There are many reasons why junior highers have been traditionally neglected. Perhaps the most obvious one in that many, if not most, adult dislike junior high kids. They simply don't like being around them. Others suffer from what has been called EPHEBIPHOBIA, a fear of adolescents. They are frightened by the unpredictability of junior highers and the negative stereotypes they believe about them. Many parents I know would be delighted if somehow their own kids were able to skip the junior high years altogether. Some don't believe that you can actually enjoy your children when they become early adolescents.
Senior highers appear to be, in many ways, a lot like young adults. They are somewhat predictable and are able to communicate on a relatively mature level. They can drive, they have money, and they are often willing to work and to take on many leadership responsibilities-all of which makes the youth worker's job a great deal easier. Junior highers generally offer none of the above, and unfortunately discourages many people from getting involved in junior high ministry.
According to Don Wells, principal of the Carolina Friends School and member of the Task Force on Middle Schools (National Association of Independent Schools). Junior highers ate neglected by adults for the following reasons.
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Early adolescents defy being defined, and that's irritating. We can set some hazy marks about the on a scale relative to any act, value, skill, or any other single thing, but the result is either as useful as a definitive description of all bubbles, or so definitive as to classify all bubbles, save one, the exception. And those things we can't define, can't make sound predictions about, indeed those things that even resist our efforts to classify them by the effrontery of simply being themselves, we tend to avoid. In the case of the early adolescent, we have avoided.
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Because of our inability to define, the holder of the needed information is a child, and what adult wants to be dependent on a child as his resource person? Precious few it seems.
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The number of persons who had a positive, healthy, happy early adolescence in a supportive, caring environment equals the number of adults presently whole enough to creatively and maturely identify with an early adolescent toward the goal of successful interaction. Such persons were an endangered species long before the blue whale.
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We all have fragile egos, and we all play to the audience out there. When we have our daughters, we pick good audiences because they tend to make us feel good. Early adolescents are very unpredictable audiences, and many times they aren't sure they like themselves; not because they want to corporately hurt you, but because they aren't thinking corporately but individually; not because they understand and reject, but because they don't understand that you don't understand.
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To appreciate the world of the early adolescent, one must "become" in the world of the early adolescent. Such total immersion is not as necessary when working with other age groups, for we readily accept that we can never experience early childhood again and we delight in our ability to enjoy, nurture, and support the childhood experience. We also reveal in the fact that we can have adult dialogue with children beyond early adolescence, and although we then have to take full cognizance of their burgeoning physical and mental prowess, they do seem eminently more reasonable than they were just a few years back. Early adolescence cannot be felt with so neatly, for it has been the stage in our lives replete with terror, anxiety, fear, loneliness, hate, love, joy, desperation, all expressed or experience with the intensity of adulthood yet devoid of adult perspective. It is an age of vulnerability, and vulnerability implies potential pain; adults know that pain hurts, and they don't often willingly enter in which they will be hurt.
Let's have a coffee
Hari
Enjoy reading...
There are many reasons why junior highers have been traditionally neglected. Perhaps the most obvious one in that many, if not most, adult dislike junior high kids. They simply don't like being around them. Others suffer from what has been called EPHEBIPHOBIA, a fear of adolescents. They are frightened by the unpredictability of junior highers and the negative stereotypes they believe about them. Many parents I know would be delighted if somehow their own kids were able to skip the junior high years altogether. Some don't believe that you can actually enjoy your children when they become early adolescents.
Senior highers appear to be, in many ways, a lot like young adults. They are somewhat predictable and are able to communicate on a relatively mature level. They can drive, they have money, and they are often willing to work and to take on many leadership responsibilities-all of which makes the youth worker's job a great deal easier. Junior highers generally offer none of the above, and unfortunately discourages many people from getting involved in junior high ministry.
According to Don Wells, principal of the Carolina Friends School and member of the Task Force on Middle Schools (National Association of Independent Schools). Junior highers ate neglected by adults for the following reasons.
Early adolescents defy being defined, and that's irritating. We can set some hazy marks about the on a scale relative to any act, value, skill, or any other single thing, but the result is either as useful as a definitive description of all bubbles, or so definitive as to classify all bubbles, save one, the exception. And those things we can't define, can't make sound predictions about, indeed those things that even resist our efforts to classify them by the effrontery of simply being themselves, we tend to avoid. In the case of the early adolescent, we have avoided.
Because of our inability to define, the holder of the needed information is a child, and what adult wants to be dependent on a child as his resource person? Precious few it seems.
The number of persons who had a positive, healthy, happy early adolescence in a supportive, caring environment equals the number of adults presently whole enough to creatively and maturely identify with an early adolescent toward the goal of successful interaction. Such persons were an endangered species long before the blue whale.
We all have fragile egos, and we all play to the audience out there. When we have our daughters, we pick good audiences because they tend to make us feel good. Early adolescents are very unpredictable audiences, and many times they aren't sure they like themselves; not because they want to corporately hurt you, but because they aren't thinking corporately but individually; not because they understand and reject, but because they don't understand that you don't understand.
To appreciate the world of the early adolescent, one must "become" in the world of the early adolescent. Such total immersion is not as necessary when working with other age groups, for we readily accept that we can never experience early childhood again and we delight in our ability to enjoy, nurture, and support the childhood experience. We also reveal in the fact that we can have adult dialogue with children beyond early adolescence, and although we then have to take full cognizance of their burgeoning physical and mental prowess, they do seem eminently more reasonable than they were just a few years back. Early adolescence cannot be felt with so neatly, for it has been the stage in our lives replete with terror, anxiety, fear, loneliness, hate, love, joy, desperation, all expressed or experience with the intensity of adulthood yet devoid of adult perspective. It is an age of vulnerability, and vulnerability implies potential pain; adults know that pain hurts, and they don't often willingly enter in which they will be hurt.
Let's have a coffee
Hari
Enjoy reading...