The Shift of Influence: From Parents To Peers

I always wondered when was it that I stopped turning to my parents for advice and ran to my friends instead. What in me suddenly snapped that made me think I couldn’t trust my parents with my secrets?  In reality, my parents are wonderful people who never judge and are always there to help me with whatever I need. Why can’t I, as a teenager, see that?

These are questions teenagers around the world ask every day.  At approximately age 12, teens begin to shift their influence from parents to peers. They begin to think for themselves, or so many of them believe, and follow the “in crowd” even if what they do isn’t parent-approved. They no longer ask for their parents’ advice and instead turn to their best friends for help. 

It seems that as children mature, they begin to explore the idea of independence. Because parents are the only ones with the ability to punish or control, adolescents tend to distance themselves in order to taste the independence they long for. Even if the distance only entices punishment, teenagers still believe they are making a statement and gaining the freedom they deserve. 

Psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson stated in his theory of Psychological Development that as early as six years old, during the stage Competence vs. Inferiority, friends begin to become the most important influence in a child’s life. During that stage, a child learns the feeling of achievement after finishing a task and because he is in school surrounded by friends, he wants his friends to notice his achievements more than he wants his parents to.

However, the next stage in Erikson’s theory is the one that really explains why people turn away from their parents and towards their peers. In stage four, Identity vs. Role Confusion, a person begins to wonder, “Who am I, a child or an adult? What is my purpose in life?” Erikson said that this stage lasts between the ages of 13 and 20. Basically, it describes teenage-hood.  

As teenagers, most people tend to have identity crises in some form or another. People are unsure of what their ideals are, who are their true friends, etc. They test their morals and beliefs by subjecting and exposing themselves to drugs and alcohol because they do not know how they will react and want to test things out. They do not know where they fit in, who they should consult with, and if anybody is really on their side. In short, they are confused.

       Teens, you should remember that if anybody is on your side, it is your parents. It doesn’t matter how much you think you know your friends or how close you guys are at the moment. In truth, friends can drift apart or be torn apart by a fight but family never stops being family. Although it is human nature to disregard parents and turn to peers instead, you should still recognize the love your parents have for you and that they can still be trusted.  Don’t let yourself hinder your relationship with them. Friends and parents don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Elana Dure is from Woodmere, NY.  

 She enjoys listening to hard rock music, reading and her favorite subject is English.

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Cartoons: All Too Real

Simple cartoons seem innocent enough but they can send messages that corrupt children for a lifetime.

Images of anorexic models are commonly acknowledged in magazines, music videos, and advertisements of all sorts but what about characters idolized by young children? Though corrupting pictures and scenes are presumed innocent due to the age range they target but in reality some are no better. Kids mimic what they see. Their environment begins developing ideals in their minds from an early age. This prompts you to ask, are the stories and television shows they are frequently exposed to appropriate?

While writers see to that every fairytale or show has its proper moral the illustrators are bound by boundaries slightly more flexible. Let’s look at Tinker Bell for example. She was one of my personal favorites growing up. I was enchanted by her story…….and in a small way her image. Like many other fictional girls she is pop culture’s definition of beauty. Clear skin, silky hair, and that extremely sought after but unrealistic combination of curves and slenderness. She’s hardly the only one too. Jasmine, Wonder Woman, and Barbie are among the many who share those dangerously alluring features.

The issue isn’t that the characters themselves are overly provocative but the message they indirectly send. Toddlers grow up thinking that those physical requirements must be reached to achieve true beauty. When girls are at potentially their most impressionable stage of life having concepts such as this embedded within their brain can cause permanent affects. According to a study by NDSU the ‘’prime time’’ for visual and auditory development is between the ages of 4 and 5. This  means that in the midst of the toddler years kids start making connections with what they see and hear around them.

For some these ideas and pictures are simply the prologue to a life-long battle with eating disorders and insecurity. It doesn’t matter that Tinker Bell or other cartoons aren’t flamboyantly sexualized, the effect is nearly the same. 

