Nov. 2014
Dr.
I’ve called attention to what I call the ‘Epidemic of Immaturity’ in the past few years. In doing so I stressed how I believe that our young people are more talented and informed than ever. In spite of their talent and knowledge many forces determine that immaturity continues to pervade the current generation of young people and generations to come. Certainly, there are exceptions as we see our young people accomplish amazing things with their talent.
Since I have been speaking about immaturity I’ve been asked why? What’s to blame? Who’s to blame? Parents? Schools?
Society? The Internet? Media? Technology?
Well, the answer is multi-determined and multifaceted. All of these forces and more create this veil of immaturity that covers our young people in this current generation and will do so for generations in the foreseeable future.
In other Memos (Vol.26 No.’s 2 + 3) I have discussed the nature of this epidemic and what schools and parents can do to help young people. In this Memo my goal here is to point out the understanding that immaturity often unintentionally acts as a coping mechanism in young people. Think about this. If I (teen-child) act, think, emote immaturely, then I will not have to take on the stresses and pressures of adult life. I keep the adult world away from demanding that I become adultlike. I can postpone this for now and stay within the safe, comfortable cocoon of childhood.
How does this help us? Well, like many coping mechanisms in life, to help an individual we don’t jump right in and try to erase this coping mechanism because if we do there can be disastrous effects. Coping mechanisms are in place to protect us from anxiety, fear, stress, and emotional turmoil. Remove them without other tools in place and the person can be broken.
If we continually approach immaturity as always negative in a young person’s life then we will not be successful at the goal of leading the youth into maturity. Break this coping mechanism prematurely and you increase the chances for this youth to act-out with poor school performance, alienation, psychological disturbance violence, drug abuse or gang activity.
So, five huge takeaways from this Memo: 1-Understand that immature behavior in young people is commonplace today. 2-
Immaturity is not our enemy-it helps young people cope with the stresses of today’s world. 3- We build MATURITY in young people by replacing immature behaviors, thoughts, and emotions with alternatives that work for them. 4- This process from immaturity to maturity can be slow and takes patience from the adult world. 5- Stop addressing immaturity as an insult, a negative and start understanding immaturity as a coping mechanism of the not quite fully developed human being.
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twist to explain the vampire legend and An Anger at Birth the story of a raging teen time-bomb and how we fail to help teens at-risk