04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 1

LESSON 1

Life History and Life Circumstances that Shape the Teen’s Personality and Intentional Processes

Presented by

THE NATURAL SYSTEMS INSTITUTEEdwin L. Young, PhD

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 2

THE NATURAL SYSTEMS INSTITUTE

DUPLEX PYRAMIDS

The Duplex Pyramids above is the logo of the Natural Systems Institute.  The top inverted pyramid represents layers of external structures and systems and the bottom pyramid represents layers of internal structures and systems.  The extension of the pyramid to the left represents degrees of distance into the past, while extension to the right represents degrees of projection into the future.  The underlying theoretical assumption is that effective, enduring change in humans and human social systems comes only when these multidimensional relationships of the external, internal, past, and future perspectives are all addressed as change efforts are attempted.

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 3

TEENAGERS:HOW TO UNDERSTAND AND GUIDE THEM TO MATURITY

This electronic presentation was written for parents, teachers, juvenile justice workers, and counselors. If you are one of these people, these e-documents can help you understand teenagers, why they are the way they are, and the stages they go through. Based on this understanding, you are offered ways to relate to them, and help them grow, as they go through their stages toward adulthood.The best way to use these presentations is to take it a little bit at a time over a long period of time. Yes, we all want to get all of the information immediately. However, a point of view of this document is that information, by itself, rarely changes people, not even adults who are trying to help teenagers. For it to be effective, one has to learn, understand, incorporate, practice, correct mistakes, and perfect the skill of applying each bit of information. Therefore, take it a little bit at a time. Work on it together with coworkers and partners. Follow through on suggested homework. Discuss what you are learning. Check out your results with one another as you apply the new ways of seeing and understanding and interacting with your teenagers. Help one another grow just as you help your teens grow.

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 4

The Structure of these Lessons and Guide to Their UseThese lessons are being presented on MS PowerPoint as a slide presentation show. There is an average of 15 slides per

lesson. The lessons are designed to be presented one per week. If possible, all staff in an institution should be involved so as to gradually develop a common language and culture. The lessons are designed to be viewed on the computer either individually or, using a projection device, with groups consisting of six to twelve participants.

Participants should view the presentation, discussing slides as you go along and then, in small groups of staff or families, as the case may be, work with a discussion leader to discuss the major points of the lesson. At the end of the lesson there is a homework exercise to be carried out at some time over the next week in the work situation, or home situation for parents, before the next discussion group meets.

At the beginning of each session, group discussion should begin with each person relating their experience with the homework assignment. The leader can then open a brief discussion of each slide during the slide presentation. Before ending the session, the participants should discuss with their leader how they are going to carry out the next homework assignment.

At the end of the lessons there is also an optional list of movies, on the next to last slide, from which trainees can select one to be viewed later. The movies are always related to the focus and theme of the lesson. The selected movie should be viewed in the interim between sessions. The movie can be discussed in next week’s discussion group.

1. At the next meeting, the participants should first discuss their experience carrying out the homework exercise. The homework exercises are more important than the lessons even though no homework can be done without the lessons. This is because there typically is no transfer of training to the work or family situation unless trainees practice the skill suggested in the lesson. Also, unless they discuss their results in the discussion group, they have no way of getting corrective feedback on their styles and strategies for relating to the youths. Discussion of homework helps to build “a culture of good practices”.

2. Discussion of homework should take about fifteen minutes.

3. Viewing a lesson should take from fifteen to forty-five minutes.

4. The discussion of the slides should take the remainder of an hour with time reserved to discuss next week’s homework.

5. Be sure and take your time and study each slide of each lesson carefully.

6. In some cases, you may have to use two sessions to complete one Lesson.

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 5

A POINT OF VIEW UNDERLYING THESE TRAINING LESSONS

• Another important point of view of these lessons is that to understand people you have to take many perspectives. Beyond merely discussing observable behavior, you have to try to understand what is going on inside their heads, their true inner feelings and thoughts.

• But, you also have to understand the environments they are in and the situations they encounter. • Furthermore, you have to understand their life-history. • It is not enough to just talk, read, or write about it, but you have to let your imagination try to relive what it might have

been like to have lived their life from its beginning to now. You have to understand how their history differs from yours and how the world they are in now differs from the world you grew up in.

