THE EXPOSURE PERIOD

For many, age 12 begins the Exposure period of life. It is the age when there develops a natural desire to break away some from strict parental upbringing...and to test out, try out, experiment with, a whole array of new things...including independent decision making, deeper personal and romantic relationships, disobedience of authorities, sex, drugs, alcohol and more. It is all part of the process of finding out what pleases you, what interests you, what impassions you. In other words, who you are.

Parents and schools, normally the two dominant influences in a child's life, would do well to understand the power...and, yes, the pressures...of the Exposure period, and to convey that understanding to the child. Even further. They ought reasonably encourage, facilitate and contribute to the experimentation, the exploration, that is taking place.

As time passes, the child normally becomes better able to take greater control over his or her life. Parents can help their child by releasing some of their authority and gifting it to the child. They can open the child's eyes and mind to life's treasures and potentials. They can teach the child that the Exposure period is laden with both pleasures and tribulations...and that they and the child's experiencing of them, are normal and healthy. All of which will immeasurably promote the child's psychological development and well-being.

Schools can contribute much to a child during the Exposure period, but perhaps nothing more precious than this: to teach a child that learning can be fun and knowledge a source of delight. From infancy, we all sense physical pleasures easily and quickly. But few of us ever come to know that there are wondrous pleasures to be found on our mental side...in scholarship, contemplation and creativity. No matter what else it does well, a school that does not teach that lesson to each child, every day in every class, earns a grade of F. As does a school that fails to illuminate the relevance and importance to the student's life of every academic course it offers.

For most, the Exposure period begins at age 12. For the wise, it never ends.