I have talked to adolescents who have described how lonely they feel. In many cases, they have been alone every day after school since they were 8 or 9 years old. By the time these students graduate from high school, we re talking about a decade without consistent adult interaction. My husband and I both worked out of our home. This adolescent community has been formed by default.
Nobody s home but the kids.
This doesn t mean that adolescents have no rules, expectations, or values. But it means that they are forming them by observing and interacting with other adolescents. They feel that they are living in a completely different society than adults, and so they don t share anything with adults. When they do share with us, we adults fool ourselves, or we are threatened, or we are in denial. Individual adolescents may choose not to do these things, but it s part of their world.