To some degree i agree with you; i believe that the difference btwm adults and teenagers is the application of knowledge gained from life experiences when making decisions. So yes, teenagers or young adults may lack the necessary life experience to make sound decisions but i can honestly say that as a 22 yr old in varsity, alot of the people i know still lack emotional intelligence. i can therefore conclude that age has very little to do with emotional intelligence.
Ok, the guy who started this thread is a teenager So after reading all the posts i think the overall point is that teenagers need to be mature enough to make good desicions regarding there feelings, and it is usually very rare that teenagers develop such a maturity at a young age. But its not that teenagers feelings are less intense or strong as adults, they could even be stronger due to hormones and other things Its not a matter of feelings it more a matter of thinking whats the best desicion for all involved
To make good decissions a person should have seen allot in life and dated a few people before making a marriage commitment. Staying in school helps to adjust to the real world for in schools there's allot going on and allot of people that are different that you can learn from. To sayy a 14 year old knows exactly what love is , to me, isn't a good way to believe. Infatuation with others will cause many to believe they are in love since they have never experianced it before they would think it is love when its not. Imagine having a baby at 14 or 15. The mothers life is now going to be harder to get a good education and find good work. What if at 20 the husband divorces her and she's left alone raising the child, is that fair for her? 70 percent of all teenage marriages fall apart within 7 years so keep that in mind whenever you think it will be just fine and everything is going to work out.
Not necessarily. It's possible for one to understand and accept the limitations of one's own abilities, whether mental, physical, or emotional. That's called WISDOM and bits of it can be achieved at any age. There are some things that can only be learned by experience, and how to grow up is one of them. Of course it doesn't mean that everyone who's had the experience has done the learning. ^_^
"A fool learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from others" Not all lessons have to be learnt through experience, you can gain all wisdom from other peoples experience, you dont have to experience it yourself first hand, although this would probably help you alot in learning, you can side step the experience part
Sometimes you simply have to know what something feels like. This isn't one of those things that the elders of the tribe can explain to you--like looking both ways before you cross the street or knowing that the government isn't really there to help you--and suddenly you've become wiser. You have to have all those passionate emotions that are what adolescence is all about, feel them, feel their impact on your body and your mind and your heart. Feel what it's like when one of them is over, depending on how you responded to it at the time. For one thing, everybody is different. No matter how many times I've been in love I have only the most general idea of how it's going to feel to you and what it will do to your life. I can't give you a lot of advice about it. I absolutely do not want you and some really wonderful girl making decisions about this stuff and running your own lives until you're adults, at least by some conventional and increasingly liberal timeline. Even adults are sometimes so overcome by emotion that they make really stupid decisions that they regret forever. Teenagers, with their stronger hormone-driven emotions and their unfamiliarity with them and their effects, do it routinely. Look at all the 18-year-old girls who gave up everything for love two years ago and now they're single mothers lucky to get through high school. We don't allow seven-year-olds to decide whether they should go to school today. We don't allow twelve-year-olds to drive. Seventeen-year-olds have mastered most of life's mysteries well enough to be allowed to do almost everything. But there are still a few things they have left to learn. Their statistics about runaway fathers, vastly overspending their incomes, and fatal road accidents speak for themselves. It's not that adults don't also do those things. Teenagers simply do so much more of it, if given the freedom, that we adults have decided that the tribe will lose its way--civilization will collapse--if we don't deny them that freedom "for their own good." Sorry.
well that raises the question is ok for people to take away teenagers freedom if its for there own good I know thats pretty much what happens until you are 18+ and i know it seems like the best option because they learn alot more without having to go through some experiences that are unpleasant, but should people be allowed to take away other peoples freedom
i know that they are parenting, but where is the line drawn? At what point does it become more than parenting? I'm trying to challenge your point, i'm just curious as to what everyone has to say about it
Teenagers have very few freedoms when they are being taken care of by their parents. Who gives them a home, food, clothing, a car, jewelery, and a various amount of many other things....THEIR PARENTS! So how are they asking for freedom when they cannot take care of themselves? They cannot survive without money and working at 14 years old might give you enough to go to a movie or get some food but not enough to sustain yourself. Then think of having a baby at 14 years old, who's going to take care of that rug rat?
Every culture in every era draws the line differently. But you need to grasp that in this country in this era, that line is drawn just about as liberally as it's ever been in human history. People in other countries make fun of us because our children have so much freedom. They think we're insane, that you're all going to grow up--or fail to grow up, to be more precise--to be like feral gorillas. Remember that as Cosmic says, there are two sides to that "freedom" you're yearning for. The freedom to make your own decisions about your personal life comes with a huge price tag: RESPONSIBILITY. Ask the average adult these days how "free" he is and he'll likely get a faraway look and be wistful for the wonderful "freedom" of the good old days when he lived with his parents. You people don't have fucking JOBS! Do you have any idea just how much of your life's energy is drained away by having to GO TO WORK every single day? In a place like Washington, a lot of people get up at 5:00, hit the road at 6:00, work from 8:00 until 6:00, and get home at 7:30. No sports, no study hall, no hanging out. No video games. Maybe they get to go out for lunch or maybe they're lucky to get a sandwich in the company cafeteria and talk about work while they're eating it. You thought we all worked 8 to 5, the "forty-hour week" that has supposedly been standard since Henry Ford invented it in the 1920s? Think again. The unions are dead! The average American works FIFTY HOURS a week, just like my grandparents did a hundred years ago. An entire century's progress has been wiped out. They work extra hours on weeknights and therefore basically have no time at all to spend with their families during the week, or else they come in and work one of the weekend days so their entire weekend is just Sunday. Most of us don't have as much free time as you do, not even close. Most of us also feel like we don't have as much disposable income as you do. We've got to pay the mortgage, the car payment, and all of YOUR EXPENSES, including figuring out how to PUT YOU THROUGH COLLEGE. The idea of just going to the mall without a shopping list and buying something because it looks cool and we'd really like it is a DREAM. Having somebody hand us an ALLOWANCE every week and being able to spend it on absolutely ANYTHING WE WANT sounds like a science fiction future, like cars that fly and pets that talk. And you think you have LESS freedom than we do??? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! You have absolutely no idea what your life is going to be like in ten years. Enjoy the freedom you have now, while you've still got it.
i dont think its a difference in the feeling of "love" itself. i think the difference is the importance we place on love alone. if you are 13 and fall in love, the things that are important to you at that time are not the same as they will be when you are 20. I started dating someone when i was 13. and 6 years later i was getting married to that same person. however, when i was 13 i had things in a reltionship that i felt were important. dating a guy who was faithful, and caring, and thoughtful. those were the things i looked for. love was the only thing that mattered. as time goes on however and we grow up we realize that love isnt the only thing. a person can be thoughtful, loving and caring, but not hold the same aspirations as you do, the same goals, values, may not have a good education (im saying by choice here), may not even have a job, may have different views on family. those are things we have to take into consideration when we are older. people chose their lives. if you spend all that time at work what des it buy you? a bigger house? a nicer car? a cheating spouse? a divorce? child counseling? Theres nothing worse than hearing someone whine about how terrible their life is when thay are the ones who chose their lifestyle. I never had money handed to me when i was younger. ive had a job since i was 14 making 4.75 an hour washing dishes. My parents didnt pay for me to go to college. They woudnt even help me send in the papers. I took the few classes on what money i could and ive made the most of it. And with the jobs i can get with what i had to work with and what i made of my life, it seems to me that i will be doing better than mr. washington. as an adult you have the freedom to make your own choices. you chose your own life.
