.” Amanda’s relationship with her mother is quite remarkable, and is in large part responsible for the fact that she has now left behind what she describes as her “black period” and is finding her way through adolescence in a relatively healthy manner. Amanda knew that she was deeply loved just exactly as she was. Her mother disapproved of her use of drugs, her promiscuous sex, her astoundingly profane language, her Satanic practices and most other aspects of her lifestyle. But with a wisdom that I have rarely seen in parents, she recognized that what her daughter needed was not lectures but love. Fortunately, she had been giving this in large doses for all of Amanda’s life. Equally fortunately, she did not now allow her disapproval of her daughter’s behavior to interrupt this pattern in the slightest. Amanda’s mother offered a truly transforming love—transforming because while it could be resisted, it could not be received without profound psychospiritual impact.

To help our children gain responsibility we must offer them opportunities to be responsible, rather than order them to do what we think is responsible. “Rules

Adolescent boys don’t understand that becoming a man, at its core, means stepping up and accepting responsibility.

This was the real thing, boys in the flesh. All the prohibitions, especially the ones that stayed unvoiced, had made boys much more exotic; it was as though we'd never met one. The whole school hummed with excitement and the headmistress's aspect softened with anticipation, for she was about to let the dangerous genie of adolescent sex out of its bottle and tame it. She spoke in veiled, suggestive terms in assembly of freedom and responsibility, and we giggled uneasily - it was all vaguely shocking, like being tickled by a policeman.

the classroom environment can be a setup for serious stress-related health problems. In a sense, both teachers and their students are “captives”—they can’t leave during class without suffering adverse consequences. Furthermore, the social and emotional dynamics of a room full of children or adolescents can be intense and sometimes chaotic. Under pressure, some students become disruptive, distracted, and even defiant, and teachers may become anxious, frustrated, embarrassed, and hopeless. From this perspective, it’s easy to see why teachers are burning out and students aren’t learning. The stress response is derailing our teaching and our students’ learning.

Evil demons dwelling in underworlds, Gods sitting on-high, angels battling and protecting. We have become so wrapped up in these stories, and in the in-fighting between the different religions, that the reality of the matter has gone unseen and unresolved. We—humanity—must move out of this adolescence, put down the fairy tales, and take responsibility for our actions. There is no devil to blame, and there is no God to plead to. There is simply you and the choices you make each day—choices that will either make you a force of good in this world or an ill-presence. People are the evil in this world, and likewise we are the divine. “Evil”—all that is detrimental to humanity—has come about as a result of poor choices and, by the same hand, the divine—the immortal goodness—endures as a result of loving, compassionate choices. Heaven is created here—on this earth—by a community of compassionate people, and Hell is created here—on this earth—by a community of greedy, self-centered, apathetic people. Our small choices define the greater picture.