• And finally, you have to understand where they are going, how they see their future. This does not mean talking about future trends here, although that is not unimportant. It means trying to see a teen’s future as they are seeing it and feeling it.

• Typically, it is difficult to step back of the flow of interaction with a teen, especially in the heat of a trying moment, and attempt to gain such perspectives so as to temper your reactions and react more wisely and calmly.

• Nevertheless, the stress here is on trying to grasp what it must be like for a particular teen, the teen that happens to standing before you right now, to have to face a future, to deal with the fact that they are going to have to have a future, to build a life for themselves.

• Remember, this is their first time around in life. They don’t want to admit that they haven’t a clue, but they don’t. Their inner life, their external world, the world that they face ‘in the now’ everyday, the kind of life circumstances that shaped them, and that awesome uncertain road ahead, these all come together in the creation of each teen’s life, in the living of their life, and forming their view of their future.

• Let yourself, your imagination, your feelings, your perspectives get inside that teen’s life so that you can identify with what it is uniquely like to be her or him. Imagine the forces of their world, forces they may not even be aware of, that are having an impact on them.

• If you can take these many perspectives, then you can start to really help.

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 6

The Following Twelve Sections Each Contain Approximately Ten Lessons with Fifteen or More Slides per Lesson That Are Designed to Train Human Service Professionals,

Such As Probation, Education, and Mental Health Workers, As Well As Parents,

in the Art of Understanding and Guiding Youth

SECTIONS

I. HOW DOES THE DEVELOPING CHILD AND TEEN TAKE IN EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD?

II. UNDERSTANDING THE LIFE HISTORIES AND LIFE STRUCTURES OF TEENS

III. THE EFFECTS OF FRAGMENTED FAMILIES ON TEEN PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

IV. THE EFFECTS OF PARENTING STYLES AND SURROGATE PARENTING IN INSTITUTIONS

V. THE RELATION BETWEEN IMPLICIT PARENTS AND INSTITUTIONAL SURROGATES IN TRANSFORMING THE TEEN'S INTENTIONS, EMOTIONS, AND BEHAVIOR

VI. PEERS, RIVALRY, GENDER, SEX, AND ROMANCE IN THE TEEN YEARS: RESTRUCTURING THE POWERFUL SECONDARY IMPLICIT OTHERS

VII. THE TEACHING, UN-LEARNING AND LEARNING, OF THE YOUTH’S CONCEPTS OF CAUSATION AND CONSEQUENCES

VIII. THE ROLE OF STAFF AND PARENTS IN TEEN'S HOMEWORK AND ACHIEVING ACADEMIC SUCCESS

IX. MATURITY COACHING- TRAINING STAFF AND RESIDENTS FOR FACILITATING MATURATION

X. THE ROLE OF THE ‘FORMAL ROLE STRUCTURES’ OF STARS AND STRIPES, IN THE INSTITUTIONAL SETTING, IN THE FORMATION OF THE YOUTH'S IDENTITY

XI. USING SITUATIONAL MATURITY COACHING TO PREPARE YOUTH FOR RETURN HOME

XII. DESIGNING AND MAINTAINING INSTITUTIONAL PROGRAM STRUCTURES THAT FACILITATE GROWTH IN MATURITY AND CHARACTER WHICH WILL ENDURE AFTER RELEASE

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 7

LESSON 1 Intentional Processes That Shape the Personality

from Birth to Death

Identifying Distortions in the Teen’s Perception and View of the World and Self

Understanding and Dealing With the Postures the Teen Takes

in Receiving Experience and Informationand the Way the Teen Incorporates and Stores

This Information

How Does the Developing Child Take in Experience and Knowledge of the World?

Processes of Receiving and Incorporating Life Experiences

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 8

PICTURING YOUR TEEN’S OR RESIDENT’S FAMILY

• In the picture that follows, which image do you think most closely fits the way your teen’s family looks to them?

• What do you think the effects on a young child would be if they were raised in the family shown at the bottom of the next slide?

• How about if they were raised in the family shown at the top of the picture on the next slide?

