Chapter 55: The Innocence of Experience Theory: Young Adolescent Encounters and Life-Long Moral Development

“Pre-teen,” “preadolescent,” “tweenager,” “inbetweenager,” “transescent,” and “early adolescent” are all cognomens that have been used to try to label children ranging between 10 and 15 years of age. Perhaps the most widely used and appropriate term is now “young adolescent,” and it denotes a separate developmental stage of human growth and development that bridges the span between childhood and adolescence. This period of time is marked by rapid changes in physical, intellectual, psycho-social, emotional, and moral development—leading many to characterize it as “The Wonder Years,” a term used in the 1980s for a television show by the same name.

Middle grades teachers who educate them, scholars who study them, and parents who struggle to understand them, generally agree that young adolescents are delightfully challenging to reach and that one approach for helping all parties “cope” with this developmental stage is to simply celebrate their world of first encounters and experiences. Young adolescents prefer to be acknowledged in positive ways and refer to their growth and development stage as one that is “separate” rather than “unique.” This may actually work to the advantage of teachers, parents, and others who strive to promote and inculcate appropriate behaviors. Central to these efforts is the fact that young adolescents naturally begin to encounter a growing number of “adult” experiences that may, in part, shape their sense of morality with influences and behaviors that can become common for them throughout the rest of their lives.