Looking at him like he’d grown another head, she raised her hands up as she asked, “Don’t you have some other girl you want to harass? Maybe a girl who would actually appreciate it?” “Nope. You are the only girl I want to harass.” Which was the truth. Since he’d met Deanna, no other woman had existed for him. If he wasn’t with her, he was thinking about her. When he was with her, he wanted to stay with her, get to know her—and not only in the biblical sense, but that was definitely on top of his list. More attendees started filing out of the double doors, and Deanna’s head fell back as she let out a small groan. She might not have meant for the gesture to be or sound sexual, but that’s exactly what it’d been. He wanted to lean forward and press his lips to the soft skin on her neck, slide his hands up her dress and find out if she was wearing lace panties, silk panties, or no panties… “You win.You can drive me home.” She sounded anything but happy at her acquiescence, but Lucky was happy…Very happy. Well, this night had gone from bad, to worse, to horrible, to just plain humiliating. As Lucky opened the passenger side door to his SUV and held her hand while she got in, she immediately sent up a silent prayer that he didn’t notice the way a shiver ran up her arm from the touch of his large, rough hands. Deanna took a deep breath and pushed down the frustration and panic that was battling inside of her for top billing. Once he shut the door, she tugged her skirt down. When he got in, the entire left side of her body broke out in goosebumps from the intense stare he directed at her, but she kept her eyes trained ahead, looking out the windshield. She sat with her jaw set, her hands folded in her lap, and her back straight, hoping to convey that she just wanted to go home. “You’re quiet,” Lucky observed as they drove out of the parking lot. Proving his point, Deanna continued focusing out the window, at the moonlight dancing off the river. She knew she was being rude. She was a little too emotional and didn’t trust herself to speak. Especially considering the six glasses of wine she’d had this evening. Loose lips sank ships, and alcohol made her one Chatty Cathy capable of taking down an armada of ocean liners. “How was your evening tonight, Lucky?” he asked himself before answering his own question. “Oh, it was great, actually. Thanks for asking.” Deanna bit her lips to keep from smiling. She should’ve been annoyed at his adolescent behavior, and if it were any other guy, she was sure she would’ve been. But this was Lucky. And, whether she liked it or not (which, for the record, she didn’t), what should’ve been annoying or irritating on him always landed in the charming and amusing columns. “Of course!” he replied enthusiastically, still talking to himself. “I’m so glad you had a good time! What was the highlight of your evening, if you don’t mind me asking?” If he kept going, she was going to start cracking up, so she worked to maintain her composure. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Which she was fully aware made her behavior even more adolescent than his. She was being ridiculous. Still, trying to disguise her amusement, Deanna sighed. “Fine. You win again. What do you want to talk about?” Lucky shook his head as he clicked his tongue. “Sorry, Pop-Tart. You had your chance.” Pop-Tart? Had he seriously just called her Pop-Tart!? Before she was able to form an appropriately indignant response, he continued the conversation he was having with himself. “Wow. Highlight of my evening…” He hissed through his teeth. “That’s a tough one. I’m going to have to go with the dance that I had with this smokin’-hot brunette.” Her cheeks burned at his description. Then she tried to remind herself that he was joking around, but the message got to her head and, she feared, her heart too late.

...some adolescent survivors describe feeling special, powerful, and sometimes entitled. This is especially true of those for whom excessive attention was part of the abuse relationship by virtue any power they held over the abuser or members of the family - especially their mothers in some cases of father-daughter incest - and of any affection or sexual pleasure they experienced. All of these feelings can coexist with self-loathing and shame or might alternate with them. Some victims experience this power as personally affirming, resulting in feelings of grandiosity, whereas others believe themselves to be malignantly powerful and defective. As children, these victims may have developed the belief that they could willfully manipulate others and "make or break" the family or their peer group (or the broader community setting) with their terrible powers or the secrets they hold. In adolescence these largely implicit ideas no longer manifest mainly or only as the egocentrism associated with early childhood. A more pervasive form of narcissistic entitlement and power and an apparently callous indifference to and contempt for others can lead to conduct disturbances and the victimization of others. Many individuals with apparent sociopathic tendencies and conduct disorders were victimized as children. Such individuals at some point had the capacity for respect, empathy, and genuine social responsibility that was lost and corrupted in the struggle to survive, to make sense of, and to remove themselves from the receiving end of victimization. Identification with the perpetrator and the victimization of others is specifically included as a core feature of complex PTSD.

Adolescence is also a time when aggressive and other nonsexual drives intensify, which may play a role in the emergence of cutting. "There is something about that developmental phase, the biochemical changes that are occurring, that starts to activate all the structural damage in the brain that came from earlier trauma," says Mark Schwartz. It is at this age that abused children start exhibiting a number of acting-out and acting-in behaviors, from cutting and eating disorders to acts of outward aggression. Schwartz believes it isn't hormones alone that are responsible for this sudden upsurge in impulsive behavior but a complex interaction of the brain, the hormones, and the social environment.

The human brain is “under construction” throughout childhood and adolescence; in fact, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for good judgment, emotional regulation, impulse control, and other admirable “adult” qualities, is not fully mature until after the age of twenty!

Parents teach children values by living their own lives accordingly, not by pressuring kids to live by certain rules. I firmly believe that one of the principal reasons why adolescents today are protestingly rejecting many of the values of adult society is that they have detected how adults in so many ways fail to practice what they preach. To their dismay, kids discover that their high-school textbooks do not tell the whole truth about our government and its history or that their teachers lie by omission of some of the facts of life.

Teen age is the period for young folks to be tender and be thought or be trivial and embrace temptation. It is a season for them to be empowered or endangered, encouraged or embattled dependent on their choices. It is a stage for them to either be natured or be naughty dependent on their readiness and preparedness. It is an era where they are to adore God or admire evil with their all in all. A moment of grace and glory or guilt and gory for their families and society as a result of impacts they received; and timeless celebration of Eternal God or enduring shame for generations on based on their clear choices. Whichever path a teenage choices have its blessings and rewards or its dangers and subsequent sufferings. Through our teens we aged either into foolish folks or wise and responsible adults.

