One of the primary tasks of middle adolescence is to learn to be appropriately independent. It is a necessary step toward growing up and being on one’s own, in the way God intends. In some families, however, adolescents learn in a stormy way, accompanied by all manner of rebellion against parental authority. They need not, but they often do.

Parenting teenagers is not for the faint of heart, and parents often feel discouraged that their children seem down on themselves in the seventh and eighth grades, rebellious in the ninth and tenth grades, and unsure of their direction in life in the eleventh and twelfth grades.

In each of these stages, parents can fear that they have done something terribly wrong, and they often struggle to know how to “fix” their teenagers when, in fact, they are actually going through the God-ordained stages of growing up (Genesis 2:24; 1 Corinthians 13:11).

The father of C.S. Lewis worried terribly about his son, who showed all the signs of becoming a monster. Young Lewis went through what we might call the three major stages of young adolescence, middle adolescence, and late adolescence that can prove so disruptive to what had been a happy family. He took up smoking, lied to his father, became an atheist, and otherwise seemed to be drifting. But in the end, he became the twentieth century’s greatest defender of the Christian faith.

Disagreeable Beginnings

Few people who knew young Lewis in 1910 or 1912 would have said they wanted to be like him. Clive Staples Lewis grew up in a prosperous suburb of Belfast in Ireland, where he was known to his family and closest friends as Jack.

His mother died of cancer when he was 9 years old, at which point his father shipped him off to Wynyard School, a boarding school in England, for a proper education. To the English, however, anyone from Ireland was considered inferior. The other boys shunned Jack and his older brother, Warnie, or they actively picked on them.

The headmaster of the school (who it turns out was insane) led the way by casting slurs against the boys because they were Irish. He also beat the boys with a cane to help them learn. Unfortunately, he was a minister, and the school was a Christian school, which contributed to young Lewis not having a favorable view of Christianity.

First Friendship

One of the great developmental tasks of young adolescence is to have a healthy attitude about oneself. It is a faith proposition to truly embrace the idea that we are wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). The primary relationship for this time of life is parents.

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