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By Pat Wingert
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Whether it's Pokemon or Harry Potter or Quake III, tweens seem inextricably drawn to mastering complicated worlds with byzantine rules or becoming experts on obscure topics. William Damon, head of the Stanford University Center on Adolescence, talked to NEWSWEEK's Pat Wingert about why the tween years are the age of obsession and how parents should react.
WINGERT: Is obsession a normal part of development?
DAMON: It's one of the landmarks that psychologists like Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson have written about. Physiologically, there's a huge increase in the neurological capacity of kids at this stage of development. There are two times when a human goes through tremendous neurological growth--one is just after infancy and the other is around 10, 11 and 12. Kids begin thinking in more complex ways.
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So they're looking for a challenge?
Every generation gives it its own twist--and that tells us something about the kids and the culture. In the past, a lot of kids were fascinated in almost an obsessive way with social systems, politics, religious ideology. When I was growing up, everyone collected baseball cards and memorized stats. Some kids use this time to develop skills that can turn out to be incredibly valuable later on--like a fascination with rockets or music. In the '70s a lot of kids, like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, were fascinated with computers.
If your kid obsesses on the intricacies of Pokemon instead of rocket science, is he wasting an opportunity?
"Wasting" is putting it too strongly. Anything they do to exercise the mental muscle is positive. But it would be more productive to spend time on something that had a deeper meaning, something academic or artistic or civic.
Should parents just say no to the more trivial pursuits as a way to encourage tweens to seek out something more worthwhile?
I would advise against that, because you don't know where they'll turn next with all their energies. They might develop a new type of artificial intelligence, but they might join the Hells Angels. If all you're giving kids is constraint and censorship, you're setting your kids loose into a risky world and robbing them of your positive guidance. Every parent has to learn to walk the fine line between managing and micromanaging their kids' lives. You should be very careful about what you say no to. I would recommend the other side of the coin: take positive action and help them see a wider range of options.
When should parents get concerned?
Part of this age is discovering private worlds that Mom and Dad are not necessarily promoting, and generally it's harmless. But it can also get weird and scary, and parents need to use their judgment. Parents should get concerned if an obsession gets dangerous, or excessive in ways that could lead to self-destructive habits--like gambling and thrill seeking. Watch for things that can become habit-forming or destructive to themselves or others. Kids are bad about judging risk. These things can get out of control.
Many parents of tweens just don't get what fascinates their child about his or her particular obsession. Is that a bad thing?
To kids, that's the good part.
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