With these dynamics in mind, we will not be surprised to learn from the statistics that 60 percent of German terrorists in recent years have been the children of Protestant ministers. The tragedy of this situation lies in the fact that the parents undoubtedly had the best of intentions; from the very beginning, they wanted their children to be good, responsive, well-behaved, agreeable, undemanding, considerate, unselfish, self-controlled, grateful, neither willful nor headstrong nor defiant, and above all meek. They wanted to inculcate these values in their children by whatever means, and if there was no other way, they were even ready to use force to obtain these admirable pedagogical ends. If the children then showed signs of violent behavior in adolescence, they were expressing both the unlived side of their own childhood as well as the unlived, suppressed, and hidden side of their-parents' psyche, perceived only by the children themselves. When terrorists take innocent women and children hostage in the service of a grand and idealistic cause, are they really doing anything different from what was once done to them? When they were little children full of vitality, their parents had offered them up as sacrifices to a grand pedagogic purpose, to lofty religious values, with the feeling of performing a great and good deed. Since these young people never were allowed to trust their own feelings, they continue to suppress them for ideological reasons. These intelligent and often very sensitive people, who had once been sacrificed to a "higher" morality, sacrifice themselves as adults to another-- often opposite--ideology, in whose service they allow their inmost selves to be completely dominated, as had been the case in their childhood.

The mentoring of children and adolescents by people who themselves know in some way their own wholeness, and can thus recognize the beauty and wholeness in others, is the sacred responsibility of the adults in any healthy society.

Six million women were abused in 1991. One in every six was pregnant." --- Sally Jessy Raphael Abuse against women is more than a crime of violence. It is a statement about society's view of women and itself. Women have been viewed as property, tools of pleasure, and underlings. The people who support these views forget that women are the mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, and nieces who raise the fathers, sons, uncles, brothers, and nephews. Women are the creative force of the world. The world's treatment of women will be reflected in the things men create. Every man of color has an ancestral obligation to get clear regarding his views about women. Childhood pains, adolescent disappointments, adult misconceptions must be mended and forgiven. Every woman of color has a responsibility to all women of color to reveal the violence against her, to heal her wounds, and do everything in her power to make sure another woman is healed." Mantra: I Am every woman; Reflection: Consider the women in your life who have been victims of physical or sexual abuse. What can you do today to help one woman heal or to end the painful cycle for future generations?

Ironically, for all that youth culture rejects classical music as old-fashioned and out-ofdate, it is the way it is because of an excess of rational thought; it is, literally, too modern. Instead, youth culture yearns for a prerational immediacy, that of the body, of libidinal energy, and for the luxury of blind, adolescent emotions without consequences or responsibilities. Ironic, too, is that popular culture presents a prerational consciousness as the absolutely modern.

The goal of disciplining a child is obedience. The goal of disciplining a teenager is responsibility.

• Everybody makes mistakes. • A mistake is a choice people would make differently if they could it do over again. • People don't makes mistakes because they want to; they make mistakes because they didn't know any better or didn't think more clearly at the time. • All mistakes are costly, but they can be worth the expense if they are used to inform and instruct. • A bad mistake can teach a good lesson. • Making a mistake is not a failing; not learning from a mistake is a failing. • It is ignorant to make a mistake; but it is stupid to repeat a mistake. • Sometimes people have to repeat the same mistake a number of times when there is something hard they don't want to learn, before they finally stop acting stupid and wise up. • The smartest people are not those who never make mistakes, but those who use mistakes to make better choices the next time around. • The stupidest people are those who are unable or unwilling to admit mistakes. The three phases described

Your job is to manage your relationship with me to get the freedom you need to grow. Part of my job is to tell you how to accomplish this objective. "First, you must understand change. Growth is change—the experience of moving from old to new, from the same to different, from familiar to unfamiliar, from known to unknown. Adolescence is change. To yourself and to me, you are no longer the old, same, familiar, known child that you used to be. Now you are becoming a new, different, unfamiliar, and unknown person for me to live with. This transformation is very important for you to understand, because as you change in your teen years, I change my parenting in response. "To your becoming new in some ways, I miss some of the 'old' child I knew. Feeling sad and lonely from this loss, I may hold on to the way you used to be to resist the change.

