Picture: Free digital photos.net
Here’s another extract from the book ‘Noah’s Children’ by Sara Stein. Here she reflects on how adolescence for many is not a transition to adulthood, but an increasingly inward-looking culture of it’s own:
‘We have experienced an emphatic turning of children towards their peers. We have seen the emergence of idols not yet beyond their teens. We watch our children withdraw into other worlds along the malls and behind computer screens where we don’t – and they don’t let us – follow.
This is taking a great leap into the unprovable, but I would guess that the interminable stage of life we call adoloscence is, in fact, a halting of development in cultures where childhood endeavor is not rewarded by adulthood as children imagined it would be.’
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and the wider issues raised…
Old School Gardener
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Thought about this today. I think maybe we adults don’t look like what they want to emulate. Normal development at this age BUT perhaps they ( generally speaking) don’t trust us as role models. So many kids are put in day care at 6wks of age, then to pre-school, after school care, then into regular school. Parents taking them off to sports, music etc etc. Seems the kids are continually being turned over to someone else. Maybe they “miss” us with all our busyness. They’re creating their own tribe, family that they feel comfort with. Just my musings.
I listened to a young teenager vehemently discuss his heroes which were the members of a punk rock band. Really? I love technology and don’t ever want to go back to driving to the library to look at a ten-year old reference book to find an answer to a question, BUT the young folks are taking technology on as a way of life with no room for anything else. I think they are going to have a lot of neck pain, eye strain, hearing damage, carpal tunnel, no communication skills, absolutely no interest in the wonders of nature but they’ll have a lot of followers on Facebook, Twitter, etc, etc..
This is a phenomenum that is growing strongly as children and young adults are more and more influenced by a culture based on celebrity and designer image. We need kids back outside in the countryside and gardens.