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  Brent Castillo  

Culture expects too little from teenagers

As we prepare to start another school year, all good parents hope it will be a successful one for their children.

Those of us with teenagers may want them to make the team, ace algebra and meet new friends. But some of us may be bracing for the new school year because our kid doesn't like school and gets into trouble.

It would be natural to chalk up these struggles to teenage rebellion or adolescent angst. But there is growing sentiment from young people that teens get in trouble and are aimless because our culture doesn't expect enough from them.

Two of them, Brett and Alex Harris, make a compelling case. The twin 19-year-old brothers coined the phrase "rebelution," which they say describes a "rebellion against low expectations." Their Web site, www.therebelution.com, features a blog that earned them international attention and led to the publication of their new book, "Do Hard Things."

"The 'Myth of Adolescence' is really our culture's view of the teen years as a vacation from responsibility, a time to goof off and have fun," Brett told the Web site Crosswalk.com. He said that goes against Christian principles and historical precedence.

I think they're onto something. I look back at a good portion of my teenage years as a waste of time. They were years that could have been productive, but I slacked off and spent a good portion of my 20s trying to break bad habits and learn things I already should have known.

On the twins' blog, Alex wrote that "prior to the late 1800s there were only three categories of age: childhood, adulthood and old age."

He contends that "adolescence" was created out of a mix of child labor laws and compulsory schooling. He says it's not a biological stage as much as it is a "cultural mindset."

He gives examples of what young people can do with proper expectations and motivations.

David Farragut, the U.S. Navy's first admiral, was a midshipman on a warship in 1810 at the age of 10. At the age of 12, he was given command of a captured ship to sail back to our country's shore. George Washington, who was never considered particularly bright by his peers, began to master geometry, trigonometry and surveying in his early teens. By 17, he was an official surveyor in a Virginia county, and making close to $100,000 a year (in modern purchasing power).

Farragut and Washington did the "hard things" that the Harris brothers are talking about.

They say there are five kinds of hard: Doing things that make us uncomfortable. Doing things that are beyond what's expected. Doing things that are too big to do alone. Doing things that don't immediately gratify. And taking a stand against the crowd.

This list would test any grown-up's mettle, too.

We don't need to be slave drivers to our kids, but let's raise our expectations of them. It will be a challenge, but our kids can do it, especially if we give them the tools to succeed, the margin to fail and do the hard things first.

Brent Castillo appears in Opinion on Thursdays. Reach him at bcopinion@gmail.com.