As a society we need to promote healthy figures for our future generations to grow up seeing. Fictional role models whose’ exteriors are just as appropriate and motivating as their stories are. I believe the longer a child remains innocent the greater chance their morality will remain. My belief is backed up by the fact I mentioned previously referring to brain development. The greater of an impression made on children the better they will be in life. No girl should ever grow up idolizing those unrealistic figures.

 Emily is a 13-year-old from Eastvale, CA. She loves to write, cook, and volunteer at her local animal shelter.

References: http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/famsci/fs609w.htm

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Too Many Choices

Every day people make decisions that have the potential to affect their lives forever. Are you putting thought into your choices?

When you take a look at history it is a common trend that people lived simple, structured lives with far fewer choices then these modern days. Marriages were arranged and jobs put into place at a very young age, which is a sharp contrast to teens of today who decide everything about their own lives. While moving forward into this constantly expanding era of choice has proven positive it is apparent that during the transition important morals were put to death along with the overbearing regulations. Lives may have been duller and parents too strict but the world was a far less stressful place.

Today in the United States approximately two million people are incarcerated, that is equivalent to 1,000 in every 100,000; the highest in the world. The prison population has over sextupled just since the 1960’s proof of the overwhelming lack of discipline in our culture, a place where arrogance thrives and people blatantly disrespect the rules. So many choices are offered which is amazing except for the fact that youth are poorly educated on how to make those decisions which results in these tragic statistics.

Teens are placed in a position where the whole world is open to them, available for exploration and offering much temptation. Often times they jump on the opportunities because no one is explaining the consequences, or at least not enough to make them understand the seriousness of certain activities. They want to participate in activities just because other people are taking part in them, not putting thought into their decisions. What if the popular clique one day decides to jump of a bridge together? Would you follow? No, of course not they’re getting themselves killed but it’s the same as drugs. It’s impossible to fully live your life while battling an addiction; addicts can’t keep jobs, build strong relationships or impact society in any meaningful way until they have recovered.

Of course at the time that it’s the last thing on anyone’s mind, everyone is too in the moment and focusing only on instantaneous gratification, which is the root of poor decision making. One little pill or spiked gummy bear can turn out to be the biggest choice of your life. Even scarier is that studies show that kids of parents who do drugs are more likely to do so as well, meaning that same pill could ruin the lives of your future children. This proves that long-term happiness can only be achieved when hard choices are made for the better.

Live is full of choices, simple, nerve-wracking and everything in between. Some are forgotten about quickly while others are lifelong. What they all have in common is the more thought put into them the better the outcome. Pop culture may be impulsive but maintaining a healthy reality requires more than that. It requires an understanding of the consequences before they are given.

Elana Dure is from Woodmere, NY.

She enjoys listening to hard rock music, reading and her favorite subject is English.

Resources: http://www.dailypaul.com/157495/1st-place-united-states-2019234-prisoners-2nd-place-china

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Dealing with Nostalgia: A Movie Review of Midnight in Paris

A successful Hollywood screenwriter is taking a vacation in Paris with his fiancée and her parents.  As he ecstatically tours the city, Gil Pender struggles to find inspiration for his novel.  Gil would be content to roam the streets of Paris, drinking in all the romance that pulses through the city, dreaming of what he believes was Paris’ Golden Age, the Roaring Twenties, rather than put up with his fiancée’s determination to shop for their new home and run the vacation her way.

When Inez, Gil’s fiancée, finds two old friends, she wants to spend all her time with them and leaves Gil alone to bask in his love of the city.  At the stroke of midnight, Gil is mysteriously transported back to the 1920s, where he meets the great writers F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, the great literary critic Gertrude Stein, the artists Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali, and the musician Cole Porter.

Stunned with his good fortune, Gil gleans valuable writing advice from Hemingway and Stein, and also falls in love with Picasso’s mistress, Adriana.  During the day Gil finds himself back in the modern times, struggling with Inez’s demands and complaints, and her constant contempt towards his love of the old Paris and his efforts to write his novel.  So he keeps going back to the twenties, bonding with Adriana and learning more and more about writing from his idols Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Stein.

