Artificial Maturity: Helping Kids Meet the Challenge of Becoming Authentic Adults

 Best-Selling Author, Tim Elmore, Reveals Information and Ideas About Why We Desperately Need Kids to Grow Up and How We Help Them Do That

ATLANTA/SAN FRANCISCO (May 17, 2012) – They grow up so fast, don’t they? “My seven-year-old taught me how to download music.” “My fifth grader wants a tattoo.” But how about this perspective? “My college grad wants me to call his boss.” “My 30-year old won’t move out of the house.” The pervasive lamenting about how kids today seem older at an earlier age is being counteracted with the fact that they don’t seem to want (or aren’t able) to grow up. Adolescence is expanding in both directions—starting earlier and ending later.

Best-selling author and international leadership expert, Tim Elmore, talks about the tremendous impact this is having on society in his latest book, ARTIFICIAL MATURITY: Helping Kids Meet the Challenge of Becoming Authentic Adults (Jossey-Bass, June 2012, ISBN: 978-1-1182-5806-4, $24.95/Cloth/e-book). Artificial maturity is the idea that children are consuming such a large amount of information every day that they think they are mature, fostering over-confidence and often arrogance among them. In reality, they lack the self-awareness, real life experience and emotional maturity that allow them to cope with the world around them.

“Artificial maturity can look remarkably real because kids know so much, but they haven’t experienced enough that gives them context of how to process that information,” says Elmore “Information comes to them easily and readily through many channels, but we are mistaking one area of advanced development for overall maturity. It’s a kind of ‘Google reflex.’ Healthy, mature young adults are ones who have developed intellectually, volitionally, emotionally, socially and spiritually.”

Significant impact awaits if our children do not rise to their place in society as leaders, teachers, mentors, parents and generally responsible adults. The signs are already there. Influences of artificial maturity can be seen within aspects of Corporate America, national education and healthcare systems, college and professional sports, even national security.

So how do we move forward? By rethinking the way we lead, teach and manage children today. “Kids are over protected and under challenged,” continues Elmore. “While a parent’s focus on safety is understandable, it disables the child from taking calculated risks and learning to fail, both of which help people mature.  The activities we provide are important, but too monitored. Kids often don’t know what to do with free time. They fail to learn to resolve conflict, think for themselves or do real-life problem solving.”

In this book and hands-on guide, Elmore leads the reader to understand what authentic maturity looks like, how it impacts society, and how to create a balanced environment that enables children to lead themselves well and influence others in a positive way. He offers at the end of each chapter discussion questions and real-life ideas that have worked for parents and educators across the country.

To find out more about Artificial Maturity: Helping Kids Meet the Challenge of Becoming Authentic Adults, visit our web site at www.growingleaders.com.