Researchers at the University of Virginia tracked 184 teens from age 13 to 23 in both urban and suburban locations from diverse ethnic backgrounds. They gathered info on teens from them and their peers and found that the “cool, popular” kids in middle school became the awkward, unruly losers in adult life. Even their friends didn’t really dig them anymore. Started from the top now we here.
“Teens who were romantically involved at an early age, engaged in delinquent activity, and placed a premium on hanging out with physically attractive peers were thought to be popular by their peers at age 13.”
This makes sense. Being the kid who gets to third base or talks back to the teacher or looks good is worshipped when you’re a kid because those things equate to attention. When you’re young and naive attention is the greatest currency but when you’re older you begin to realize that there is a good kind of attention and a bad kind of attention. When you’re young acting out and “misbehaving” is the easiest way to get any attention at all.
“But over time, this sentiment faded: By 22, those once-cool teens were rated by their peers as being less competent in managing social relationships. They were also more likely to have had significant problems with alcohol and drugs, and to have engaged in criminal activities, according to the study.”
If your negative behaviors are reinforced as positive when you’re young but then suddenly that changes and you have to be responsible it’s reasonable that you’re going to have a hard time readjusting. What was once cool is now obnoxious and immature but it’s all you know.
Does this hold true to you? Are the cool kids you knew in middle school now the irresponsible “dead beats”? For me, middle school was the turning point, if you didn’t straighten up by 8th grade you most likely were on a less productive path.
