The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen

This groundbreaking book argues that adolescence is an needless period of life that people are without. Robert Epstein, former editor in chief of Psychology Lately, shows that teen turmoil is caused by outmoded systems put in place a century ago which destroyed the continuum between childhood and adulthood. Where this continuum still exists in other countries, there’s no adolescence. Isolated from adults, American teens learn the whole thing they know from their media-dominated peers the last people on this planet they will have to be learning from, says Epstein. Epstein explains that our teens are highly capable in some ways more capable than adults and argues strongly against infantilizing young people. We should rediscover the adult in each teen, he says, by giving young people adult authority and responsibility as soon as they are able to demonstrate readiness. This landmark book will change the thinking about teens for decades to come.