The Promise and Peril of Coming of Age in the 21St Century

THE PROMISE AND PERIL OF COMING OF AGE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Daniel Lapsley University of Notre Dame

The second decade of life is a transition that mental casualties are most likely to pile up and poses unique developmental challenges for it is a pressing challenge for educators and adolescents, and also for their families and families to figure out ways to mobilize the teachers, and how well adolescents negotiate resources of students and schools so that the this transition will have important implications middle school years are an opportunity to for later outcomes across the life course. Com- “meet and match the moment of hope”—to ing of age, acquiring the status and trappings borrow Winnicott’s (1992, p. 309) beautiful of adulthood, unfolds over many years, easily expression—where the aspirations of young- a decade or longer, and so we have the problem sters are matched with educational experiences in 21st century America of what to do with that meet their developmental needs and put biologically mature young people whose cog- them on the trajectory to responsible adulthood nitive, psychological and social competence (Eccles, 2004; Eccles & Roeser, 2013). has not fully arrived to take up the challenges But the trajectory to responsible adulthood of modern life. will face a second developmental challenge as The transition to early adolescence has spe- adolescents face the third decade of life. The cial significance (Carnegie Council on Adoles- culturally standard script marking the transi- cent Development, 1995). The ages 10 to 14, tion to adulthood has been shredded so that tra- or roughly the period that spans the middle ditional signs of adulthood are no longer clear school years, is a crucial juncture for setting guideposts for the achievement of adult status. youngsters on pathways that lead to productive Turning 18, for example, or making certain integration within the adult role structure of role transitions, such as getting married or fin- society. But it does not always turn out that ishing one’s education, do not reliably indicate way for a distressing number of youngsters, for that adult status has been reached. Rather, early adolescence is also a time when develop- adulthood is thought a matter of accepting

Daniel Lapsley, PhD, is the ACE Collegiate Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology and Coordinator of Aca- demic Programs in the Alliance for Catholic Education at the University of Notre Dame. E-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Character Education, Volume 10(1), 2014, pp. 13–22 ISSN 1543-1223 Copyright © 2014 Information Age Publishing, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 14 Journal of Character Education Vol. 10, No. 1, 2014 responsibility, deciding on one’s own beliefs, roles, postures, self-presentation and identity. establishing a sense of equality with parents, They desire acceptance, popularity and friend- and gaining financial independence (Arnett, ship, long for intimacy, and yet engage in pat- 2001). Even by the mid-twenties adult status is terns of peer exclusion or meanness or not necessarily in reach for many young peo- bullying, seeming to deny to others what they ple. Some developmental scientists believe most want for themselves, and possibly to that a new stage of development, called emerg- advance those very ends (Dijkstra, Linden- ing adulthood (Arnett, 2004) characterizes this berg, & Veenstra, 2008; Prinstein & Cillessen, part of the lifespan, which means that even 2003; Rose & Swenson, 2009). after one successfully negotiates the develop- But it is not all preening vulnerability. Ado- mental tasks of adolescence, there is still much lescence is also marked by idealism and opti- work to do before adulthood is reached. mism and rising self-esteem, by a sense of Coming of age, then, faces two develop- loyalty and devotion to friendship that is mental hurdles. This article has several objec- touching, and by a readiness to volunteer and tives. First, I outline in broad strokes the to take up the good cause. Young adolescents promise and peril of these two formative are introspective and creative—possibly at no developmental transitions: the transition to other time will adolescents be as in touch with adolescence and the transition to adulthood. I their inner life, becoming, as a result, avid next describe a conceptual framework for poets, diarists, songwriters and other examples making sense of these developmental chal- of the creative impulse. lenges and for guiding educational interven- Some of the characteristics of adolescence, tions. Third, I illustrate the application of this then, point in two directions: one toward prom- framework for understanding the middle ise, and the other toward peril. Pubertal matu- school shift in early adolescence and for iden- ration is a good example of the promise and tity work in emergent adulthood. I conclude peril of early adolescence. It is the onset of with observations about character education puberty that is the most visible sign that one’s and how best to meet and match the moment of childhood is being left behind. The hormonal hope for young people facing the modern chal- and physiological changes that accompany lenges to coming of age. puberty, the growth spurt, and the transforma- tion of the child’s body into an adult form are physical changes that push development on PROMISE AND PERIL many fronts. It forces young adolescents to revisit their self-image, to come to grips with There is something fascinating about the sexuality, and with a wide range of socioemo- preening vulnerability of young adolescents. tional experiences. Pubertal maturation also On the one hand they are self-absorbed and provokes reactions in others—parents grant self-conscious, mortified about being embar- more