"The word teenager has been around for less than seventy years.
"Prior to the early twentieth century and, really, throughout history, people were either children or adults. Family and work work were the primary occupations of the group we now call teenagers. In fact, in 1900 only one out of ten American young people between fourteen and seventeen years old attended high school....
"So what was it like to be a teen back then, before the idea of teens even existed? Good question. To answer it, we'd like to introduce you to three young people from different times in America's past. Their names are George, David, and Clara.
"George was born in northern Virginia in 1732 to a middle-class family. When he was eleven years old, he lost his father. Even though his peers never considered him very bright, he applied himself to his studies and mastered geometry, trigonometry, and surveying (think algebra and calculus) by the time he was sixteen.
"At seventeen years old, George had the chance to put his studies to use at his first job. Talk about a job! Official surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia. This wasn't a boy's job, and it certainly wasn't office work. For the next three years George endured the hardships of frontier life as he measured and recorded previously unmapped territories. His measuring tools were heavy logs and chains. George was a man at seventeen.
"David was born in 1801 near the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, where his father was serving in the state militia. At ten years old, David was given command of a ship that has been captured in battle and was dispatched with a crew to take the vessel and its men back to the United States. On the journey home, the captured British captain took issue at being ordered around by a twelve-year-old and announced that he was going below to get his pistols. (out of respect for his position, he had been allowed to keep them). David promptly sent him word that if he stepped foot on deck with his pistols, he would be shot and thrown overboard. The captain decided to stay below.
"Clara was born in Oxford, Massachusetts, on Christmas Day, 1821. She was the baby of the family, with ten years separating hew and the next youngest. She was a timid child, so terrified of strangers that she was hardly about to speak. Then something happened that would change her life forever. When she was eleven years old, her older brother David fell from the roof of a barn and was seriously injured. Young Clara was frantic and begged to help care for him.
"Once in the sickroom, Clara surprised everyone by demonstrating all the qualities of an experienced nurse. She learned better than anyone how to make her brother comfortable. Little by little, the doctor allowed her to take over all of his care, with his complete recovery lasting two years.
"A year later, at the age of fourteen, Clara became the nurse for her father's hired man, who had come down with small-pox, and then to more patients as the epidemic spread through the Massachusetts village where she lived. Still shy and timid, her desire to serve others drove her to overcome her fears. By age seventeen she was a successful schoolteacher with over forty students--some nearly as old as she.
"All three of these young people were given increasing levels of responsibility at early ages, and they not only survived, they rose to the occasion. Even more important, as the quote we shared from Professor Heer shows, at the time in which they lived, young men and women like them were not all that unusual." - Alex & Brett Harris in Do Hard Things
I don't believe that teenagers need to be working too hard and not being in school, but they need to be encouraged to go have passions that they can explore more than the latest fads. We need to raise their expectations of what they can do in these productive learning years. Letting them explore what they can do rather than keeping them down in the "teenager" expectation.
Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado. She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928.
"Prior to the early twentieth century and, really, throughout history, people were either children or adults. Family and work work were the primary occupations of the group we now call teenagers. In fact, in 1900 only one out of ten American young people between fourteen and seventeen years old attended high school....
"So what was it like to be a teen back then, before the idea of teens even existed? Good question. To answer it, we'd like to introduce you to three young people from different times in America's past. Their names are George, David, and Clara.
"George was born in northern Virginia in 1732 to a middle-class family. When he was eleven years old, he lost his father. Even though his peers never considered him very bright, he applied himself to his studies and mastered geometry, trigonometry, and surveying (think algebra and calculus) by the time he was sixteen.
"At seventeen years old, George had the chance to put his studies to use at his first job. Talk about a job! Official surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia. This wasn't a boy's job, and it certainly wasn't office work. For the next three years George endured the hardships of frontier life as he measured and recorded previously unmapped territories. His measuring tools were heavy logs and chains. George was a man at seventeen.
"David was born in 1801 near the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, where his father was serving in the state militia. At ten years old, David was given command of a ship that has been captured in battle and was dispatched with a crew to take the vessel and its men back to the United States. On the journey home, the captured British captain took issue at being ordered around by a twelve-year-old and announced that he was going below to get his pistols. (out of respect for his position, he had been allowed to keep them). David promptly sent him word that if he stepped foot on deck with his pistols, he would be shot and thrown overboard. The captain decided to stay below.
"Clara was born in Oxford, Massachusetts, on Christmas Day, 1821. She was the baby of the family, with ten years separating hew and the next youngest. She was a timid child, so terrified of strangers that she was hardly about to speak. Then something happened that would change her life forever. When she was eleven years old, her older brother David fell from the roof of a barn and was seriously injured. Young Clara was frantic and begged to help care for him.
"Once in the sickroom, Clara surprised everyone by demonstrating all the qualities of an experienced nurse. She learned better than anyone how to make her brother comfortable. Little by little, the doctor allowed her to take over all of his care, with his complete recovery lasting two years.
"A year later, at the age of fourteen, Clara became the nurse for her father's hired man, who had come down with small-pox, and then to more patients as the epidemic spread through the Massachusetts village where she lived. Still shy and timid, her desire to serve others drove her to overcome her fears. By age seventeen she was a successful schoolteacher with over forty students--some nearly as old as she.
"All three of these young people were given increasing levels of responsibility at early ages, and they not only survived, they rose to the occasion. Even more important, as the quote we shared from Professor Heer shows, at the time in which they lived, young men and women like them were not all that unusual." - Alex & Brett Harris in Do Hard Things
I don't believe that teenagers need to be working too hard and not being in school, but they need to be encouraged to go have passions that they can explore more than the latest fads. We need to raise their expectations of what they can do in these productive learning years. Letting them explore what they can do rather than keeping them down in the "teenager" expectation.
Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado. She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928.
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