Ancient Greece Part II: Teens are Teens

Posted by Susan Epstein on March 16th, 2009 at 06:55am

Daniel Rosenkrantz, Coaches Parents of Tweens/Teens

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Sound familiar? While this could be said of our modern day society, this
quote is actually attributed to Socrates who was alive nearly 2500 years ago.

With the explosion of technology, today we see the world in a whole different
way. Before us at any moment are a host of diverse images, sounds, videos,
and ideas. We have the ability to know what is going on in every corner of
the earth. At the press of a button we are able to talk to people all over the
planet. The amount of information we consume has exponentially grown and
continues to everyday. Perhaps a blessing, perhaps a curse, it depends on
how you look at it.

But, I would propose that even in our current world of 2009 AD, teens share
more similarities than differences of teens millennia ago.

What teens have today that they didn’t in 420 BC:

Facebook
Cell phones
Cars
Skateboards
Films
MTV
24 hour stores

What teens experience today that they also did in 420 BC:

puberty
the opposite sex
drugs
desire for independence, privacy, and a happy household
rejection of parent’s ideals
peer pressure
friends
confidence issues
uncertainty
the need and desire of love and security
anger & rebellion
not always making good choices
caring about what their friends/ peers think of them
the need for positive role models

So teens are teens are teens! While the outside world changes, the inner world repeats
itself over and over again.

As a parent, recollecting about your teen years and sharing your own experiences with your
teen, is one of the most important steps you can take in having a close and open relationship
with your child.