• Which image do you think best fits the way your teen sees their family? How would you characterize the life history of a youth growing up in that family?

• Imagine the family of a teen or resident youth that you are dealing with. What do you think it would have felt like to have been in that family from their birth to their present situation? How would it shape their personality and behavior?

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 9

Windows on the World of Family LifeWindows on the World of Family Life

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 10

HOW DOES THE TYPE OF ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH CHILDREN AND TEENS ARE RAISED AFFECT THEIR PERSONALITY, BEHAVIOR, AND THE INNER WORKINGS OF THEIR MINDS?

• In the following slide, we take two distinctly different environments and life histories and trace them from infancy through young adulthood.

• Consider what is happening to each of these children and how these forces are shaping their personalities.

• Consider what is happening inside the mind of the child on each path.• How might their mind’s differ?• How will they see things, hear things, interpret, and respond to things

differently?• How will they view their future?• What will their lives be like?• How are they likely to turn out?

Let’s go deeper into this subject to find out what teen’s are really

like! OK?

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 11

ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES FUNNEL LIFE’S PATHS IN INEVITABLE DIRECTIONS TOWARD INEVITABLE ENDS

WELL1.

2.

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 12

WHEN YOU ARE GUIDING A TEEN, WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW

ABOUT THE WAY THEIR MIND OPERATESIN ORDER TO RELATE TO THEM ‘AS THEY ARE’

AND HELP THEM GROW AND CHANGEIN THEIR OWN TIME AND OWN WAY?

• How do you avoid influencing them to pretend to believe, feel, think, or act the way they you want them to rather than encouraging them to be true to themselves?

• How do you understand the teen and their beliefs, feelings, preferences, and behavior – in terms of their unique background and life and family

history?– In terms of the factors in their environment?

• How do you facilitate their positive growth so that it is genuine and enduring?

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 13

What Do We Think of As the Typical Stages in a Life History?How Do Our Teens View these Typical Stages of LifeTypical Stages of Life and What They May Hold for Them?

Infancy

Early

Teens

Middle

Childhood

Childhood

Early

Middle

Teens

Teens

Late

Young

Adult

Marriage

Parenthood

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 14

ONCE AGAIN -WHEN YOU ARE GUIDING A TEEN,

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE WAY THEIR MIND OPERATES

IN ORDER TO RELATE TO THEM ‘AS THEY ARE’AND HELP THEM FACE AND DEAL WITH THEIR FUTURE

IN THEIR OWN TIME AND OWN WAY?

• How do you avoid influencing them to pretend to want what you want them to rather than encouraging them to be true to themselves?

• How do you understand the teen and their views of and hopes for their future– in terms of their unique background and life and family history?– In terms of the factors in their environment?

• How do you facilitate their open and realistic exploration of possible alternatives and futures for themselves in a way that is not pretending to want what you want for them?

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 15

Movies to Accompany This Lesson and to Be Discussed in Group

• After you have studied and discussed the slides of this lesson, if you have time, it would be helpful to select and view one of the movies below and later discuss it in your group in terms of the ideas in the lesson:– Mi Familia (My Family)

– There Are No Children Here

– The Color Purple

– The Quiet Room

– Natural Born Killers

04/19/23 copyright ed young, PhD, 7/1997 16

HOMEWORK EXERCISE

When your group has studied the slides of Lesson 1 and discussed the major ideas, before disbanding, select a movie and develop a plan for carrying out the following their homework exercise during the next week.

EXERCISE•Each member of the group is to select one teen and ask them if they would mind sharing their life story with you. Find a time to sit alone with the teen. Ask them about what life was like in their family, from their earliest memory to the present.

•Remember that this is not a counseling session. You are just trying to get to know the youth better. Only take thirty to forty five minutes. Guide them toward giving you just the highlights.

•As your teen talks, try to imagine what it might have been like to have grown up in their circumstances.

•When your group meets to discuss lesson 2, before discussing it, convey to the group the impression you got of your teen’s unique life history and life circumstances. Using your imagination tell the group what it must have been like and felt like to have been him or her and how their life history and circumstances must have shaped their personality and behavior.