Growing Up

In Detroit last week, one 12-year-old boy was fatally stabbed by another 12-year-old in an argument after a basketball game. A 17-year-old, stabbed a few days earlier in similar circumstances, is still recuperating. Police laid out exhibits of lethal weapons, many of them homemade, carried by adolescents, and the cry was promptly raised: "Let's get tough with juvenile delinquents."

From Ann Arbor, where University of Michigan officials are planning a separate center for the psychiatric treatment of adolescents, came both a defense of the nation's youth and some pointed advice to parents. "Sensationalism notwithstanding," said Psychiatrist James C. Flanagan, "it is simply not true that our adolescents are going to the dogs." The way to keep more of them from getting into trouble, he believes, is not simply to snap at them, "Grow up!", but to give them constructive help in doing so.

Instead of blaming the adolescents themselves, or their parents* (who often wallow in feelings of guilt about failing their children), or even the communities in which they live, Dr. Flanagan blames a breakdown in communication. "Too often," he said, "Mom doesn't talk to Pop, or Pop doesn't talk to Mom, and neither talks to Junior." What should they talk about? For one thing, tension is a common ingredient in modern life, said Dr. Flanagan, so both parents and adolescents should talk about whatever is eating them. More specifically, youths in the limbo between childhood and adulthood want to know about these things, which he suggested as topics for family councils :

P:How to earn more money and thus feel more independent.

P: How to mix with adults without getting laughed at or kicked out.

P: Not only what the rules of conduct are, but the underlying reasons for them.

P: What it means to grow up sexually. In general, said Dr. Flanagan, adolescents tend to behave the way they think they are expected to. Thus, the more trust and confidence an adolescent feels, the more likely he is to justify them.

* Last week in Rosenberg, Texas (pop. 6,210), Fernando Rodriguez, 35, went to jail for six months because his eight-year-old son, a repeat offender but too young for prosecution, broke into a barbershop despite a previous judicial warning to the father (TIME, Dec. 14).

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