Eventually, Gil and Adriana go back from the 1920s to the 1890s, in a way similar to how Gil got from the modern time to the twenties.  Adriana is delighted with 1890s Paris, which is what she believes to be Paris’ Golden Age.  She decides to stay and not go back to the twenties.  This causes Gil to realize that everyone has a time in which they wished they lived, and everyone has their own fantastical golden age.  What we need to do is live in the time we were born in, and find all the beauties and joys of this era, rather than constantly wish for another time.

Once Gil realizes this, he says goodbye to Adriana (who stays in the 1890s), and he goes back to his own time, never to return.

So what can we get out of this movie?  I think that Gil makes a very important revelation—too often we romanticize a different era and let ourselves believe that if only we lived then, things would be so much better and we would be so much happier.  But as Gil saw with Adriana, she didn’t think that his Golden Age, the 1920s, was so spectacular—she had her own “Golden Age” that she believed was the height of Paris’ glory.  Everyone has their own romantic notion of one era or place or another.

Midnight in Paris is a thoughtful reminder to those of us who wish we could have been born in a different time, in a different place.  Like Gil, we need to realize that we can’t constantly wish for another time, another life, another world.  We need to live in the time that is given to us, live the life that God has given to us and make the most of it.  If we are perpetually wishing for another world from bygone days, we will only make ourselves dissatisfied and discontent with the world God has placed us in.  God calls us to live in this world and change it now, not live in the world of the past.

(Warning: the PG-13 rating is for mild language and sexual references, there are some sexual jokes.)

Kate P.  is a teen intern for The Washington Project. 

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"Because I Deserve It."

To be American is to be free. To be American is to have rights. To be American is to have the whole world at your feet. To be American is to have a right to…everything.

Unfortunately for teens today, growing up in a ridiculously wealthy American society that boasts of “the American dream” and “free rights” for all people has made us complacent and demanding. Because we have pretty much everything at our disposal—comfortable, warm clothes, a house, plenty of running water, a car, food, Internet, and TV—our standard living has steadily increased over the past hundred years. Our wealthiness has made us feel entitled to the privileges we enjoy today.

But the richness and wealth that overflows in America is only one of the reasons why teens have the “entitlement” mindset. Besides appreciating a high standard of living, teens are growing up believing that as an American, “I have the right to this, this, and that” and “I’m a citizen in a free country” and “I know my rights, the government and nobody else can tell me what to do.” Teens think that they have rights to everything because they are heavily influenced by the “free and American” culture.

While this outlook isn’t necessarily wrong when it comes to dealing with politics, it is wrong when it is applied to other areas of life. Unfortunately, this is exactly what teens are doing. All of a sudden, I am entitled to be treated well, I have the right to go on that trip, I have the freedom to do whatever I want once I’ve done this, made this much money, reached this age…the list of teens’ supposed “rights” goes on and on.

So how do teens adjust this selfish, “entitlement” worldview that has permeated our culture? One thing we can do is put things in perspective: we aren’t at the center of the universe, there are other people in this world too, and everything and everyone aren’t catering to our needs!

To truly grasp “the American dream”, teens need to be taught how to work hard and serve others rather than sit around declaring their own entitlements and rights.

Kate Patrick is a 17-year-old from Cincinnati, OH. She loves to write and pour her heart out into piano, as well as go running and skiing, and exploring through the wild forests, rolling hills, and numerous farms of Ohio. Her dream is to become an accomplished writer and pianist while glorifying God in all that she does.

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Prodigies of Technology

It would be a stretch to say I miss the whining, screaming, and nagging of young children on planes, grocery stores, and other public areas. However, nowadays, parents have a new “technique” of calming their children; this technique being technology.

Whether it’s an iPad or a Nintendo, children have found a new way of distracting themselves. This, of course, benefits the many parents who don’t know how to control their children. A stressed and tired parent rushing to finish shopping can simply pull out a gadget and miraculously, their child’s wailing is drowned by the sound of Talking Tom. So how did parents control their kids in the 1950s; you know, the era before technology?

Although I’m in no position to criticize today’s parents, I believe that spending five minutes calming their children in the frozen section at Ralph’s with words, will, in the long run, prevent their children from becoming slaves to Internet gaming. In other words, a few minutes of good ol’ parenting will save you parents the hundreds of dollars spent on laptops, Xboxes, or cell phones for the future.

