Video Transcript: The Rise of Adolescence

Hello, I want to talk about the rise of adolescence. How did adolescence come  to be? I want to talk about adolescence understanding the identity stage of  human development. Now there's a history here. I mean, early theorists, they  didn't treat adolescence as a distinct stage of human development, and yet,  there were clues that there really, it really was a distinctive stage. Plato spoke of  education as that training which is given by suitable habits to the first instincts.  Written of virtue in children when pleasure and friendship and pain and hatred  are rightly implanted. And here it is in souls not yet capable of understanding the nature of them. Now Aristotle was he was more direct. He said they are  changeable and fickle in their desires, which are violent while they last, but  quickly over. Their impulses are keen but not deeply rooted. And so even though the term adolescence did not exist, there were clues that something was going  on at a certain period of life. Now in our history, there were threats confusion  that impacted our understanding of adolescence, probably the combination of  the Reformation and the response of the Enlightenment period to reformation  and particularly Darwin and his theories of evolution, the idea that God created  mankind in his image was repudiated by Darwin. His theories of biological  evolution removed the divine connection. So it defined mankind as a more  highly evolved animal species, and then also the doctrine of human depravity  that it led many people, at least many thought that it led to a stern, disciplinary  approach to education that had little room for individuality. And so you had the  concept of evolution, and then you had the concept of human development. It  was G Stanley Hall who talked about Sturm und Drang storm and stress, he was the one who began to develop a particular theory on adolescence. So he  expanded Darwin's ideas on evolution, and he he postulated that the human  development travels through a series of stages from primitive to Savage, which  would be adolescence to mature. But something else is happening at this time,  something that caused the emergence of adolescence to take place as a  distinctive time in development, and that was the Industrial Revolution. Prior to  the Industrial Revolution, everyone worked. It was necessary for everyone in the family, ages five and up, to work. And so this transition from childhood to  adulthood was really smoothed out. Young people were naturally apprenticed  into the adult world of work and responsibility. And so this, the this particular  period of time, this Sturm und Drung That that G Stanley Hall talked about, it  was there, but there are parents around. There were responsibilities there. They  were part of a family that helped smooth over that transition. So with the dawn of industrialization, modern society began to segregate young people from the  world of adults. They pulled young people out of the family and into separate  schools and age related classes. And so beginning in 1890 that's when  scientists began formulating the concept of adolescence. Now, as a part of all  this, there's another figure that that played a prominent role in understanding  adolescence as a stage of human development. And his name was Eric 

Erickson, and he developed some theories on identity development. He said  mankind goes through stages of human development, and each stage is  dominated by a developmental crisis, a life shaping, character defining issue. He said, infancy. That's hope, trust versus mistrust. From 18 months to two and a  half years, the dominant issue was the will, autonomy versus shame and doubt.  Three and a half years to six years, purpose, initiative versus all these are  developmental aspects that are taking place in person's life, pre adolescence. It  was about primarily competence, industry or inferiority. And then there was  adolescence, and that had to do with fidelity, identity versus role, confusion. Are  you congruent with who you are post adolescence was love. Am I? Am I going to be comfortable with intimacy, or am I going to move toward isolation the adult  life care? Are you generative? This is a term that Erickson coined to denote a  concern for establishing and guiding the next generation. Are you generative, or  are you stagnant? And then old age had to do with wisdom, ego, integrity versus despair. And so Erickson's understanding of human development, it has  tremendous implications for youth ministry. One is that God has created  mankind in his image of that, there is no doubt okay. We see that in Genesis  1:26-27 God has created mankind in his image, in His likeness, and we are  created uniquely in his image. We all reflect that image in different ways. While  mankind did not evolve from a lower species, human beings have experience,  do experience stages in human development, and the dominant crisis during the adolescent stage of development is that of identity. Who am I? Why am I here?  What is my purpose? And that raises the ministry question, if God has created  mankind in his image and has so designed human development that the  dominant adolescent issue is the discovery of identity, then what ought the focus of youth ministry be? Should not youth ministry's primary focus be to guide  youth toward discovering who they are. In Christ, some books that might help  you in your understanding of this will be Rolf Muuss’s book on theories of  adolescence. And then Scott Scott Larson and Larry Brendtro wrote the book on reclaiming our prodigal sons and daughters a practical approach for connecting  with youth in conflict. Both of these books deal with adolescence and the  development of the theory and how that works. Scott Larson and Brendtro talk a lot about how the industrial revolution changed things and caused adolescence  to become a major focus of youth development.