privacy, teachers give more responsibil- rassed or the target of rumor, concerned about ity, peers seek one out as friend or romantic their public self to the point of shyness, but partner –all of which complicates the usual also prone to showing off, exhibitionism and pattern of interaction that was common during clowning. They are critical of adults and slaves the long years of childhood. to peer opinion. They demand to be taken seri- But if the promise of pubertal maturation is ously, to be consulted, to have a fair measure that it sculpts the body into adult forms and of autonomy, but take surprising risks and brings about sexual and social maturity, with exercise poor judgment. They are conforming all this entails with respect to growing up and but reject conventionality. They insist on coming of age, it also holds peril to the extent authenticity, value honesty, and detest fakes that it induces a significantly negative self- and and phonies, all the while experimenting with body image, or is a signal for increased con- The Promise and Peril of Coming of Age in the 21st Century 15 flict with parents, or it comes early or late with meaningful and satisfying relationships (Laps- respect to peers. ley, 2010). Take brain maturation as another example. In other words, the desire for agency must There is a 3000-fold increase in the speed of not lead to isolation or come at the expense of synaptic transmission as a result of the matura- our simultaneous need for communion, bond- tion of the adolescent brain, resulting in greater ing, and connection to others. By the same connectivity and integration of neural circuitry token our desire for attachment and commu- across regions of the brain (Spear, 2010). This nion cannot be so total that the sense of self processing speed and connectivity surely becomes enmeshed and smothered by our rela- underwrites the expansion of cognitive abili- tionships. We cannot become our relationships ties and the capacity for learning during early but aim instead for being an individuated self adolescence. But there is peril, too. For early who has them (Kegan, 1982). Working out the brain maturation also involves functional dialectics of self-in-relationship will take time changes to the limbic system involving recep- to get right, and uneven progress in mastering tors for two important neurotransmitters, dopa- this developmental challenge should account mine and serotonin. Both are involved in the for a fair share of the angst of adolescence. experience of emotions—dopamine for the The calibration of social distance in experience of reward and serotonin for the self-other relationships is a creative, iterative, experience of moods. As a result of these and dynamic process that is crucial to how and changes teenagers are more emotional, mood- whether we flourish and live well the life that ier, more responsive to stress, than they were is good for us to live. Indeed, the tension as children, and more likely to engage in between agency and communion is so funda- reward seeking and sensation seeking, particu- mental that it has been called the duality of larly when in the company of peers (Steinberg, human existence (Bakan, 1966) because it is 2008; Steinberg et al., 2008). Undoubtedly, around themes of agency and communion that some reward seeking and sensation seeking of much of our lives take meaning, and not just in early adolescence is completely adaptive and adolescence. The peril is that an attempt to appropriate, and we should hope that it finds become an individuated self in the context of outlet in our classrooms and schools, in chal- mutually validating relationships might result lenging curricula, for example, and the experi- instead in dysfunctional forms of indepen- ence of school membership, because if not in dence or of dependence (Kins, Beyers, & Soe- schools there are certainly other contexts nens, 2013). Pervasive difficulty in regulating where risk-taking and sensation seeking could social distance and intimacy lies at the core of pose considerable peril. personality disorders (Tackett, Baliss, Olt- A third example of promise and peril is manns, & Krueger, 2009), and it is worth spec- more psychological and involves the challenge ulating that this sort of self-other pathology of becoming an agentic, independent, and may well have its developmental roots in indi- autonomous self. Individuation is, in my opin- viduation gone wrong. ion, the heartbeat of adolescent development. Fortunately, we know how to encourage It requires a distancing or separation from healthy individuation. It is encouraged by childish dependencies on parents. It requires emotionally close family relationships where increasing the range of autonomous function- parents acknowledge and respect the individu- ing and the construction of a sense of selfhood ality of the child and where they avoid behav- and identity on what seems like independent iors that intrude, exploit, or manipulate it footing. But the trick is that independence, (Barber, 1996, 2002). Parents who enable indi- emotional autonomy, and self-governance viduation provide structure and make demands must be affirmed without giving in to isolation for maturity but have open, warm lines of com- or to individualism so rugged that it is absent munication. Much like a good teacher, they 16 Journal of Character Education Vol. 10, No. 1, 2014 scaffold teens’ ideas by questions and explana- the timing of transitions to adulthood, cannot tions and they tolerate differences. In contrast, be understood without reference to broad intrusive, psychologically controlling, and sociocultural and historical forces. The con- overprotective parents constrain teens’ indi- tours of adolescence as a developmental viduality and almost resent it. They devalue or moment in the lifespan, and the formation of a denigrate independent thinking, cut off dis- new phase