It was a joy to have lunch with a special 23 year old woman last Friday. I’ll call her Cheryl in this post, and she’ll laugh when she reads it. My son took Cheryl to their senior prom a few years back, although they were just friends. I can’t say I knew her well, but her reputation preceded her in our relatively small town. “Spunky” might have described her in high school… or “feisty”…and most certainly rebellious. She was - and is - brilliant, beautiful and extremely articulate. I don’t know what she was thinking back then, and I hope I’ll have the chance to really tell her story at some point. She’d knock you over now with her brilliance, beauty, joy for life, and utter respectability!

I know I don’t need to tell parents of teenagers that Cheryl isn’t unique. Many of the brilliant people I know who are now adults will tell tales of their rebellious teenage days. It’s hard for parents when you are in the thick of it with a rebellious teen. How do you know if this is temporary? How do you know if your teen will pull through this stage and emerge …”respectable?”

Truth is, you don’t. There are no guarantees.

But even a brilliant 23 year old isn’t out of the “developmental” woods yet.There is an emerging field of study that researchers call “young adulthood.” They now define “adolescence” as puberty through age 18, and they have two new categories: “young adulthood” from 18 - 22 (or 25), and “later adulthood” from mid-20’s up. Significantly, they identify marked differences in adolescents and young adults, and they demonstrate that young adults are still developing in significant ways.

To quote from the new MIT-based website Young Adult Development Project: A large and relatively new body of research is revealing that young adulthood is a time of dramatic change in basic thinking structures, as well as in the brain. Consensus is emerging that an 18-year-old is not the same person she or he will be at 25, just as an 11-year-old is not the same as he or she will be at 18. They don’t look the same, feel the same, think the same, or act the same.

Do you have an 18-year-old about to leave for college? The Young Adult Development Project states: When teens enter young adulthood, their thinking capacities, relationship skills, and ability to regulate emotions are unlikely to be at a developmental level where they can cope easily with the demands of a diverse, global, technological, rapidly-changing world. But in these next few years our kids develop the capacity for more complex thinking, they can accommodate and understand many points of view and multiple solutions for problems, they can weigh rewards and consequences and make better decisions about risk-taking behavior. These are important years developmentally.

Meanwhile, if you’re living with the dramas of an adolescent and looking forward to the next stage, find comfort in the fact that even the wildest teen will grow up. And some of their joy for living large, curiosity for new adventures, and spunky attitudes will be the very same qualities that will take them far in life. As they mature and re-direct these attitudes, these very same kids will grow into the leaders in government and business, the people who think big and take risks, the ones who really make a difference.

Have hope because most kids return to their roots and their families’ values. Many, like Cheryl, will even call their parents their “best friends” now. That would have been unthinkable back in the rebellious days.

To watch your teens grow up, and their peers develop and mature and interact with you in new and grown-up ways is so incredibly exciting and rewarding… it brings joy.

For all the Cheryl’s, and their Moms and Dads…have hope. Hang in there with them.

Development happens…. you can count on that.

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