Debbie Veknotico, age 12, of Garden Grove, California, for her question:
What does the word adolescence mean?
Judging from Andy's mail, his pen pals are feeling distressed, aggravated and bewildered by all the popular prattle about this so called generation gap. Last week he tried to soothe the touchy topic for the fourth graders. But naturally the teenage adolescents shoulder the largest share of the conflict and they often get the smallest share of consideration.
To a 12 year old on the doorstep of adolescence, this word has a proud, exciting ring. We borrowed it from the Latin word for growing up. Naturally, a person should leave room for extra growth in the mental and emotional departments throughout life. But experts reserve the term adolescence for the teenage years, or about one tenth of one's total life span. After all, this period is crowded with growth problems in almost all departments. The body puts the finishing touches on its physical growth. The mind is ready to survey the world and figure relationships, to form opinions and reach sound decisions. This is a large order. What's more, a sudden surge of emotions arrive at this time of life and usually do their best to becloud a young person's good judgement.
During adolescence, the body presents one with the equipment to hand on life to your children. This dynamic gift brings a bewildering new array of urgent impulses, notions and emotions. No wonder many adolescents feel confused, often without knowing why. The trick is self management. But a sensible member of the human race knows that this is far from easy.
The key word for the project is balance. As a small child, one lives in a world of helpful giants. With adolescence, one enters a taller world toting a bundle of Lilliput notions and emotions. For a while, the patterns of childhood tangle with the taller points of view. But one by one the habits of Lilliput are or should be ¬outgrown. One reviews the advantages of grown up viewpoints and decides to accept them. This type of balanced self management is easier when one treats oneself with a large helping of understanding even when others fail to give a friendly boost. As a rule, adolescence seems like a hurry scurry period of fascinations and frustrations. But the number of growing up problems is limited and they remain hectic only until one solves them. As each one is solved, a person becomes more and more serene. After a while, one can indeed exchange the old habits of Lilliput for proem up attitudes of self reliance and kindly understanding on a world wide scale. One is encouraged to proceed and even pause to enjoy the hectic, hurry scurry ups and downs of adolescence. After all, a person has only a few years to experience this vivid phase of life.
A teenager often feels torn between two opposing worlds. One wants to forget the younger folk and certain older folk seem to enjoy shooting one down. But feelings of belonging to a separate, unique generation merely widen the gaps. One is less likely to feel this way if one treats oneself with kindly consideration. It so happens that a teenager is keenly aware of both childhood and adult problems. This should put one is a perfect position to soothe the strifes and bridge the gaps between other age groups.