Chapter 4

Cognitive Maturity

            It is obvious to everyone that physical changes take place about the time children become adolescents.  Everyone notices the sudden growth spurt that takes place as children become adolescents.  New clothing bought in late summer for the coming school year becomes too small by second semester.  Voices change, becoming deeper.  As mentioned in earlier chapters, the body changes in many ways as people pass through puberty and become sexually mature. 

            At about the same time intellectual changes take place as well.  As children become teenagers, they notice that their parents have changed.   As children they may have thought that Daddy was the strongest man in the world and that Mommy was the most beautiful woman in the world.  As children perhaps they thought that their church, school, and country were the best in the world.  As they became adolescents, they began to realize that Mom and Dad are pretty average, and they have some pretty serious faults.  In addition they see that their pastor, teacher, and even their President have some flaws too.

            Parents notice changes in their offspring as well.  When the children were younger, your parents realized that their children did not obey every time, but at least they obeyed much of the time.  Now that the children are adolescents parents may wonder why they always ask, “Why should I?”  Or they ask, “What if I refuse?”  As children they used to obey without asking for a reason, but now as adolescents they may not only ask for a reason but also argue about most reasons the parents give.  As one parent put it, “They argue just for the sake of arguing!”

            What has happened?  Of course, part of it is the cultural invention of adolescence, but another part of it is the changes that have taken place in intellectual development at about the age of puberty.  In the New Testament we find recognition of these changes.

Paul

            Thousands of years ago people realized that these cognitive changes took place.  Paul, a New Testament TCK, wrote, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me” (1 Corinthians 13:11).  Nearly 2000 years ago Paul could see that speech, thinking, and reasoning are different during childhood and adulthood.  When people changed into adults, their intellectual process changed along with their physical characteristics.  In more recent times, studies have identified these.

Piaget: Formal Operations

Although Paul wrote about it 2000 years ago, the modern study of the differences between the thinking of children and that of adults was pioneered by Jean Piaget in the early twentieth century.  He studied several stages during cognitive development:

• Sensory motor, in which infants “think” using sensations and actions,
• Preoperational, in which preschool children represent things with words and images but are unable to think logically,
• Concrete operational, in which elementary children can think logically about concrete events, but they cannot think abstractly,
• Formal operational, in which middle and high school adolescents can reason abstractly.

Of course, the change of interest here is the final one which occurs at about the age of puberty, about as children become adolescents.  In this stage, for the first time as adolescents, individuals are capable of thinking abstractly.  Before this they had to have some concrete representation of the problem to solve it, but now they can think about it in words or other symbols alone.  Now they can solve algebraic problems such as, “If X²-X-6=0, what is X?”  Before the stage of formal operations, as children they just look puzzled when asked that question (For a child X is X and not something else.).  When parents or teachers told them that X is -2 and +3, the children thought they were joking (X could not be two things because X is X).  How then does this apply to you and your parents?

Logical Reasoning

Since some people never reach this level of development, parents should be delighted when their children reach it.  However, sometimes parents resent some of the results of this kind of thinking, and they may even interpret these results as rebellion.

• Parents find that, “Because I said so” does not work any more.  Up until this time when as children you asked “Why?” you were satisfied with such an answer.  However, now that you are capable of logical reasoning, you want to hear rational answers to your questions.  No longer are you content with, “Because we have always done it that way.” 

• Parents may also notice that as adolescents you seem to want to argue just for the sake of arguing.  Of course, you do.  When you were children and were first able to do something, you loved doing it.  When you were first able to walk, you just walked for the sake of walking.  When you learned to drive as a teenager, you wanted to drive just for the sake of driving (cruising).  Likewise, when you learn to argue, you may argue just for the sake of arguing.
• Unfortunately, your logical reasoning is imperfect.  You have the capacity to reason abstractly, but that capacity needs to be developed.  Odd as it may sound, your parents need to teach you, as adolescents, how to argue appropriately and effectively.  As adolescents you need to learn to stick to the issue and remain calm rather than making angry personal attacks on other people.  Your parents need to teach you how to construct logical arguments and present them appropriately.

Above all, your parents must not rush to the judgment that questioning and arguing indicates that you are rebellious.  As adolescents you may be rebelling—or you may just be showing that you have reached your full cognitive capacity and need practice developing that new ability to its fullest potential.  If teens are not rebellious but parents tag them with that label, the teenagers may become rebellious—a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Imagined Perfection

            Another result of this new cognitive capacity is the ability to imagine an “ideal” in ways never before possible.  When you construct these utopian ideals as adolescents, reality does not measure up very well, and your comments may be interpreted as lack of respect.  You may make these comparisons in many areas.  

• Parents.  As children you may have seen your parents as perfect, but when you compare your parents to your constructed ideal, your parents always come up short.  When you say so, your parents may think you are rebelling.
• Church.  As children you may have thought that your church was flawless, perhaps that only its members were going to heaven.  Now you compare the church you attend to your ideal church, and you may want to change churches or not go at all.
• School.  As elementary school children you may have loved your school, especially your teachers.  In comparison to your ideal school and teachers, as adolescents you will find that reality comes up short so you dislike school and may not even want to go.
• Country.  As children you may have loved your passport country and prized its political system.  Compared to your imagined “perfect” country, as adolescents you may find that your passport country looks very bad, and you may explore other forms of government.

All of this may be very disconcerting to parents, but it is a part of growing up and developing the capacity to think like adults.  Rather than labeling adolescents as disrespectful, parents should help them develop a more realistic Christian world-view.  The ability to imagine perfection (heaven) is an important one, and it needs cultivation rather than criticism.

