What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

This was the first Journeys blog article, originally published on Friday, January 22, 2010

Growing up is hard to do.

Adolescence can be a rocky adventure (sometimes even a mis-adventure) not confined just to our teen years. Many of us, myself included – an upper 20-something, are still trying to figure out exactly what adulthood looks like. A life stage that is obtainable but ever elusive. When I look to the media and even societal expectations I am filled with ideas of adulthood being responsibilities that I must fulfill one by one, as if on a checklist to growing up.

Graduate and go to College…

Become a Strongly Independent Person…

Land a Certain Job…

Own a Home…

Fall in Love and Raise a Family…

And the whole time… Be responsible. Whew!

Paradoxically this is the confused list that is given to us by our youth participants at Journeys – just throw in a couple more relevant teen year passages like “Get my Driver’s License,” “Purchase Alcohol,” "Vote in a Presidential Election," and “Have a Sexual Relationship” and you have the whole list.

Granted, seemingly, these items DO provide us with some level of adult-like accountability – at least externally or to the world around us. But something seems to be missing from the list.

So the question emerges, What does it really mean to come into adulthood?

My hope, and a consistent motivation at Journeys, is that true adults are those who know their unique purpose or intent in this time and in this place. An adult knows of their contribution and is on the road to offering their true self to the world. But boy is that confusing! And who will help us figure it out!?

Purpose, alone, is a big discovery task and something that we begin asking ourselves fairly early. This is sometimes masked by the common question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

At Journeys, we ask our youth participants, “Where are you going?” and “How are you going to get there?” sometimes followed up by, “Who are you going to take with you?” For a 12-year-old these are big questions but inevitably the youth has answers. The answers sometimes change over time, as we get closer and closer to knowing who we really are, but asking the question itself is a step along the path.

So here I am today, opening up a new blog page to capture these questions and the experiences that our friends, staff and participants have to offer in hopes that someday we’ll have it all figured out. If nothing else, this is a place for us to share our process of coming of age, no matter what stage we’re at.

This is an experiment in creating and building our community. And I’ll probably need a lot of help along the way. If, at any time, you are sparked by a thought or a memory please do share it with me (or “us” as we begin to gather here). I look forward to hearing from the Journeys’ community and I extend this village to anyone who is reading this post. Each of us has a part of the story to share and I feel honored to be in charge of capturing the pieces.

All the best on your Journey,

Emily Pease

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Is Your Child Ready for a Coming of Age Experience?

When is it the right time for your child to have a coming of age initiation? We often get calls and emails from parents asking us if their child is too young or too old for a Coming of Age to be meaningful. We don’t claim to always have the answer to these questions but there are several things that we suggest you look for when considering this momentous rite of passage for your child…

Bill Plotkin, in his book “Nature and the Human Soul,” describes a “center of gravity” shift as a person moves from childhood into adolescence. In childhood, the center of gravity is the family, parents and home. In adolescence, the center of gravity is the social life, with the attention most focused on peers, society and sexuality. The move from childhood to adolescence is a long, gradual shift --- like the swing of a pendulum --- as this center of focus moves off of the family and onto the peers. So, ideally you would like to catch your child when this pendulum swing is in full gear --- as his or her interest is beginning to be absorbed by peers and friends, pop culture and perhaps a new curiosity about romance and sexuality. A classic marker for this moment is when your child will no longer allow you to drop him off at school, but would prefer to walk the last few blocks rather than endure the mortification of his schoolmates seeing that he actually has parents!

Often this shift of gravity is accompanied by the physical and emotional changes of puberty --- body changes and increasing emotional intensity --- but not always. Boys in particular may hit physical puberty a bit earlier than they experience the shift into psychological and spiritual adolescence. Girls often hit this shift earlier than boys, and we find that girls are ready for our trips at 12 or 13, with 14 often being too late. By that age, many girls have claimed their independence to such an extent that parents are not able to convince them to go on a trip, or indeed to do anything that begins as the parent's idea! Boys are sometimes ready at 12, and usually ready at 13 or 14, for our Coming of Age trip.  A 15-year old may be perfectly ready or may consider him or herself too old to honor the shift out of childhood. However, even a 15- or 16-year old who has not had a Coming of Age experience facilitated for him or her will still have a deep inner need for this rite of passage and will be greatly benefited by having it, even if a tad late.