This doesn’t mean, however, that our maps can’t be modified by experience. A deep love relationship, particularly during adolescence, when the brain once again goes through a period of exponential change, truly can transform us. So can the birth of a child, as our babies often teach us how to love. Adults who were abused or neglected as children can still learn the beauty of intimacy and mutual trust or have a deep spiritual experience that opens them to a larger universe. In contrast, previously uncontaminated childhood maps can become so distorted by an adult rape or assault that all roads are rerouted into terror or despair. These responses are not reasonable and therefore cannot be changed simply by reframing irrational beliefs. Our maps of the world are encoded in the emotional brain, and changing them means having to reorganize that part of the central nervous system, the subject of the treatment section of this book.

I am sure I was babbling like some lovesick teenager. I shouldn’t keep saying ‘teenager’. Many of my so-called contemporary friends babble about their infatuations with this actor or that singer, too. Adolescence doesn’t really disappear. It hides behind adult responsibility, poking its head out every time it has the opportunity. I

childhood reprimands and swearing are the two categories of language that are most often retained, even after strokes that rob the sufferer of all other types of speech. In their study, Professors Catherine Harris, Ayşe Ayçiçeği, and Jean Berko Gleason wired thirty-two native Turkish speakers to galvanic skin-response monitors. Importantly, none of these volunteers had learned English before the age of twelve, so all their tellings-off in childhood had been heard in Turkish. The scientists had them hear or read words that were neutral (e.g., “door”), positive (e.g., “joy”), negative (e.g., “disease”), taboo (e.g., “asshole”), and childhood scolds (e.g., “Don’t do that!” and “Go to your room!”). The scientists found that the volunteers didn’t react particularly strongly to the neutral, positive, or negative words, regardless of language. They reacted similarly strongly to the taboo words that they heard, regardless of whether they were in English or Turkish; their exposure to swearing in late adolescence had been enough to make English swearing an emotionally effective part of their language. However, the volunteers did respond very differently to the childhood reprimands depending on the language used. Even though the volunteers all understood the reprimands, their skin conductivity remained low—they showed no stress—when they heard the words in English. When they were exposed to the tellings-off in Turkish, and in particular when they heard rather than read them, their galvanic skin response went through the roof. Being told off in their native language was enough to make these volunteers (average age twenty-eight) break out in a cold sweat. This shows that understanding a word and feeling its emotional impact are two very different processes. We have to have experience of the emotional consequences of words if they are going to affect us.

Thus the child who is not loved by his parents will always assume himself or herself to be unlovable rather than see the parents as deficient in their capacity to love. Or early adolescents who are not yet successful at dating or at sports will see themselves as seriously deficient human beings rather than the late or even average but perfectly adequate bloomers they usually are. It is only through a vast amount of experience and a lengthy and successful maturation that we gain the capacity to see the world and our place in it realistically, and thus are enabled to realistically assess our responsibility for ourselves and the world.

We must ask, what will happen to today’s cases who develop GD in adolescence and in response to stress and social contagion? In how high a percentage will identity remain unstable? We don’t know.

If a teenager describes a situation that has left them feeling scared or threatened, in my head I’ll agree that the term “anxiety” fits and turn our work toward managing the teen’s nerves. But once I get more of the story, it’s not at all unusual for my response to fall along the lines of “I hear that you feel anxious about your fight with your friend, which makes sense. But do you think you might also be feeling annoyed or irritated by it?” or “There’s no question that big games can be anxiety-provoking, but I’m wondering if you might also have some apprehension or even excitement about how it will go.

In both scenarios, the parent’s advice might be spot-on, but when our first response is to point out how they could curb their discomfort, teenagers often feel injured. Rather than accept our input as the sound and well-meaning guidance that it is, they tend to feel dismissed or invalidated.