of emerging adulthood right before agreement, and have lower tolerance for differ- our eyes, have deep sources in the churn of ences. In such poorly differentiated families economic life. Even biological processes asso- the emerging autonomy striving of the adoles- ciated with the onset of puberty are responsive cent is almost seen as a betrayal of the family to life history factors such as the availability of (Gavazzi & Sabatelli, 1990). Not surprisingly, calories in childhood (Ellis, 2004; Ellis & adolescents whose parents enable emotional Essex, 2007) or the quality of family life (Bel- and behavioral autonomy are more individu- sky, Steinberg, & Draper, 1991; Belsky, Stein- ated, have better identity and a healthier profile berg, Houts, & Halpern-Felsher, 2010). It is of psychosocial competence. Adolescents not possible to understand any dimension of whose parents constrain autonomy show a adolescent development without reference to much poorer profile of adjustment (Allen, the social context in which it unfolds. This will Hauser, O’Connor, Bell, & Eickholt, 1996). come to have important implications for how The lesson is that individuation requires we understand character and the design of relationships of a certain kind. Authentic effective character education, as we will see. autonomy is also deeply relational, and so the The developmental systems paradigm duality of agency and communion must be attempts to model the complexity of develop- held in creative tension. Agency is enabled in mental processes. It locates the developing families where communion is strong. Children person at the intersection of overlapping sys- are more likely to adopt and internalize expec- tems that exists at multiple levels (Lerner, tations, values, and goals when parents are 2006). Person variables and contextual vari- nurturing and supportive so that the quality of ables interact dynamically in complex ways the relationship comes to have motivational and both are mutually implicated in behavior. properties. The lesson is the same for The “developmental manifold,” as Gottlieb schools—schools that are experienced by stu- (2007) puts it, includes genetic and neural dents as caring communities are a context activity, biological systems, physical, rela- where healthy individuation is most likely to tional and cultural influences of the external develop. And teacher practices enable agency environment, all exerting reciprocal influence (or constrain it) just as surely as parent prac- across levels of the manifold. Developmental tices do, and the quality of these relationships achievements have biopsychosocial explana- also has motivational properties (Berkowitz & tions. “It is both child and parent,” writes Sam- Bier, 2005; Wentzel, 2002). eroff (2010, p. 7) “but it is also neurons and neighborhoods, synapses and schools, proteins and peers, and genes and government.” DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS This conceptual framework changes dra- PERSPECTIVE matically the terms of reference for enduring debates about the relative influence of nature The challenge of individuation underscores the and nurture (Sameroff, 2010). Nature and nur- fact that trajectories of individual development ture are not disjunctive or dichotomous are refracted within families, schools and other sources of influence. They are not competing contexts. For that matter the very nature of sources of explanation. Instead genetic and adolescence itself, including its emergence as environmental factors are fused as a unit, a developmental phase and its duration, and dynamically interactive, and jointly implicated The Promise and Peril of Coming of Age in the 21st Century 17 in the realization of all phenotypes. The sition to early adulthood. Transitions often emerging interest in epigenetics reveals just provoke a reorganization of developmental how exquisitely the genome responds to envi- processes in a way that invites promise or ronmental factors. Stress, diet, behavior, quali- peril. In some instances, a transition provides a ties of caregiving, toxins, and other factors new opportunity to remake oneself, to alter activate chemical switches that turn portions of peer reputation, or to stretch one’s abilities or the genome on and off. Gene-environment aspirations by taking on stage-appropriate interactions are pervasive and underwrite challenges. We grow in our judgment, matu- developmental processes of all kinds (Gottlieb, rity and self-regulation, in our capacity for 2007). friendship and intimacy, in our ability to love, Development takes place, then, at the inter- work, and play. In other instances, a transition section of persons and contexts. We cannot can have convulsive effects that impede for- understand how puberty influences self-image, ward movement on developmental tasks. The for example, until we understand something challenge of coming of age is mostly a matter about the context in which it is experienced, of surmounting the challenges that attend for example, in the context of dating or making important transitions. a school transition (Simmons & Blyth, 1987). The interplay of experiences in the contexts Whether hormones rage or whisper will of family, peer, schools, and neighborhood depend on pubertal timing and the range and will provide occasion for surmounting chal- kind of positive and negative life events that lenges across the entire developmental mani- adolescents encounter (Susman & Rogol, fold as a youngster makes the transition to 2004). Whether school transitions have a posi- early adolescence. There is a significant litera- tive or negative effect on young teenagers will ture on how the structure and function of depend on whether there is a good fit between schools must be adapted to meet the unique the teen’s psychological needs and the way developmental needs of young adolescents that schools are organized (Eccles, 2004). Stu- (Eccles & Roeser, 2013). Adolescents 10 to 14 dent motivation is not just a “person” variable, are not simply smaller or “junior” versions of it is not just a characteristic of the adolescent high school students but have emergent devel- but is something that interacts with teacher opmental needs that are not well met by the practices in the context of the classroom structures of traditional junior high schools. (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Similarly the stable For example requiring a school transition from behavioral signature associated with trait dis- elementary school to Grade 7 disrupts peer positions, including traits associated with char- networks just when peers take on a stronger acter and the moral dimensions of personality, focus for young adolescents. The sheer size of require contextual specification and are junior high schools, along with departmental- located at the intersection of person × context ized curriculum, limits the opportunity of interactions (Hill & Roberts, 2010; Lapsley & teachers to know students well. School prac- Hill, 2009). tices that emphasize competitive grading and social comparison, or limit opportunities for student leadership and decision making, tend TWO EXAMPLES: MIDDLE SCHOOL to exacerbate adolescent self-consciousness TRANSITIONS AND IDENTITY and frustrate the growing desire for increased DEVELOPMENT autonomy. Similarly, instructional practices that trade on lower level cognitive strategies The developmental systems paradigm serves collide with students’ expanding capacity for as backdrop to understanding challenges that learning. attend coming of age at two crucial moments, Eccles et al. (1993) argued that the middle the transition to early adolescence and the tran- school shift calls for a tighter stage-environ- 18 Journal of Character Education Vol. 10, No. 1, 2014 ment fit between the needs of youngsters at this lack of neighborhood safety and low parental stage of development and the institutional monitoring incrementally predicted externaliz- structures we create to receive them. Indeed, ing problems in seventh grade, with the great- poor fit undermines student motivation and est risk for youngsters in low monitoring achievement and has deleterious effects on homes in unsafe neighborhoods (Pettit, Bates, other psychosocial outcomes (Eccles, 2004). Dodge, & Meece, 1999). Disorganized neigh- Of course it has been known for a long time borhoods provide greater access to delinquent that early adolescence requires developmen- groups (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, tally responsive educational programming. 1997). So does tracking in school that keeps The middle school philosophy that touted disaffected, low-achieving or antisocial youth interdisciplinary team teaching, block sched- in homogenous groups (Eccles, 2004). ules, faculty advisors, and school transitions In an important study Sameroff, Peck, and that avoid puberty was supposed to be a cor- Eccles (2004) investigated whether ecological rective to the junior high school model (Carne- determinants of misconduct varied across tran- gie Council on Adolescent Development, sitions into middle school, into high school and 1995). into early adulthood. They found that each But it is by no means clear that changing ecological setting (family, peer, school, neigh- organizational structures is sufficient to borhood) was associated with conduct prob- improve stage-environment fit. Recent lems across adolescence (although research documents adverse consequences neighborhood effects tended to wash out after associated with the transition to middle school other variables were controlled). The associa- (Carolan & Chesky, 2012; Whitley & Lupart, tion of seventh grade conduct problems with 2007), with increasing calls to transform harsh parental discipline, inconsistent parental stand-alone elementary and middle schools control, and exposure to antisocial peers was into a K-8 configuration (Farmer, Hamm, particularly prominent. Yet, exposure to nega- Leung, Lambert, & Gravelle, 2011; West & tive peers was influential at all transitions; so Schwerdt, 2012). Other researchers urge less was the deleterious influence of harsh disci- focus on transitions and grade organization pline. Inconsistent behavioral control was and more on classroom quality, challenging influential at all transitions, save the transition curriculum, school size, and positive social to high school. So there were few unique pre- relationships between students and teachers dictors of conduct problems at these transition (Holas & Huston, 2012; Lee & Burkham, points, with two interesting exceptions. First, 2003). conduct problems were mitigated during the In addition to the challenge of schooling is transition to middle school when students felt the concern over the 10-fold increase in antiso- like they were “being treated fairly and cial behavior during adolescence (Moffitt, respected more for the quality of their school 1993). The spike in misconduct is so dramatic involvement than for their abilities” (Sameroff that some believe it is almost aberrant of teens et al., 2004, p. 883). Second, exposure to pro- to refrain. Such behavior is surely overdeter- social friends mitigated conduct problems over mined but making sense of it requires attention the transition to adulthood. Indeed, the authors to the complex interplay of family, peers, found that the positive and negative influence schools and neighborhood. For example, of peers was not clearly differentiated until unstructured peer activity without adult super- high school and that positive influences do not vision, especially at night, is associated with make an independent contribution to behav- many problems (Gage, Overpeck, Nansel, & ioral outcomes until youth make the transition Kogan, 2005), even in community recreation to early adulthood (Sameroff et al., 2004). centers (Mahoney, Stattin, & Lord, 2004).One The transition to early adulthood heralds study found that unsupervised peer contact, the challenge of identity formation. This was The Promise and Peril of Coming of Age in the 21st Century 19 not how it was supposed to happen. In structs. Exploration can take two forms, Erikson’s (1968) majestic theory, adolescence exploration-in-breadth and exploration-in- was the life stage reserved for identity work depth. The former involves gathering informa- while early adulthood was tasked with the tion about identity alternatives, while the latter challenges of intimacy and isolation. In his involves gathering information about one’s view, authentic intimacy is possible only when current commitments. Identity commitment partners commit to the relationship after first can also take two forms, commitment making securing their own firm sense of identity. Of (actually making commitments) and identifi- course, teenagers fall in love all the time, and cation-with-commitments, the latter coming yearn for intimacy and a sense of connection. close to the sort of identity that Erikson (1968) But even the deeply committed relationships had in mind. of steady daters will prove pseudointimate if On this account, identity is less a status and not anchored to an identity strong enough to more of a process that involves interwoven make plans for the future in a way that includes cycles of broad exploration and commitment each other, in a way strong enough to give the making with deep exploration and identifica- self away to the other and to the coupleship tion with commitments. But a third kind of without feeling depleted, anxious or smoth- exploration has also been identified called ered. Hence there was logic to Erikson’s “ruminative exploration”—the kind that (1968) epigenetic ground plan of lifespan describes the young adult stuck in perpetual development: first sort out identity issues in exploration—and it is associated with depres- adolescence, then commit to intimate relation- sive symptoms, anxiety and low self-esteem ships in early adulthood. Commit to a way of (Luyckx et al., 2008). The interwoven cycles being in the world (getting a job for example), of exploration and commitment, and the risk of and then get married. ruminative exploration, are the contemporary This might have been the way coming of challenge of coming of age in early adulthood. age unfolded generations ago but this has not been true for some time. The new phase of emerging adulthood confounds the timetable CONCLUSION so that in the 21st century young adults will continue to wrestle simultaneously with iden- This review of the promise and peril of coming tity and intimacy as concurrent developmental of age in adolescence and early adulthood challenges. The temptation, of course, is that reveals certain lessons when viewed through individuals will force premature resolution of the prism of developmental contextualism. their identity and intimacy work by foreclosing One lesson is that character education, to be on unsuitable life options or by taking pseu- effective, must be comprehensive, have multi- dointimacies to the altar. ple components, address overlapping ecologi- Indeed, for many young adults identity cal contexts, be implemented early, and be work does not come to easy closure. Emerging sustained over time (Lapsley & Yeager, 2013). adulthood extends the moratorium of identity A second is that effective character education exploration and complicates the formation of is not only an intervention or a curriculum or commitments. The modern economy is com- something that takes place in schools. Indeed, plex and presents a bewildering array of what happens in schools is deeply embedded options just when there are fewer reliable in overlapping systems of influence that guideposts for navigating the transition to the include family, peers, and neighborhood. adult role structure of society (Schwartz, Cote, But the contextualist perspective does pose & Arnett, 2005). Luyckx, Goossens, Soenens, special challenges for educators. The chal- and Beyers (2006) argue that identity explora- lenge for educators is how to adapt instruction tion and commitment are not unitary con- for a classroom of students for which there are 20 Journal of Character Education Vol. 10, No. 1, 2014 individual differences in level of development, the ecological complexities, then Masten’s ability, preparation and interest. Children are (2001) account of the “ordinary magic” of deeply embedded within multiple ecological resilience processes should give educators systems, and educators must contend with encouragement. In the end the most needful multiple sources of influence at different levels thing is not something exotic but ordinary. of organization. Consequently, instructional What adolescents need is at least one good lessons that focus only on “the child” without relationship with a caring adult in the family or addressing “context” will likely fail. Educa- community, the development of cognitive and tional planning that does not address the self-regulation skills, a positive view of the diverse developmental contexts represented by self, and a sense of one’s mastery and effec- students—their culture, ethnicity and life cir- tiveness. These are things within the reach of cumstances—will fall short of its objectives. educators. There is promise and peril in the On the other hand educational planning that transition to adolescence and emerging adult- focuses only on “context,” only on alterations hood, to be sure, but the way forward is to cre- to the “learning environment,” without taking ate opportunities for ordinary magic in the into account children’s individual differences, lives of youngsters by building and connecting will also fall short of the mark. 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