My Five Adolescents – Don Hanley’s blog #98

Reflecting on a recent elevator encounter with a young couple and their baby. I said, “Oh, what a delightful fellow passenger. Just think, we all were that tiny once upon a time. For me, that would have been 90 years ago.” They smiled and I was reminded of a human development course from sixty years ago that proposed that we all have five distinct adolescent stages in life. And this thought coincided with reading an article titled "What’s Wrong with Children These Days? It’s the Parents, Not the Children," which, despite its promising subtitle, seemed to advocate treating children with harsh discipline rather than understanding.

This leads me to think of the First Adolescence as Infancy to Childhood, roughly from birth to two to four years. The so-called ‘terrible twos’ are the terrific twos. Then comes #2 Child Adolescence. Usually, infants are treated with appropriate kindness and care, but too often, a child is not, and is frequently treated like an animal to be trained and not as a young person, a "Thou" who enters the world needing care, love, and touch. The poignant history of foundling homes in the 1930s illustrates this need; babies in the U.S. were cared for in sterile, well-fed environments, but were still perishing. An American delegation visited a care facility in Mexico and found that although the place was less sterile, the infants were striving and surviving. The U.S caregivers learned that simply holding them was needed, and the babies flourished after hours of life-giving and personal holding.

Early in life, Infants began to be Children who needed warm, touching care and were challenged to, hopefully, safely explore the world. Their needs evolve, and connections with family shift over time. I recall our daughter's frustration with being told, at age four and in pre-school and  was 5told, "Find something to do...", she said, "Don't they know they are interrupting my thinking." "The following year, she and her sister, age 2, embarked on an unsupervised neighborhood adventure. I found them safe a mile from home, and my primary reaction was relief, not anger, rather than punishing, which I felt would instill fear rather than foster responsibility. I emphasized our worry, and I asked for a promise not to repeat the dangerous experience.  She never did it again. This experience solidified my belief that children must be respected, nurtured, and gently encouraged, not "tamed" or trained. For too long, we've defaulted to assumptions of control rather than cultivation.

The Third Adolescence is typically understood as The adolescent years from childhood to young adulthood (around twelve to twenty-five). This period is a continuous process of developing our thinking, balancing growing independence, and maintaining cooperative and respectful relationships with caregivers, friends, and teachers. Respect should be the goal, not blind obedience. Learning and taking responsibility and flourish skills and - grow. As young people venture further from primary caregivers, whether for school or other activities, they must be neither overprotected nor forced by fear to obey and conform, which can lead to helplessness and unhealthy dependency on ‘big people’ to tell them how to behave and what to do. When I was eleven years old in 1944, I saw my first newsreel of thousands of young German ‘men’ marching and saluting someone on a platform, and I wondered what was wrong with them. Now, I know they had been conditioned by fear to always do what they were told to do by their elders. Discerning good from bad, or right and healthy and life-giving from harmful - this was not part of their ‘training’. Soldiers usually come from this age group via the draft boards, family, or school encouragement.

We’ll explore the Third Adolescence in blog #99 more. Keep in mind that all of the phases are gradual times of growth, not abrupt transitions. The infant carries within them the potential for all these stages, like seeds waiting to grow into the mature person they can become. Even now, I recognize the needs of that baby, child, teenager, and even the too often arrogant adult within myself as I navigate the world.

I've highlighted a critical distinction between seeing an infant and child as a person ("Thou") requiring nurturing, connection, and respectful guidance versus seeing them as an object to be strictly disciplined and trained. I hopr my examples of the foundling homes illustrates the vital need for touch and love, and matches your own experience of allowing exploration while guiding responsibility rather than punishing, strongly support my argument that treating children with respect and facilitating safe exploration is far more conducive to healthy development than simply demanding obedience or attempting to "tame" them.

I believe that the "First Adolescences" – infancy and childhood – lay the fundamental groundwork. A lack of love, care, and touch can have devastating consequences, just as excessive control or, conversely, abandonment during the later stages of childhood and the "Third Adolescence" (the teen years into young adulthood) can hinder the crucial development of independence, responsibility, and healthy relationships.

Your framework suggests that growth through these stages is not about eradicating the needs or characteristics of the earlier phases but about integrating them as one matures. Recognizing the "needy baby, child, teenager, and arrogant adult" within oneself, even at 92, speaks to the layered complexity of the human psyche and the continuous journey of self-awareness you advocate.

My AI contact agrees that my perspective champions a model of human development built on compassion, respect, understanding, and the provision of a secure base from which individuals are empowered to explore and grow, rather than a model focused on control, rigid rules, and mere obedience. I emphasize that the being of the child and the developing person is more than simply managing their behavior. I hope that my thoughts offer valuable wisdom for contemplating the journey of growth and support the fact that individuals have need at every stage.

Thank you for reading this blog. Your comments help me reach a larger audience. Of course, don’t eat the menu.