The prime task of a person entering adolescence, in our culture, is to establish his or her independence from parents or guardians. Quite understandably, this is not always done gracefully. Teenage girls will often push hard against parents, particularly mothers, and may begin to argue about everything. They may also explode with emotion (anger, tears) telling you all about everything that is wrong. Teenage boys, however, tend to withdraw and may suddenly feel awkward about touching or hugging parents or refuse to tell you much at all about their lives. The beginnings of these sorts of power struggles, blow-ups or withdrawals are also excellent markers to watch for.

Many parents understand that a Coming of Age experience is something that families and communities must provide for their young people --- it will almost never occur to a child that she or he needs one. However, some parents struggle with getting “buy-in” from their children. If you are not able to simply say: “This is an experience you need to have, and it is my responsibility to provide it for you.  Here you go,” then how can you convince your child to get on board?

Often one of the exciting “hooks” of a Coming of Age experience for a young person is the allure of new privileges. On our trips we talk a lot about new freedoms and new responsibilities, and how one really can’t have freedom without stepping up to the accompanying responsibility. At the end of our programs, parents and youth sit down together to negotiate a new family agreement, including new freedoms the youth is ready for. It is certainly reasonable for a parent to say, “You are growing up and becoming a teenager. I need to know that you understand what this means and that you are conscious about this step. This Coming of Age trip will help you do that. When you return from this adventure, I will know that you are ready for new freedoms, like [travelling around town on the bus on your own, new cell phone, having friends over when I’m not here, etc].”

Some young people are facing a lot of questions at this time of life --- wondering about sexuality and gender identity, what it means to become a young man or woman, how to navigate peer dynamics at school or how to deal with issues with friends, teachers and parents. These children might be relieved to hear: “Most people your age struggle with questions about life. This Coming of Age trip offers you a chance to explore some of these issues with a mentor who can help you sort thing out. You will be with a group of peers who are also struggling with these issues and you can all explore life’s big questions together and learn from each other.”  

Some young people feel apprehension about the upcoming change in their lives and may be concerned that they will grow apart from you as they become teens. Such kids may be helped by hearing, “Things are going to change a lot for you and for us as a family as you become a teenager. This is all healthy and necessary. But I would like for us to continue to be close through these changes. One of the best ways for us to do this is for you to go on this Coming of Age trip. It will help you step into this new phase of life and it will help us, as a family, step into this new phase together.”

And of course, some children will just need to understand that this trip will be FUN!  It will be a great adventure and an opportunity for them to challenge themselves in a really positive way. They will do things that most people have never done --- like completing a 24-hour solo on the beach? Embarking on an 8-day backpacking trip though a beautiful valley (with wild animal sightings!)? Climbing rope ladders up sand cliffs and plunging into ice-cold mountain streams? They will definitely come back with stories to tell!!

- Amanda Ayling, Journeys Program Director, 2010 - 2015

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Earth as Teacher

When I was 15, I fell head-over-heels in love with the natural world. Learning about and being in nature became an obsession, one that led me to drop out of high school so that I could spend all of my time outdoors. Being able to escape to the oak woodland-covered hills of central California when I was a teenager helped me cope with this challenging time of life. While I was wandering through the woods, friends were also dropping out of school but they were getting addicted to drugs, and even committing suicide. I found a great deal of healing for myself through time spent alone in the natural world.

