Kids as "young adults"

Kids as "young adults"

Just who is a "young adult"?

Common sense says it starts with legal adulthood at age 18. But elements of our society have unofficially declared that the onset of adulthood matches the onset of puberty at the very grown-up age of 12. Which is one of the reasons why parents often seem uncertain about how to parent during the critical teen years.

I've come to believe that the term was designed to diminish parental influence during the years when our growing children need the most direction. It's a subtle way of telling us that we should relinquish our...