Postmodern Thinking

            Postmodern thought is not a part of adolescence; however, during the past couple of decades, it has become the way many adolescents think.  “Postmodern” does not mean that such thinking developed out of modernism but means only that it developed after modernism.  This kind of thinking probably developed partly as a reaction against the great pride modernism had in its ability to create perfect citizens in a perfect society.  This kind of postmodern thought is a challenge not only to Christian thought but also to the rational thought of modernism.

            Such changes in patterns of thought soon after reaching adulthood have been occurring for thousands of years and have been a two-stage process.  The first stage is one in which the old ways of thinking are challenged, and that is good for each generation to do.  Then the second stage is one of creating a deeper understanding of truth acknowledging God rather than leaning on one’s own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6).

            TCKs often challenge the patterns of thought in both their host culture and their passport culture.  We find examples of this in TCKs born in their host cultures in both Old and New Testaments.  More than 3000 years ago Moses chose the ways of thinking in his passport culture (the Hebrew world-view) and rejected those of his host culture (Exodus 2; Hebrews 11:23-28).  As the writer of Hebrews put it, “he chose to be mistreated along with the people of God.”  About 2000 years ago Paul rejected the patterns of thought in both his passport and host cultures and chose to follow Jesus Christ (Acts 9).  As he put it in his trial before the king, he had lived as the strictest of Jews (a Pharisee), but because of his hope in Jesus Christ he was arrested.

            Unfortunately, many postmodern adolescents today take the position that there is no general truth and that each person creates his or her own truth.  They have not taken the necessary second step.              Like other Christians who grew up during the age of modernism, missionary parents are often disturbed when they hear this kind of postmodern thought from their children.  Two examples of the characteristics of such thought are found in truth and tolerance.

• Truth.  Christians and modernists alike believe that there is one truth, and that we can discover it.  Christians believe it is revealed to us by God, and modernists believe that it can be found by observation and reason.  Some of today’s postmodernists believe that truth is a product of each person and his or her culture.  Thus each person constructs his or her own truth and reality.  Rather than one truth, there are many truths.  Furthermore, all of these truths are of equal value so that what they find in the Bible is as valid as what they find on the Internet or as what their friend says.
• Tolerance.  Since there is no one (absolute) truth for some of today’s postmodernists, they treat all truths with tolerance.  And for them tolerance means that we must equally affirm all truths as valid.  Christianity is truth.  Buddhism is truth.  What their friend believes is truth.  All these truths are equally valid.  A cardinal “sin” in this form of postmodernism is to say that your truth is better than another person’s truth.  Of course, you are an arrogant bigot if you maintain that you have the only truth.

A postmodern student in a Christian college said, “Still, however, I am told that refusal to maintain faith in this invisible character will result in eternal damnation.  At least if I let myself down, I won’t spend an eternity in pain and suffering. Christianity, at this point, seems more intolerant and judgmental than any ideology I wish to be associated with.”  This person is saying that if he does not believe in hell, he will not go to it because it does not exist.  However, if he believes in it, he risks going to it.

Thinking Like a TCK

            Third Culture Kids (TCKs) who grow up as a part of two cultures internalize deep aspects of culture that influence their thinking.  Everyone notices differences in appearance, words used, customs, and ways of doing things in different cultures.  However, much deeper and more important are the unseen beliefs, values, assumptions, and modes of thought in different cultures.  TCKs are aware of these deeply held cognitive factors.  As mentioned in an earlier chapter, we have heard TCKs sit around our table and say, “She may have lived overseas, but she doesn’t think like a TCK.”  Other TCKs agree.

            Although she used the word “values” rather than thinking, Deborah Kartheiser (“Value Schock,” Interact, Winter, 2004) wrote about these deeply internalized cultural factors that affect thinking.

• “The tension arises from the strange mix of cultural values that still lives in my very core. (p. 1)
• “It is not an us-and-them mentality; it is more like us-and-us-and-us and-us. (p. 2)
• “Then there are the inner clashes, when the values of one of my cultures seem to contradict those of another. (p. 18)
• “Am I a turncoat by identifying so deeply with one group, then going back and forth to the other camp where I am also one of us?” (p. 19)

Learning a language and a culture the way TCKs do, by living in it during their developing years, means not only learning words but also internalizing a set of concepts and a way of thinking unique to that culture.  Learning two languages and two cultures simultaneously may result in a distinctly different way of thinking which becomes apparent during the adolescent years when logical reasoning is used to support arguments.

What can adolescents TCKs do?

            Your memory and capacity to think will never be better than it is during your late adolescence.  Do not miss this opportunity to use your intellect. 

• Don’t avoid teachers because someone says they are hard.
• Do avoid teachers that give “busy work” and seek those who make you think.
• Don’t major in something just because it is easy, such as the language of you host country.
• Do major in something because it interests you and is useful.
• Don’t accept something simply because it is in a book or because others believe it.
• Do reach some conclusions about how you will determine truth.
• Have your parents read this chapter (even better this whole book) and suggest the following to them.

            To parents of adolescents:  This is an exciting time of life intellectually for you and your teenagers.  You can now interact with them on an adult level.  Unfortunately, parents may misinterpret their adolescents’ new cognitive abilities as rebellion.

• Don’t be surprised or angry when adolescents want to argue.
• Do be thankful that they have developed the capacity for abstract thinking.
• Don’t reprimand adolescents who ask, “Why?”
• Do be a model of how to give a good answer to the question, “Why?”
• Don’t tell adolescents that their reasoning is not logical.
• Do help them present a logical argument that will be more convincing.
• Don’t be surprised when adolescents notice your shortcomings
• Do expect it and help them develop a realistic view to temper their idealism

            As a TCK you have a unique set of intellectual processes, having incorporated two or more ways of thinking.  Use these abilities to work on problems that are difficult for those who have grown up in only one culture.