Generational Conversations about Adolescence.

The reason that I do what I do is not to move students from adolescents to adulthood but to develop fully devoted followers of Christ. But there is an element of moving students from adolescents to adulthood that I certainly want to have a hand in. The problematic part of the last statement is that adolescents don’t want to be adults. You might ask, “Why not?” Let me explain.

I want to take us back just a little bit in time. Years ago, adolescents were adolescents for about 4 years. From the time they were 13 until the time they were 17. The end of adolescents came when they had a job and were functioning as adults in the society that they lived in. In a society where the elite went to college and the regular student would work, adolescence ended much earlier. As the years have gone by (from the 1950’s until now) the age of adolescence has expanded. Now, there is a pre adolescence that we are discussing and a post adolescence instead of just adolescence. As we examine students today, we see that they really aren’t “allowed” to become adults (making decisions, having responsibility in the money world, marriage, etc) until they are 25-27. After they have gone through college, which our culture basically mandates each student go to, they begin their final trek towards adulthood. But why don’t they want to be in this adulthood stage? Our culture has indicated that adulthood is all about trying to be an adolescent again. Our popular culture has told it’s viewers that the ultimate goal of the older adult is to be younger again. Adolescents look at this “stage” of life and say, “I’m already in adolescence…I could just as well stay right here in this stage.”

“Be content with such things as you have for he has said he will never leave nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5. As a “post adolescent” that is quickly moving into adulthood, I must embrace adulthood. It’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a great time in life to make transitions into the next stage of life. We often celebrate younger kids that are 12 moving on into their teen years, but we forget to celebrate and be excited about the jump from adolescence to adulthood. In various cultures, there is a celebration that occurs that lets the adolescent know that they have officially crossed over into adulthood. I wonder what would happen if we do this? Would our adolescents struggle with identity as much as they do? Would we have as many 25, 26, 27 year olds trying to figure out this thing called adulthood? Or would adolescence understand the end of adolescence completely and be ready to embrace the next stage of life? I believe so. If you are a parent of an adolescent, how will you begin to transition them into the level of adulthood that we desire them to be in our culture?

I wanted to mention briefly that I believe in this generation of adolescence. Maybe it’s because I am an optimist. Maybe it’s because I am part of the generation and want it to be good, I don’t know…But here are some thoughts that I have been wrestling with when it comes to this generation. Generation Y is an incredibly passionate generation. But they are not just passionate. They desire to be passionate with a foundation. If they don’t have a basis of passion, they will retreat from the passion that they feel. They want to be grounded in what they are passionate about. They really are reeling from the lack of absolute truth that they find around them .When there is no absolute truth, all of a sudden they don’t know what to be passionate about. They don’t know what to believe in and that is a scary place for anyone to believe in. One of the scariest marks of this generation I the compartmentalization of everything. Everything is really in a different sector and is thought about as such. When a student thinks about school, they think about being one certain way. When they think about church, they might think about being another way. This is not a problem for the student to wrap their heads around. For those that are observing, it is a problem. Other generations fail to understand why adolescents are “different” in every venue that they become a part of. What is observed seems schizophrenic. And the reality is, it is. And I think that it is time to embrace the schizophrenia and time to begin kids help transition from that. Students are simply attempting to figure out who they really are and how they really should behave. How can we help to coach this instead of simply stepping back and criticizing it?

I believe in the generation that I work with. I believe that they are ready to take the world that they live in. They are a compassionate generation. They are a generation that wants to believe in something. They are a passionate generation. And if the body of Christ is truly doing it’s job, the next generation, generation Y will truly come to grips with what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ.

God, let me be a fully devoted follower of you in everything that I do!

By the way, if you are reading this...I would appreciate any questions, comments or snide remarks. :)