another way to chase infinity

Melkor

We should be treating teens as more adult than we do. I don't mean some lowering the age of consent creep shit, I mean presuming competence. Get a job, learn life skills, learn to cook, be fully responsible for a pet, walk places alone (in daylight) or with a friend, have intergenerational friendships, teach skills to littler kids, be someone people can trust with more than wiping their own ass. Be someone they themselves can trust to do stuff and go places. We're stealing children's confidence by treating them like they can't do anything. Treat them like they can and should do many adult things and more will find the confidence to practice at them.

we SHOULD trust teens with more. we SHOULD make sure they get more opportunities to develop the neural pathways to navigate adulthood. the opportunity/necessity matrix is why some kids growing with neglect or parental illness are actually capable of moving out or managing a household at 16: bills, groceries, cleaning, appointments. it's why some kids get to college and can't even make their own phone calls. the ideal, the sweet spot of shepherding adolescent development, is giving them the space and expectations to build those skills when it's NOT neglect or crisis. but they absolutely CAN, and it's not inherently harmful to be able to do things. KNOWING it's not harmful, and even beneficial, and then watching other adults aggressively protect teens from those experiences is like watching the whole parenting world conclude that since kids can't really consistently walk and run without tripping until they're 6-7, that we should prevent babies from learning to walk until they're "really" ready.

a teen tasked with building a menu and a grocery list and potentially going over budget with an adult beside them to cover that last $11 is a "hold my fingers for balance" scenario. they get better at the skill when it's low risk. otherwise, you still have to learn it, but you learn at 22 when the overcharge automatically generates a bank draft fee of $45 AND you still have to put three items back on shelves.

you are in the medieval era and you have this role!

Disclaimer: I don’t know for sure if this technique was done historically, but I’m willing to bet I’m not the first person to have ever tried it and found that it works. Do with that what you will!