Are we giving adolescents the wrong foundation to carry them through life?

2015-09-05T10:39:39-04:00

Taking away responsibility from adolescents, not providing proper monitoring and structure in order to allow them to avoid the responsibilities and consequecnces of adult life has led to a culture of adolescents in which drug use, sexually transmitted diseases, cheating is rampant. We need to stop this social experiment and have them rapidly assume the roles and responsibilities of adults, with your supervision.

Do not kid yourself into thinking you know what is going on in your teenager's life, because you ask them questions and check on their grades. Trust me they have lives all their own, they're not sharing things with you which they know would prevent them from being able to go out with their friends or participate in extracurricular activities. Ask any law enforcement officer, child services officer, or other person who has to deal with their issues on a regular basis.

Does your child have their own cell phone, Facebook, twitter, snapchat, line, ....or other account? When was the last time you had them hand over their phone and you checked to see what is in those messages? So you want to argue with me and say you don't want to invade their privacy, upset them, .... To that I say it's about brain development. Adolescents brains are not developed, parts of the brain responsible for more "top-down" control, controlling impulses, and planning ahead—the hallmarks of adult behavior—are among the last to mature.
This is the reason we must monitor. It's a tough time consuming job.

http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-health-topics/substance-abuse/home.html

The Office of Adolescent Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

The Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) coordinates adolescent health programs and initiatives across the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services related to adolescent health promotion and disease prevention

Response by SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL made Sep 5 at 2015 10:57 AM

2015-09-05T10:57:14-04:00

CPT Private RallyPoint Member I think it's a double edge sword: social media vs. realism in todays world. I think it's good to have technology, but when it comes to discipline its another story. We must maintain discipline to stay grounded.

Response by Cpl James Waycasie made Sep 5 at 2015 11:15 AM

2015-09-05T11:15:40-04:00

We all want our children to have better lives than we had. The first Christmas I was old enough to have memories from, my Dad whittled a gun out of wood and my grandfather whittled a little box shaped car. That and an apple, orange, a couple of pecans, and a peanut butter flavored candy stick was my first Christmas. At 3 yrs old , myself and my sister (4yrs) helped my mother and Grandmother pick cotton. At 5yrs old my Grandfather was teaching me and working me in the garden. All they bought at the store was salt , pepper, and coffee. We raised hogs, chickens, and had a couple of cows for milk. Vegetables were harvested and canned from the garden, corn was taken to the mill to be ground into corn meal. Hunting for rabbit, squirrel, and quail for extra meat was common. Things were more simple, we had less, but shared and loved more. It seems that trying to improve our children lives may have backfired on us.

Response by SPC Jan Allbright, M.Sc., R.S. made Sep 5 at 2015 11:23 AM

2015-09-05T11:23:22-04:00

It is important to remember that Adolescents are incapable of what we consider rational thought. These portions of the brain (Prefrontal Cortex) do not fully develop until age 25!

Response by Capt Seid Waddell made Sep 5 at 2015 11:33 AM

2015-09-05T11:33:36-04:00

Just ran into this article, and it seems to fit here:

"People enter this world with a childish desire to have their every need met. They have an innate desire to exercise unchecked freedom of expression. There is no physical DNA in a child that leads to the involuntary maturation of their personal character. Children have to be taught to share, and to care for others. At the very heart of parenting is a parent at war with the heart of a rebel.

The unchecked freedom of a child’s heart leads to nothing less than granting to them a license to kill, steal and destroy. When no moral virtue exists in the heart of a parent or child, neither one will exercise self-restraint."

Freedom without self-restraint breeds a culture of license.
http://americanrenewalproject.com/2014/12/freedom-without-self-restraint-breeds-a-culture-of-license/

Freedom without self-restraint breeds a culture of license.

Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is he who keeps the law.” Proverbs 29:18 Recent events have tempted many preachers to trade biblically accurate protein, for moral…

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 5 at 2015 12:33 PM

2015-09-05T12:33:50-04:00

To let them have an "up to date" life from what I had, has limits. I barely had anything, but it fostered creativity. Where I need to ramp up parenting efforts is with emotional support. My parents were always relatively supportive, but 1980's and 1990's supportive won't be as effective in 2015 or beyond. My kids have to learn to function without massive amounts of technology, because I don't spend the little money I have like their friends parents do.

Response by CSM Carl Cunningham made Sep 6 at 2015 1:37 AM

2015-09-06T01:37:33-04:00

I see this from a different perspective CPT Private RallyPoint Member. It is worse than taking away responsibility. We are not even empowering children to make proper decisions or showing we trust them. My wife and I tried to organize a night for teens to go together, without parents, to the movies on our installation. It is small enough for the kids to walk there too. We had zero takers....now I am not going to say that did not have real excuses, but everyone was surprised we were going to let our children go alone. They are of legal age to move freely on post, and they all have ID cards. It should not be an issue, but I could tell there were very apprehensive parents...which I think led to excuses for their children not to attend.

Situations like above are part of the real lack of engagement parents have with their children, in my opinion of course. I think some parents want to shelter their children from the bad of the world instead of teaching them how to live in it. If they do not understand that their is bad things in the world, they will not know how to avoid or deal with those situations when they inevitably come along. This is why we just keep our circle of family friends small. We just think too different from the people we are exposed to. Just my thoughts.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 7 at 2015 6:14 PM

2015-09-07T18:14:52-04:00

It is interesting that you mention adolescent brains not being fully developed...I think this lack of development in terms of, specifically control and decision making, continues well into the early adult ages. I say this because of decisions I see regularly made by young Soldiers in my unit! In regards to the issue of our children, I fully agree with you. We, as parents, are responsible for much more than what we tend to take responsibility for! I have three Sons; 13, 11, and 7, and I believe that consistent communication, discipline, and a whole lot of daily interaction from both my wife and I build a strong foundation for them to come to terms with our decisions of limiting and / or supervising the use of electronics. Parenting is tough but I think "we" (society) need much more improvement on it!