1367. Teen Years — Part I

I may have bitten off more than I can chew. But I want to use and churn these principles in a bundle that I hope to make clear about the critical years that follow puberty.

• His ambitions arise out of his need for self-admiration. Her ambitions arise out of her need to feel important.
• People respect others no more than they respect themselves.
• Males don’t respect unearned gifts, and it includes sex and a female’s love.

Adolescence screws up the development of well-rounded adults who are respectful of the opposite sex. ‘Mature’ means that for their age boys or girls are well endowed with mature adult values and thinking. They are small adults in thought and action allowing for their age of course. ‘Immature’ means they haven’t learned or don’t appreciate adult values, standards, and expectations. They won’t know how to act maturely when they do become adults.

Mature Boys. Boys need self-admiration. Some learn before puberty that accomplishments provide it. They enter adolescence prepared to expand and develop new accomplishments in the teens. For example, scouting comes immediately to mind with merit badges and the community projects that some develop and build to prove they deserve to be Eagle Scouts. As teens such boys validate earlier lessons: Accomplishments provide self-admiration. They are in control of earning self-admiration and building significance in both life and the world.

Immature Boys. Some boys don’t learn in the tweens the relationship of accomplishments to self-admiration. Because they don’t accomplish much, they don’t earn much admiration from those around them either. They enter the teens unprepared for the transition that culminates in adulthood about age 21. They go to extremes of action or inaction to find ways to admire themselves. They learn that it doesn’t come easy but the admiration of others can help, so they try to earn the admiration of others by trying to please them. Such boys fail to validate that accomplishments give them control over their lives and they learn to starve for admiration. More and more they depend on others to admire them although the less they accomplish the less others admire them too. Their self-respect lowers and others can’t be respected more than Self.   

Mature Girls. Girls have a strong need to feel important. Before puberty they receive it in two forms: The attention and affection of family and friends, and the sense of importance they feed to themselves by accomplishments that involve others they help or associate with. What they learn early about reinforcing their sense of importance, they validate, expand, and improve in the teen years. They enhance their self-respect. When they enter adulthood, they’re well prepared for sustaining their strongest motivational force, which is confirming their feeling of importance in life and their world.

Immature Girls. Some girls don’t learn in the tweens how to build and validate their importance to their world or themselves. They may not be given enough parental attention and affection, in which case they yearn for more of it throughout life. Also, they don’t learn to build their own sense of importance by doing for others. They pass beyond puberty expecting to be less supervised. Exploiting newfound freedom of action, they find some way to feel more important than the inadequacy currently felt. But they lack mature judgment and go too far or too fast. They lose self-respect. Their teen years pass in misery and lay a foundation for more of the same as adults.

Then, those that have it start associating with those that don’t. Maturity pursues immaturity and vice versa. It comes tomorrow as #1368.

1183. Boot Camp for Girls—Day 20: Grandfather’s Advice #7

My precious granddaughter, I have some private advice just for you. It’s a new form of gravity. I suggest you not share it with your competitors, your girlfriends.

If you haven’t been dumped, you won’t like it. But expect it someday. Your natural good intentions, so typical of good people, make you vulnerable.

By handling ALL boys better, you reduce the odds by playing the field. Don’t try to make them like you. Draw them repeatedly to you with words that work like gravity. The boys that show continuing interest in you can then be captured and kept by doing the same thing only doing it better and more personal.

This specific advice will reduce the risk of becoming a dumpee. Keep yourself focused on what males need more than anything else to keep a female alongside—whether boy and girl, man and woman, or husband and wife. Focus on admiring boys. Find what makes them significant in the ordering of their life—such as grades, sports, integrity, sense of responsibility, character development. Admire their accomplishments and not their ambitions. Judge their results and not their intentions.

Ignite your imagination but move it off self-centeredness and girly things. Find ways to admire how each boy fits so well into his world, the world, and much later your world. Tell him in detail your admiration for who he is, what he does, how he makes himself significant, what he targets and conquers, how he masters present day events, how he settles disputes, what his potential means for the future. (Save for much later the tying of his future to yours).

I don’t mean for you to rattle on incessantly. Use discretion and sincerity with plenty of smiles, eye contact, and active listening. Let him dominate conversations, while you modestly admire him.   

Teach yourself to hold boys up as exemplary individuals, as producers, protectors, providers, and problem solvers and especially for fulfilling female hopes and dreams. That’s what husbands are expected to do, girls tame boys for domestic life, and boys need to learn what women expect out of them.

Intersperse gently but not too frequently how you would love to see a boy in action, how he does something, or whatever else brings you into his picture. Indirectness and seed planting work wonders to reflect admiration; he infers it rather than being told. Inference sinks much more easily and deeper into his belief system.  

Avoid admiring boys for female-friendly stuff, such as peace, good looks, friendly personality, feminist beliefs, compassion, display of affection, group-over-individual, and emotional connections (such as rock music induces and boys exploit for sex). If they haven’t earned it, don’t admire them.

Some boys fake female-like qualities to keep your focus on them. You may like them for it, but you’ll have trouble holding them after they conquer you for sex. Their interests just lie elsewhere, not on the female side of things.

Minimize talking about yourself. And especially dump all the girly mistakes for handling men. Don’t lavish affection or try to spread touchy-feely emotions. Don’t go into full disclosure mode. Don’t float phony compliments into conversations. Don’t let boys open the subject of sex and especially don’t let them uncover your sexual history however virginal or complimentary it may be.

Sincere admiration, lavish but not sickening, can outweigh most of your shortcomings and faults. More importantly, admiration pulls boys back to the source. When many boys seek your attention, some will go out of their way to revel in your presence. When you choose from several, you’ll more likely pick one that won’t dump you.