rebelling against low expectations
What’s harder than doing hard things? Doing hard things and failing. In response to my article, My First Shower Nearly Killed Me, a reader named Gracie commented, “The hardest part is when you keep pushing yourself harder and harder, and you still fail. I put so much of myself into this one thing and I still failed.” Maybe you can relate. Like Gracie you’re not really...
One of the most common expectations our society has for teenagers is that we are incurably rebellious. Indeed, it was the “storm and stress” model of young adulthood that served as the foundation for the modern concept of adolescence, sparking the cultural redefinition of the teen years in the first half of the 1900s. But like so many of the culture-shaping psychological studies of...
We’ve all been asked the question, “Are you willing to lose your life for Christ?” Perhaps we’ve heard it from our youth pastor, our parents, asked ourselves while reading Voice of the Martyrs, or read or watched a Christian book or movie which revolves around the question. As emotionally invasive and as spiritually relevant as that question is, I often find myself...
When Alex and I were invited to speak to a church youth group while we were in Alabama. We were excited to have an opportunity to share some of the ideas we’d been developing here on the blog, including “The Myth of Adolescence” and “Ruining Our Lives With Fun.” The day of the “event,” Alex and I worked a long day at the Supreme Court, hopped in the...
As an encouragement to our new readers to take advantage of our “past series” on the sidebar, we post the following installment from our series “Rise of the Kidult.” Enjoy. Moe is a stereotypical American teenager who enjoys multi-annual vacations, has a computer and television in his room, and spends 32+ hours per week playing video games and watching television. Not only...
I often worry about young people today who place much of their hope for happiness in items, activities, and pursuits that are inherently short-lived. Whether it’s our physical appearance, our high school sports career, or our wild and carefree lifestyle, we tend to attach excessive importance to passing pleasures and then react negatively to the fact that they are unsustainable. We end up being...
This post was written by Marshall Sherman. “If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always had.” That quote rings true not only throughout time, but throughout generations. It applies not only to adults, but to teens. A lot of times teens do the same thing and expect different results. It doesn’t work that way! You can’t plant an apple seed, and...
In response to my recent post, “Kidults: Choosing To Grow Up,” Lauren, one of our faithful readers, posted the following request: “Today one of my friends and I were talking after school… At one point he said, “What if I don’t want to grow up? What if I want to stay a kid for the rest of my life? I just want to have fun.” Immediately this made me think of what you wrote on this post. I wasn’t...
In the late 90’s hit single, “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen),” Baz Luhrmann offers sage advice in a unique and catchy graduation-ceremony-put-to-music format. He begins by telling his listeners to wear sunscreen, because the benefits are “well-documented by scientists.” The rest of the advice, he tells us, “has no source more reliable” than his own “meandering experience.” (If you didn’t...
In response to Brett’s recent post, Guess What? Adolescence Is Permanent, one of our readers, Allegra, made the following comment: I find what you guys said scary. I myself am still a younger teenager, but I dread growing up. For some reason, I have it in my head that growing up is one of the worst things that can happen to someone. This idea probably comes from observing kids my age or just a...
rebelling against low expectations
