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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

A Teenager Now


He turns 13 today; a teenager now.  What adventures and challenges lie ahead of him in adolescence?  What peer pressure and family support will he experience as he changes from a boy to a man?  As he matures, where will he belong, how will he blossom into his potential?  What unique joys and healthy upheaval will he experience as he grows?   Who will love him?  Whom will he love?

David Suzuki in his book The Sacred Balance quotes Montagu, saying a healthy human requires more than satisfaction of psychological needs in childhood.  Montagu lists the following psychic needs of a growing child that must be fulfilled to ensure full development of a child’s potential:

  1. The need for love
  2. Friendship
  3. Sensitivity
  4. The need to think soundly
  5. The need to know
  6. The need to learn
  7. The need to work
  8. The need to organize
  9. Curiosity
  10. The sense of wonder
  11. Playfulness
  12. Imagination
  13. Creativity
  14. Openmindedness
  15. Flexibility
  16. Experimental mindedness
  17. Explorativeness
  18. Resiliency
  19. The sense of humour
  20. Joyfulness
  21. Laughter and tears
  22. Optimism
  23. Honesty and trust
  24. Compassionate intelligence
  25. Dance
  26. Song
He turns 13 today.
I wish for him, and indeed for each of my 10 grandchildren, the full list. 
I send love.


Ashley Montagu, The Direction of Human Development (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1995)
                                                                                                   
David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance, Rediscovering Our Place in Nature (British Columbia: Greystone Books, 1997)


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