In my youth . . . my sacred youth . . . in eaves sole sparowe sat not more alone than I . . . in my youth, my saucer-deep youth, when I possessed a mirror and both a morning and an evening comb . . . in my youth, my pimpled, shame-faced, sugared youth, when I dreamed myself a fornicator and a poet; when life seemed to be ahead somewhere like a land o’ lakes vacation cottage, and I was pure tumescence, all seed, afloat like fuzz among the butterflies and bees; when I was the bursting pod of a fall weed; when I was the hum of sperm in the autumn air, the blue of it like watered silk, vellum to which I came in a soft cloud; O minstrel galleons of Carib fire, I sang then, knowing naught, clinging to the tall slim wheatweed which lay in a purple haze along the highway like a cotton star . . . in my fumbling, lubricious, my uticated youth, when a full bosom and a fine round line of Keats, Hart Crane, or Yeats produced in me the same effect—a moan throughout my molecules—in my limeade time, my uncorked innocence, my jellybelly days, when I repeated Olio de Oliva like a tenor; then I would touch the page in wonder as though it were a woman, as though I were blind in my bed, in the black backseat, behind the dark barn, the dim weekend tent, last dance, date's door, reaching the knee by the second feature, possibly the thigh, my finger an urgent emissary from my penis, alas as far away as Peking or Bangkok, so I took my heart in my hand, O my love, O my love, I sighed, O Christina, Italian rose; my inflated flesh yearning to press against that flesh becoming Word—a word—words which were wet and warm and responsive as a roaming tongue; and her hair was red, long, in ringlets, kiss me, love me up, she said in my anxious oral ear; I read: Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour; for I had oodles of needs, if England didn't; I was nothing but skin, pulp, and pit, in my grapevine time, during the hard-on priesthood of the poet; because then—in my unclean, foreskinned, and prurient youth—I devoutly believed in Later Life, in Passion, in Poetry, the way I thought only fools felt about God, prayer, heaven, foreknowledge, sin; for what was a poem if not a divine petition, a holy plea, a prophecy: [...] a stranger among strangers, myself the strangest because I could never bring myself to enter adolescence, but kept it about like a bit of lunch you think you may eat later, and later come upon at the bottom of a bag, dry as dust, at the back of the refrigerator, bearded with mold, or caked like sperm in the sock you've fucked, so that gingerly, then, you throw the mess out, averting your eyes, just as Rainer complained he never had a childhood—what luck!—never to have suffered birthpang, nightfear, cradlecap, lake in your lung; never to have practiced scales or sat numb before the dentist's hum or picked your mother up from the floor she's bled and wept and puked on; never to have been invaded by a tick, sucked by a leech, bitten by a spider, stung by a bee, slimed on by a slug, seared by a hot pan, or by paper or acquaintance cut, by father cuffed; never to have been lost in a crowd or store or parking lot or left by a lover without a word or arrogantly lied to or outrageously betrayed—really what luck!—never to have had a nickel roll with slow deliberation down a grate, a balloon burst, toy break; never to have skinned a knee, bruised a friendship, broken trust; never to have had to conjugate, keep quiet, tidy, bathe; to have lost the chance to be hollered at, bullied, beat up (being nothing, indeed, to have no death), and not to have had an earache, life's lessons to learn, or sums to add reluctantly right up to their bitter miscalculated end—what sublime good fortune, the Greek poet suggested—because Nature is not accustomed to life yet; it is too new, too incidental, this shiver in the stone, never altogether, and would just as soon (as Culp prefers to say) cancer it; erase, strike, stamp it out— [...]

If you feel an unquenchable thirst in you, welcome it. Celebrate it. In children, this thirst presents itself as curiosity. In adolescents, it appears as a search for love, for belonging. In young adults, it manifests itself as a search for worldly success, validation, recognition and acceptance in society. And when you are past your mid-30s...latest by your 40s...it appears as a search for meaning. Slowly, if you are tuned, and are in sync with the energy that created you, you discover something magical! You awaken to the truth that Life is intrinsically meaningless. And bringing meaning to your Life is your responsibility. You do that by following your Bliss, by choosing not to postpone your Happiness!