Honestly, it’s annoying to be seated at a restaurant where all the children have their eyes glued to their cell phone screens. Where did dinner table conversations go? Have we become too sophisticated for small talk?

Some parents may argue that all this technology is good for their children. After all, who can upload a video to Youtube or type paragraphs on a cell phone keyboard faster than a 9-year old in 2012? However, these children aren’t just uploading videos on Youtube. They’re creating Facebook profiles and posting their pictures all over the place. They’re releasing their information to the cyber web and accepting friend requests from strangers across the world, all without any fear of their safety.

In short, children have become prodigies of technology.

Prodigy:

-a person, especially a child or young person, having extraordinary talent or ability

-something abnormal or monstrous.

Sareen, 15, is from Los Angeles, California. She enjoys reading and writing and her favorite subject is English. In the future, she’d like to become a journalist.

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Britney Spears and the Sanctity of Marriage

Five thirty in the morning sounds like a bad time for a wedding, if you ask me. And I wouldn’t want a random hotel employee to walk me down the aisle, either. But that’s what Britney Spears chose for her wedding to Jason Alexander in 2004. She showed up to the chapel in baseball cap and torn blue jeans to get married on the spur of the moment. It’s no wonder the marriage to her childhood friend only lasted fifty-five hours. The legal papers for the annulment, drawn up within hours of the ceremony, explained that Ms. Spears “lacked understanding of her actions” and was “incapable of agreeing to the marriage.” Multiple sources agree that the couple was not intoxicated when they made the decision to marry.

Although this story is surprising, it is really just an extreme example of a phenomenon happens every day. In fact, it is this type of Hollywood divorce that plants the seeds for divorce at a local level. People hardly blink when they hear of the most recent coworker who is leaving their spouse. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we see it happen all the time in the checkout line magazines.

Dissolving a marriage because two people who are “incompatible” means breaking a personal and legal promise. When a man takes a woman for his wife, he promises to “Love, honor, comfort, and cherish her from this day forward, forsaking all others, keeping only unto her for as long as [they] both shall live.” Is it just me, or does that sound like marriage is for life? At its very foundation, casual divorce breaks the vow taken between two people.

This type of divorce is also inherently wrong because it hurts the people involved. According to AmericanValues.org, adults who divorce are usually no happier than they were before the divorce, and they are possible even worse off after legal bills are taken into account. Statistics are even worse for the children involved. Kids who have divorced parents are twice as likely to commit suicide, girls are seven times more likely to experience teen pregnancy, and all teens are more likely to abuse substances. Even though statistics are conclusive that divorce is harmful to kids, the media still endorses the practice. Why? Because it values individual liberty over personal responsibility. Divorce is seen as a convenient way to end an inconvenient marriage – even at the expense of the next generation.

Hopefully you shudder when you read accounts like Britney Spears’ fifty-five hour marriage. In our society, the beautiful institution of marriage – a man and woman promising their devotion to one another – is often viewed as a prolonged date. This cheapened view is harmful to families, children, and society itself. But together we can change this. In recent years, the divorce rate has been showing a small but steady decline. Maybe this is because the next generation is waking up to the damaging consequences of the practice.

Will you stand up to Hollywood’s devalued standard of marriage?

Aimee is a 17-year-old writer who lives in the Washington DC area. She enjoys working part-time at NASA as an Internal Communications intern, tutoring students in algebra and geometry, keeping up her blog (allfilledup.wordpress.com) and, of course, writing.

Works Cited:

Puit, Glenn. “Britney Spears’ 55-hour marriage annulled.” Las Vegas Review-Journal. 2012. Reviewjournal.com. 6 Jan. 2044. <http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jan-06-Tue-2004/news/22935262.html>

Bilotta, Larry. “18 Shocking Statistics About Children and Divorce.” Marriage Success Secrets. 2010. Marriage-Success-Secrets.com Life Discoveries Inc. 4 Oct. 2011 <http://www.marriage-success-secrets.com/statistics-about-children-and-divorce.html>

Institute for American Values. “Does Divorce Make People Happy?” Institute for American Values. Americanvalues.org. < http://www.americanvalues.org/html/r-unhappy_ii.html>

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