The Truth About Youth: Teen Maturity

Dr. Daniel Offer: In Search of the Truth About Youth

by Lisa Freeman

Ask any parent of a teenager. Ask a high school teacher, a social worker, a youth counselor. Adolescence, they will say, is a period of life dominated by "storm and stress". During adolescence, the theory goes, hormones take control of teenagers' bodies and minds, causing dramatic mood swings and erratic behavior. Under the influence of physiological changes, teens lash out against their parents, their teachers, and themselves, leaving only their equally irrational peers as sources of support.

Dr. Daniel Offer, a psychiatrist at Northwestern University Medical School, disagrees. For the past forty years, Dr. Offer has collected data on adolescents in large scale, long-term studies of high school students in America and several other countries. And his findings demolish the traditional view of adolescents, reducing the "storm and stress" theory to the status of a myth.

The adolescents that Dr. Offer has studied were not the ones generally seen by psychiatrists, or reported upon by the media, or written about in literature. In his studies, Dr. Offer found that typical adolescents generally share the values of adults, cope well with new responsibilities, and are optimistic about their futures. They maintain good relationships with their parents and other authority figures. The anxieties and other emotional responses they display are usually prompted by situations in their lives, not by uncontrollable, inexplicable "mood swings". In summary, Dr. Offer states, "the normal American teenager sees him or herself as a competent individual who is able to resolve the problems that come his way during the adolescent years, without too much pain, suffering, doubt, or indecision."¹

Intellectually, American 16-year-olds are as advanced as the adult population.² Their reasoning and decision making techniques are the same as those of adults. Psychologically, adolescents suffer the same rates of mental illness as the adult population.³ In light of such findings, why does is the belief in adolescent incompetence and irrationality of teens still so prevalent? Dr. Offer presents several possible reasons in his many books and articles on the subject of adolescence:

Many studies of adolescents have been based on populations of disturbed adolescents, the ones most likely to be available to psychiatrists for observation and research. Studies of normal adolescents, who are not in treatment for psychological disturbance, have supported Dr. Offer's findings.⁴
Adults may have their own need to perceive teenagers as less capable and more volatile than they really are, to justify their continued authority over them, or for other reasons. "Adults' own fears and urges," Offer states, "may interfere with their ability to correctly perceive what teenagers are really like."⁵
Psychological studies may be influenced by societal influences and trends. Dr. Offer cites a study of bias in psychological articles published over the past 100 years, in which researchers found that in times of economic depression, adolescents were portrayed as "immature" and "psychologically unstable", whereas in wartime, the focus was on the competence of adolescents.⁶

The implications of his own findings are not lost upon Dr. Offer. He writes:

Lawmakers have had difficulty in deciding at what age the privileges of adult membership in society should be extended to an individual, and confusion and inconsistencies abound. For example, in virtually every jursidiction in the United States, a 14-year-old adolescent cannot legally vote, buy alcohol, or obtain a driver's license. Yet, if that same 14-year-old adolescent were to commit a murder, he or she could, in many states, be tried as an adult -- suggesting that the adolescent has the maturity and decision-making capacity consistent with full adult responsibility for criminal behavior.⁷

It is hard to dispel any myth, but Dr. Offer's work has not gone unnoticed. He was appointed Editor in Chief of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, and has been honored with the Schonfeld Memorial Award for Research in 1985, and the John P. Hill Memorial Award in 1990. He has been a respected member of the faculty at Northwestern University since 1991.

The psychiatric community has begun to accept Dr. Offer's findings about adolescents. Now, if only the rest of the country could get the message.

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References

(1) Offer, Daniel, Ostrov, Eric and Kenneth Howard. The Adolescent: A Psychological Self-Portrait. New York: Basic Books, 1981, p.78.

(2) Offer, Daniel. "In Defense of Adolescents." Journal of the American Medical Association. Volume 257, number 24 (June 26, 1987), p.3408.

(3) Ibid (2), p. 3407.

(4) Offer, Daniel and Schonert-Reichl, Kimberly A. "Debunking the Myths of Adolescence: Findings From Recent Research." Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Volume 31, number 6 (November 1992), p.1004.

(5) Ibid (1), p.121.

(6) Enright, R.D., Levy, V.M., Jr., Harris, D. and D.K. Lapsley. "Do Economic Conditions Influence How Theorists View Adolescents?" Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Volume 16 (1987), pages 541 to 559.

(7) Ibid (2), p.3407.