PRE-ADOLESCENCE, ADOLESCENCE, AND EARLY ADULTHOOD, AND THEIR IMPORTANCE

83 National directories should distinguish pre-adolescence, adolescence, and early adulthood.

Here it can only be pointed out that in sophisticated regions where the point is raised, the special difficulties of pre-adolescence are in practice not sufficiently nor always recognised. The educator can be tempted to treat pre-adolescents in the same way as children, and thus it is to be feared that he will not win their attention; or he can treat them as adolescents, and in that case give them themes and methods of working which presuppose a maturity of personality and of experience that they have not yet attained.

The age of pre-adolescence has as its peculiar note the troublesome beginning of concern with one’s self. Hence it is important not to continue at this age the simple and objective kind of instruction which is appropriate for children; at the same time, however, one must be careful not to propose problems and themes that belong properly to adolescence.

A concrete type of instruction which would explain the lives and works of the Saints and of other outstanding persons, together with reflections on the actual life of the Church, could provide catechetical students of this age with wholesome nourishment.

The time of young adulthood, taken strictly, which follows adolescence, is also a period of life which has not yet been sufficiently studied and investigated, and its special characteristics are not yet sufficiently known.

Some think that theological instruction should begin at this age. Others believe that human and social questions should be presented for study, together with simple theological explanations and with certain encouragement's to Christian behavior. The method that seems most desirable is that of treating fundamental problems and problems of most concern to this age with the serious, scholarly apparatus of the theological and human sciences, using at the same time a suitable group-discussion method.