It was from these experiences that I came to work with other people in the wilderness. I strongly believe that in our modern world there is something sick within all of us. It longs for a connection with nature. A modern rite of passage experience is powerful in part because it connects the participant with nature and provides an atmosphere conducive to recognizing relationship between their environment and themselves. However, in a world increasingly dominated by the fast paced and flashy, nature often appears boring. How do we -- educators, guides, and mentors, create the opportunities for young people to discover these connections?

One answer to this question can be found in a wide variety of books written on nature activities and environmental education. There are many activities designed to engage students and teach them about the importance of the natural world and their connection to it through fun games and initiatives (problem solving activities). Many of these activities are fun and useful, but to me they have often seemed contrived and lacking of a sense of authenticity. This may come from my initiation into nature. I didn't learn about the meaning of a food web from a game where everyone pretends to be a different plant or animal and holds onto a long piece of rope next to the thing that they eat or are eaten by. I went into the woods without food and foraged for my meals. This is not to say that games and initiatives are not a valuable tools for teaching. They can be engaging and fun, especially for younger audiences. But their game-like quality is also limiting. How seriously is someone going to take a game, anyway?

A deeper learning comes from direct experience of the natural world. You can be sure that I understood the relationship between my life and the lives of other parts of the environment after feeding myself from things I gathered in the wild. But I also learned a great deal more than that. I learned empathy, awareness, ingenuity, and self-reliance from that same experience. I learned to appreciate the gifts given to me by other living beings, including the gifts from the people who had provided for me for many years.

I am not saying that we need to take people into nature and make them eat only what they can find. I'm saying we can use activities in the outdoors from which students learn directly from their interactions in and with nature, not just from games. This might be taking their wristwatch and sending them to wander around aimlessly along a stream until we come and get them at some unspecified time later in the day.

In some ways this seems easy: put them in a natural setting and they will learn something. While you never know exactly what the learning outcomes for any experience are going to be, you can design experiences with particular objectives in mind. Self-awareness, self-reliance, awareness of the environment, team work, and compassion are all things which can be learned through experiences in the natural world. The more "real" the experience, the deeper the learning derived from it can be. A student who really gets lost and can't find her way back to camp for a time will feel in her gut her dependence on her family and society. This experience will probably have a much greater impact than if you just asked her to imagine this experience. Besides creating the appropriate activity, a leader should also be able to frame the experience beforehand and to process it afterwards. This helps prepare participants for the activity and for reflection and analyzing the experience afterwards.

Taking people into the wilderness and creating a safe container for their experiences is often all the leader may need to do. The power of the beauty and rawness of the natural world can be more influential on students than any number of planned activities. I experienced this during the backpacking portion of the Wilderness Quest several years ago. We had just finished a grueling day of climbing up to a camp above tree line. We were all together around the camp stoves as water heated. The sun was setting over the mountains to our west, lighting up the horizon and making the huge glaciers on Glacier Peak and the other mountains surrounding us glow with a pinkish hue. After a few minutes of this, one of the students (someone who usually was more interested in talking about video games or anarchy) out of the blue said, "I had no idea that there was anything like this in the world. This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. " Other students followed with other comments about how this campsite was unbelievable and made them realize just how important wilderness is and how good they felt about being able to make it there. One student mentioned that if they didn't realize that this existed just 50 miles from where they had lived all their lives, there must be an infinite number of other things in the world which were even more beautiful and amazing to be discovered. At the end of the trip, several students brought up this camp and the sunset as one of the highlights of the trip. For the leaders, it had just been a practical spot to camp to keep on schedule for the trip. After doing all sorts of discussions, activities, and telling stories to try to get the students to realize these things, it was just camping in an amazing spot that really opened them up.

As a leader I now try to think of myself as a student, or a follower, of the natural world. Since my passion for the wilderness first blossomed as a teenager, I have studied the natural world and outdoors skills from a wide variety of perspectives and in several different contexts: from living in a bark hut to academic college classes. But of all the things I have read and human teachers I have worked with, none of them have taught me as much as my direct experience - living, working and playing in the wild.

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