Youth-Senior Connection:Intergenerational Resources

"Before" Years- Adolescence	"After" Years- Old Age
A time of complex physical, mental and social changes	A time of complex physical, mental and social changes
A contradiction between many myths and facts of adolescent thoughts, feelings and behaviors	A contradiction between many myths and facts of old age thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
A shift from childhood into the pubescent, discovery years of sexual engagement	A shift from adulthood into the detumescent years of a unisexed life
A lengthening period of evolving personal and social identity and altered functioning (e.g. learning to score in order to count socially).	A period of changing social regard and functioning (eg. Finding relief from who they became by remembering when they were growing up)
A hiatus between "hurry up" into adulthood and "wait for the right time	A period when the future shrinks and the past expands
An increased need for intimacy and trust	An increased need for close relations and support
A time of increased human service and health promotion needs	A time of increased human service needs and health care consumption
An increasing need to prove one's movement toward adulthood and to verify one's age in order to be able to drive, drink, vote, hold a job, get married, consent to medical procedures or services, and take on financial obligations	An increasing need to prove one's movement out of adulthood and to verify one's age to reduce one's social/financial obligations and increase one's social, financial and health benefits.

Source:

Hill,R.F. and O. von Mering, (1995) "Adolescence and Old Age, Part 1: Terminal, Problem Cultures in American Society," Educational Gerontology, 21 (3) : 275-284

Hill,R.F. and O. von Mering, (1995) "Adolescence and Old Age, Part 2: Medicalization and Medical Specialists," Educational Gerontology, 21 (4) : 295-304

System	Adolescence	Old Age
Ethnicity	Heightened awareness of place based group membership via school, family and societal attention to ethnic customs/cultures	Heightened need to rediscover, revisit, consolidate or physically return to one's roots or ancestral homeland
Race	Heightened awareness of race-based group membership, via multiculturalism in educational and governmental institutions	Heightened need (or push) to reidentify, renew, or return to one's racial roots or ancestral homeland
Religion	Heightened use of religion as a defense against unsettling societal expectations and peer pressures to experiment with drugs, alcohol and sexual relations	Heightened need to renew or come to terms with one's religious beliefs and values
Gender	Heightened social pressure to crystallize or consolidate expected sex based gender characteristics while maintaining androgynous feelings, sentiments, and behaviors	Heightened social pressure to give up separate sex based gender prerogatives and the like while preserving the appearance of gender-specific feelings, sentiments and behaviors
Vocation	Heightened social pressure to pursue, discover or commit oneself to a productive career path	Heightened social pressure to give up one's career path for familial, avocational or functional reasons
Family	Heightened need for autonomy and separation from the natal family while practicing for the expected conjugal family of the future and maintaining the fulfillment of declining dependency needs	Heightened need for autonomy and independence, along with increasing dependency needs as the members of one's natal, conjugal and fictive families fade away through migration or death
Health/ disability	Heightened awareness that one is moving into and living in a period of increasing risk, morbidity, and mortality	Heightened awareness that one is moving into and living in a period of increasing risk, morbidity and mortality