Teens are transitioning from children into adults. It is an amazing transformation. In that remarkable journey, one nagging question looms large: At what age does a teenager become an adult? The question is more difficult to answer than it appears. For example, at what age does the government believe you are old enough to drive a car (16 or 17 depending on the state)? When can you vote (18)? When can you drink alcohol (21)? How about renting a car (25)? Or becoming president (35)? How old do you need to be to take the adult dose of most medicine (12)? How old do you have to be to pay the full adult fare on United Airlines (2)?
See what I mean?
Many people view adolescence as a separate stage of life, but that may not be true. There may be only two main stages of life: childhood and adulthood with adolescence a transition period between these two stages. The problem is adolescence is getting longer.
Before 1900, puberty (as measured by when a girl had her first menstrual cycle) occurred at age 14 or 15. Pre-1900, most people believed you became an adult at 16, which meant adolescence lasted only 18 months. Today, a girl’s first period on average comes around midway through her 10th year. We don’t know why this is, but it could be part biological and part cultural. Most people today don’t consider a person an adult until his or her mid-20s. This makes adolescence now more than 15 years in duration. This is an alarming transition.
The other huge transition is the tremendous physical changes that are happening during the teen years: drastic growth spurts, (six inches in a year), acne, pubic hair. Boys are adding rapid muscle development, deeper voices, facial hair, erections and nocturnal emissions. Girls’ hips are widening, breasts are forming.
Youth workers have to ask, “How can we help students though this time?”
Hints from Native Americans
I always have felt the Native American tribes handled this time of life the best. Their cultures celebrated this transition, creating rites of passage for boys and girls in transition. Boys were sent on a hunt for a couple of weeks. When the child was on the hunt, his parents would sit around in the evening and say to one another, “Do you hear anything?” and the other would say, “No,” and they would both giggle and enjoy the quiet for a few days. When the boy returned, the tribe would give him a new name and recognize him as becoming a young man.
When a Native American girl had her first period, the tribe celebrated the event and recognized her as becoming a young woman. Can you imagine doing this today? “Hey Julie had her period today. Period party at Julie’s house!” Julie would die of embarrassment. (I am not suggesting we do this, by the way).
We don’t have to adopt the Native American approach, but we can seek to understand our own context and learn what our students are struggling with during the transition from child to adult. We can help create transition celebrations such as these and serve as the voice of truth and reason for them, as well as for their parents.
Perspective for Youth Ministry
These changes have huge ramifications for youth ministry. In this time, students’ lives are emotional roller coasters. They move sometimes quickly from crying to laughing. It is either Mount Everest or Death Valley emotionally. It is not as if they are one way one day and another the next—their moods change minute by minute.
As we lead students through these transitions, the key is not to take any of their emotional turbulence personally. Don’t beat yourself up, and remember there’s no need to treat teens as children, no need to talk down to them, no need to manage their lives for them. We need to treat our teens less as children and more as the adults they are becoming by not talking down to them and not trying to micro-manage their lives.
We must be wise voices for students, knowing the culture in which they live, understanding the struggles they’re living through, and being the guides they desperately need.
