The Myth of Adolescence: Raising Responsible Children in an Irresponsible Society [With CDROM]

You will either love this book, or you will hate it. There is no middle ground. Dr. David Alan Black shatters the most common theories which have shaped our nation and our world for over one hundred years. His premise is quite simple: Adolescence is a social theory and it is seriously flawed. Dr. Black says the concept of adolescence is relatively new, only about one hundred years old. Prior to that, a young person was considered to be an adult by the age of thirteen. Further, Dr. Black says that the Bible has nothing to say about adolescence. That's because adolescence is foreign to the Bible. The Bible only speaks about responsibility, Dr. Black says. When you take responsibility away from a young person and put that young person into a "twilight zone" between childhood and adulthood, grave consequences will result. The biblical pattern, Dr. Black says, is for responsibility to begin at the age of thirteen, or earlier (at the age of twelve) if the young person can handle it. This compact volume opens the door to all sorts of discussions. At what age should a young person be employed? At what age should a young person marry? Should a young couple marry at thirteen or fourteen and live with one set of in-laws until the couple can move out on their own? And what if a young person commits a serious crime at the age of fourteen or fifteen? Should he or she face adult penalties for adult crimes, even the death penalty? The Myth of Adolescence is just a beginning, a starting place of what will be a new frontier for many people. But in reality, it's an old frontier, tried and proven over many centuries. It merely awaits discovery anew within these pages.