One of the conversations that I find myself having more and more often is related to the maturity of our young people, or rather what seems like their lack. When I considered this early on in my career, just like many I felt as though the solution was to help students grow up faster. Like that works. The reality of the matter is that we each mature and grow at our own pace and time and that is based on a number of factors. We cannot simply put an age on different development points that fit for all people. Research has helped us narrow it down and get very close in understanding the behavior and characteristic of overall ages, but it seems that more and more those traditional characteristics that we learned in Basic Psychology 101 do not fit. These characteristics seem to fit with an error range of +/- 3 years in both the physical and emotional development of kids. Although that kind of margin of error may not seem to be a lot, within the education world it is huge. What that means in my mind is that a 12 year old entering 7th grade in my building could behave and have needs anywhere from what would be characteristic of a 9 year old all the way to a 15 year old. That is a huge range of possible needs and variables What is happening?

Over the past few years, I have been especially observant of not just the emotional maturity of the young people that I work with but also their physical maturity. At the middle school level, students come in all sizes but I have in fact noticed an increase in students who have yet to hit those middle school age growth spurts and developmental marks. The truth is when we think about this in a larger context, it actually makes sense and can possibly be viewed as a positive sign if we choose to allow it. As our society has moved to a healthier diet and parents are utilizing more natural and organic products, kids are consuming less things that push unnaturally early development. As a parents I would like to say that the more we have learned, the better decisions we have made about many of the factors that impact the growth and development of our kids. It seems as though this slower development and maturity may be a positive result that has gotten a bad wrap.

When we think back to the Vietnam era and before, 18 year olds were headed off to war. I jokingly ask people as I discuss this topic, can you imagine the average 18 year old going to war now? For many of our young people it is hard to imagine them even going off to college alone at 18. We still push these paths as proper and many young people still do a fine job of tackling these challenges, but there are a number that do not and it often marks the beginning of a very difficult path emotionally, as well as for their future education and employment. Maybe we need to rethink this and reconsider what we define as adulthood and explore a different path in helping our young people mature. Why are we in such a rush to have our kids grow up and who said 18 was the magic age? That may be the extent of how long we feel we can tolerate them at times in spite of our love, but I believe we can all agree that for the average 18 year old, that age does not represent an age of adulthood in the maturity, development and overall preparedness of our kids within today’s society.

What does this mean and what can be done? From my perspective as an educator, one of the biggest things that it means is that I have to adjust some of my practices and beliefs as it relates to the kids that I service. This is true in what I expect them to do and how I help them gain independence in successfully performing those tasks. I operate under the belief that no one wants to fail but some people do not have the strength, tools and/or knowledge to succeed. There are times, especially in the school environment, when intentional failure is simply easier and less painful than unintentional failure. When a child or young person is not feeling confident in their ability to find success, it often becomes the easier path to just not try. How does this all relate to this topic of development? Some of the characteristics required to simply manage all of the responsibilities of life, especially at the secondary level, becomes difficult for our less mature kids. They can build habits and learn how to organize themselves and develop healthy coping skills within more demanding environments, but for the most part as a society we do a lot of hand holding and coddling of our young people at the elementary level and below only to expect them to be responsible pretty much right away when they enter the next. Where is the middle ground and acknowledgement of the declining maturity?

I can almost hear the complaints right now in folks feeling as though I am saying that we should not push our kids to be responsible. That is not what I am saying, but rather I am promoting a greater level of tolerance and time for it. I am suggesting that we spend more time instructing and guiding and less time focused on the negative aspects of this dynamic. Some kids will need to practice a skill twice that another may need 100 repetitions to master, and both are ok. Some kids may need help periodically staying organized while others never need any assistance at all. My point is that each of these needs and situations are ok and developmentally appropriate for kids of a variety of ages and it is time we simply accept that. It’s OK to Slow Down!