In a thousand years, however, Mormonism will no longer be an upstart religion, with all the volatility and vulnerability of adolescence. People will no more leave Mormonism over the Mountain Meadows Massacre than modern Jews leave Judaism over biblical genocide. Mormon polygamy will be no more (and no less) vexing than ancient polygamy. The Book of Abraham will be no more textually troubling than the Bible’s Deuteronomists or multiple Isaiahs. Multiple versions of Joseph Smith’s first vision will be no more faith-shaking than varying accounts of Paul’s conversion or the disharmony of the Gospels. But we live now, not a thousand years from now. The scandals are real, and the doubt and pain they cause are real. To explain a problem and reconcile it in our minds is not to deny its existence or significance. Having spent my professional life working in an academy largely allergic to the extrarational claims of faith, and in a field of religious history where many colleagues are devoted evangelicals or Catholics, I know well that in the view of Enlightenment rationalism and scientism on the one hand and historic Christianity on the other, much of Mormonism appears foolish and scandalous. That the same can be said of every other religion hardly puts salve in the wound. We are not called to abandon our natural reason; to do so would not only lead to fanaticism but also to reject one of our greatest divine inheritances. Yet to remain open to all the infinite possibilities of an inexplicable cosmos, we have to humbly acknowledge the limits of human rationality and accept complementary ways of knowing and being. We do not proceed merely on faith, but we do recognize that faith and trust are essential ingredients in a holistic approach to life. By definition, to have faith—in God, in Mormonism, in anything—is to act on claims that in the end can be neither proven nor disproven. To base one’s life on unfalsifiable claims is not a sign of intellectual weakness or antirationality, but rather a perfectly normal human response to the uncertainty that is the lot of mortality.

No. 1, when you ask who’s interested in this, the usual answer is, terminally ill people with excruciating pain. False. Factually not true. It tends to be a preoccupation of people who are depressed or hopeless for other reasons. No surprise, actually, if you look at what leads to suicide: hopelessness and depression. You have to look at euthanasia or assisted suicide as more like suicide than like a good death. Second, this notion that there’s no slippery slope, as advocates have long claimed? Totally wrong. Look at Belgium and the Netherlands: First, it’s accepted for adults who are competent and give consent. Then, it’s “We’re going to extend it to neonates with genetic defects, and adolescents.” Any time we do anything in medicine, it’s the same way: We develop an intervention for a narrow group of people, and once it’s well accepted, it gets expanded. I think it’s false to say, “We can hold the line here.” It doesn’t work that way. Third, people say this is a quick, reliable, painless intervention. No medical intervention in history is quick, reliable, painless and has no flaws. In the Netherlands, there’s about a 17 to 20 percent rate of problems, something screwing up. Initially, when the Oregon people published — “We have no problems. Every case went flawlessly!” — you knew the data was wrong. It had to be wrong. Either you’re not getting every case, so the denominator was wrong, or people are lying. There’s nobody who does a procedure, not even blood draws, and it’s perfect every time. So this idea that this is quick, reliable and painless is nonsense. And the last and most important point is: You want to legalize these interventions to improve end-of-life care in this country? That’s your motivation and this is your method? PS: I don’t think people argue that–— ZE: [interrupting] Oh, people do argue that! That is the justification for these procedures: It’s going to improve end-of-life care and give people control. The problem is, even in countries that have legalized it for a long time, at best 3 percent of people die this way in the Netherlands and Belgium. At best, 10 percent express interest in it. That is not a way to improve end-of-life care. You don’t focus lots of attention and effort on 3 percent. It’s the 97 percent, if you want to improve care. The typical response is, we can do both. Hmmm. Every system I’ve ever seen has a bandwidth problem: You can only do so much. We ought to focus our attention on the vast, vast majority, 97 percent of people, for whom this is not the right intervention and get that right — and we are far from that. I don’t think legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide are the way to go. It’s a big, big distraction.

Although adolescents must be held responsible for their actions, they generally lack mature decision-making capability, have an inflated appetite for risk, are prone to influence by peers, and do not accurately assess future consequences. For the better part of this book I’ve provided scientific evidence supporting the notion that teen brains are different from adult brains. The question the high court was considering was how to weigh those differences in sentencing people for crimes committed when they were still adolescents.

