An adolescent 30 year old?

Yup. Sociologists have been tracking this development over the past several decades and it's now unmistakably clear that adolescence has extended itself well into the 20's and early 30's in some cases. There are more factors than can be discussed here that have contributed to this development, but the challenge to parents and to youth workers is clear: we need to understand the differences between the groups and minister to them accordingly.

Here is an article from Chap Clark, a very careful and thorough evaluator of adolescent trends in this country, which will give parents a clearer understanding of the stages of their children's development. The goal should be to try to understand these things to better understand where our children are in the developmental stage and make an honest attempt to help move them from one stage to the next.

Incidentally, this article explains some of the reasons that we have decided to have separate services for middle and high school students.