Learner Driver Hub - FUN STUFF
THE CHANGING WORLD OF TEENAGERS - by Dieter Fischer

 

It may be hard to believe that you and I once were one of them, but that was possibly in a different era. Today's breed is totally different. I can’t remember going to bed at 4 am and writing a note to my parents to wake me at 10 am. Recently I found one of these. I ignored it, because it didn’t say 10 am on which day.

In my days I shared a room with two of my brothers. This means we had three times as much opportunity to mess it up. But I swear our room never was as cluttered with books, CD’s, DVD’s, body building equipment, dirty crockery, clothes, computer equipment etc etc. than that of our teenager. At least he never asks for new carpets. You never see any carpet. Trying to open the window in his room is harder than scaling an indoor climbing wall.

Talking about body building; a typical teenager has endless energy to do weights, push ups, sit up hick-ups plus any other ups to strengthen the muscles. (No wonder it gets them down). You would think the acquired strength could be harnessed for some useful activity, like washing cars or pushing a lawn mower. Oh, no! It does not work that way. All available calories are burned up at the gym. After that couch potato. 

Somebody ought to invent a system, whereby all the gym-created energy spent in body building were channeled into useful production. It would do wonders for the nation’s FGDP (Fantastic, gymnastic, domestic product)

The older a teenager grows, the costlier it gets. Recently someone commented how our son looked like a million dollars. I agreed. His Nike Air Gordon (or whatever river they're named after) joggers alone count for 900 000. 

Showering for 45 minutes is standard for girls between 13 & 15 years. Do they seriously think that excess weight washes down the drain? It takes a certain amount of common sense to first put on shoes and a jumper, before turning the heater on. When I suggested this to my 15 year old daughter, her logic was: "But you never see them on TV wearing jumpers inside?

It shows how easily teenagers are influenced. When one of our children was about 17 he'd heard that drinking water is good for your health. For weeks we seldom saw him anywhere without a 2 litre plastic bottle of water in his hand. One of my clients told me of a health freak who learned how good carrots are for your diet. He ate raw carrots by the dozen. Not until his skin turned a sickly yellow colour, did he realize that things may be good for you, in moderation. (Heaven is the place where you get a tan from eating lots of chocolate).

At age 14 he had the idea to change his bike’s colour to white. Our neighbour’s son was working as a spray painter. Before I could persuade him that the colour of a bicycle does not make a difference to it’s performance, he had all accessories stripped off the frame - brakes, gears, cables, pedals etc. He got his white bike, but I was the clown that had to come to the rescue trying to put it all back together again. Somehow the gears never worked the same. Teenagers !!

Luckily there was a dad to help him out. Today, in certain suburbs or socio-economic groups, an old-fashioned family is rare. It used to be dad, who showed you what that piece of metal under the bonnet of the family car was about. As soon as one could reach the pedals, dad let you drive up and down the driveway to get the feel of steering, clutch and brake

Sadly, this role in today’s single parent families, is to large extend left vacant or filled by the tech giants and Google. Isn’t it high time our Governments recognized the changing trend and made driver education a compulsory part of any young person’s education? It does not have to be a complex subject, filled with endless physics and boring theory; just simple driver education as part of life skills training.

The question is, would teenagers vote for compulsory driver education in schools, if given the option? Boys would probably give a simple answer to that question: "Yes, if there are girls taking part." Girls would probably respond: "No way - if boys are taking part"

Must go now; I have two appointments with teenagers, one a driving lesson (pick-up at the local gym), the other with my 14 year old straight after. He wants his violin spray painted white.