In her book Asperger Syndrome and Adolescence: Practical Solutions for School Success, Brenda Smith Myles identifies six areas of difficulty for adolescents with Asperger’s: • Lack of understanding that nonverbal cues express meaning and attitudes. Teens miss out on many social opportunities because they don’t understand that a smile and glances from another person could mean they like him, or that teachers give a “look” that is a warning and should be interpreted as meaning to calm down and get to work. • Problems with using language to initiate or maintain a conversation. AS teens will often start a conversation with a comment that seems irrelevant, or may walk up to a group of teens and want to join in, but does not because he doesn’t know how or when to join in. • Tendency to interpret words or phrases concretely. AS teens often only understand the literal meanings of words and phrases and not expressions such as “You’re pulling my leg” and “Pull yourself together.” Or, as in the example from Luke Jackson’s book quoted earlier, they will do exactly as told and will not understand the implied statement, which leads teachers to think the teen is a smart aleck. • Difficulty understanding that other people’s perspective in conversation need to be considered. This can lead to one-sided monologues, because the AS student is talking about his area of interest and is not monitoring whether or not the listener is interested. • Failure to understand the unspoken rules of the hidden curriculum or a set of rules everyone knows, but that has not been specifically taught. Things that are important to teens, such as how to dress, what to say to whom, how to act, and how to know the difference between gentle teasing and bullying. • Lack of awareness that what you say to a person in one conversation may influence how that individual relates to you in the future. A teen may make a candid remark to another teen, not realizing it was hurtful, and may be puzzled by the person’s lack of response later that day.

These brain regions are used every day for basic cognitive tasks, whether it’s abstract thinking, the ability to change one’s behavior in relation to changing demands in the environment, or the inhibition of inappropriate responses.

Adolescent Warning Signs Lack of peer relationships outside the family Anxiety in social situations Difficulty with social skills such as keeping a conversation going Depression, withdrawal Confusion Sexual identity problems Interpersonal problems—trouble interacting with people Sleep problems, including excessive sleeping Stress-related physical symptoms Feelings of persecution Family conflicts Antisocial attitudes Overdependence on TV, computer, or video games Using subjective symptoms as a way of avoiding responsibilities Procrastination Fear of groups Lack of planning or organization Difficulty with self-expression Feelings of loneliness Physical complaints Difficulty making and keeping friends; stormy relationships with peers Fear of new situations Rationalization about lack of social life Learning disabilities

I didn't hit other people or hit purposefully, I just hit. Some object would be at fault. My anger was at myself, every time, all vanity. As an adolescent I was a slammer of drawers and a packer of suitcases. I was responsible for scenes. Control came imperfectly to all of us: we reached it at different times of life, frustrated, shot into indignation, by different things - some that are grown out of, and others not. Of all my strong emotions, anger is the one least responsible for any of my work. I don't write out of anger. For one thing, simply as a fiction writer, I am minus an adversary - except, of course, that of time - and for another thing, the act of writing in itself brings me happiness.

Underdeveloped adolescents all too often feel strong emotion and look for escape, since they can think of no way to cope with the situation. Many turn to alcohol or getting high, “so I won’t have to feel anything.” Many are explosive and verbally or physically abusive toward family members. The parents of such teenagers may report that their adolescent son constantly fights with his girlfriend and has pounded a hole in the wall with his fist or smashed the phone down so hard he broke it while arguing with her on the phone. Or they may report that when they confront their daughter about her poor schoolwork, she leaves home for several days. She usually turns up at a friend’s house, but when she comes home after

The chief and most damaging of the competing attachments that undermine parenting authority and parental love is the increasing bonding of our children with their peers. The disorder affecting the generations of young children and adolescents now heading toward adulthood is rooted in the lost orientation of children toward the nurturing adults in their lives. Far from seeking to establish yet one more medicalpsychological disorder here — the last thing today's bewildered parents need — we are using the word disorder in its most basic sense: a disruption of the natural order of things. For the first time in history young people are turning for instruction, modeling, and guidance not to mothers, fathers, teachers, and other responsible adults but to people whom nature never intended to place in a parenting role — their own peers. They are not manageable, teachable, or maturing because they no longer take their cues from adults. Instead, children are being brought up by immature persons who cannot possibly guide them to maturity. They are being brought up by each other. The term that seems to fit more than any other for this phenomenon is peer orientation. It is peer orientation that has muted our parenting instincts, eroded our natural authority, and caused us to parent not from the heart but from the head — from manuals, the advice of “experts,” and the confused expectations of society.

At the heart of the idea of progressive education is a still unaccepted notion: that giving both adolescents and their teachers greater responsibility for the development of their schools can't be by-passed. Without a radical departure from a more authoritarian model, one strips the key parties of the respect which lies at the heart of democratic practice and good schooling. As long as we see "these kids" as dangers to our civil peace and their teachers as time-servers or crazy martyrs, we are not likely to offer either group the respect they need to make schools work. Schools for thoughtfulness can't be built on top of thoughtlessness.