The Mindset Shift – Why the Teenage Years Are the Time to Practice Adulting
Teenagers Aren’t Just Students—They’re Future Adults in Training
(Part 1 of 2 in the series: “Raising Adults, Not Just Teens”)
All three of my kids are in their twenties now. I homeschooled them from kindergarten to high school. I loved every minute of it, even the challenging ones. They didn’t, but I’m pretty sure if asked, they’d all say they’d choose homeschooling if they had it to do over again.
The transition into adult life is huge. It’s one I’ve been watching for several years. I’ve been thinking about what mattered most during those years, especially their teen years.
It wasn’t achieving a perfect transcript. It wasn’t getting a great SAT score.
It was that my kids had time to become themselves—and to practice building the kind of life they wanted, while they still lived at home and had support and a chance to make low-stakes ‘mistakes.’
They all had different interests that started developing when my kids were young teens. They followed those interests.
One of my sons got heavily into welding and blacksmithing. He built his own forge in our backyard, taught himself the basics, then started fixing and building things. He later went on to study biology in college, and now he works on a regenerative farm. Every day, he uses the same kind of hands-on problem-solving—mechanics, programming, farm planning, budgeting, to name a few of the daily skills he uses.
It’s interdisciplinary work that has real-world, immediate impact. And it makes sense to him because he got to practice it. As a teenager.
Teenagers need time to practice being adults.
Not ‘academic’ practice. Actual try-it-and-see-how-it-goes kind of practice.
That’s what the teen years are for… to help guide kids toward adulthood in real-life ways that matter.
Teenage years are a test drive
We often think of high school as a sprint to college or graduation. We focus on helping our kids get everything in order so they can take the next academic or career step as though life is still about ticking boxes on a checklist.
But it’s not. Instead, think of your teen’s high school years as a training ground.
It’s the last stretch of childhood where your kid can mess up, rework something, try again—and still be in the nest.
That’s a huge gift, read safety net. It’s the best possible time to practice all the things adult life will eventually demand.
In my generation, we got a lot of real-life practice as teens—independence, freedom, coupled with responsibility.
But most teens now don’t get much practice. They’re either stuck jumping through hoops for school, or they’ve been micromanaged into helplessness. And when they do finally get freedom, they don’t always know what to do with it. They haven’t had the chance to build those skills yet.
What if we saw high school differently?
Not as an academic checklist. But as time to support our kids’ skills in building competence.
What if we used it as a time to encourage kids to try things out, with low stakes and a net underneath.
Because they will leave home eventually.
And when they do, we want them to have some idea how to manage their time, advocate for themselves, and handle whatever comes their way.
What teens actually need to practice
This isn’t a rant against academics. Reading and writing, and math all matter. But those are just part of the picture.
What teens really need is a chance to practice the soft-but-essential life skills like:
Making decisions, big and small
Following through on things they start
Managing time and energy (and noticing when they don’t)
Talking to adults—teachers, mentors, employers
Speaking up for themselves
Bouncing back when something doesn’t go as planned
Getting organized enough to function
Working toward something that matters to them, not just to you, or grades
You can’t teach these by talking about them. You have to let kids do it.
Kids need to experience consequences—good or bad—without you swooping in to fix it all.
Not to punish them. Consequence is real-life feedback. Low-stakes consequences are some of the most effective, valuable feedback kids can get to help them become capable, kind adults.
Consequences help kids notice what worked, what didn’t, and what they should do differently next time.
Consequences and judgment and two different things.
Sometimes I hear parents say things like, “Well, I told him if he didn’t write the essay on time, he’d get a zero, and now he knows.”
That’s not necessarily a real-life learning consequence. That tends to look more like a contrived (judgment) consequence.
It’s the doing that teaches teens. Not the speech beforehand.
And not shaming them after.
If your teen is always forgetting stuff, maybe it’s time to hand them their own calendar—and step back. Let them experience the missed appointment, the scramble, the awkward moment.
If they’re motivated to take on a new project or business idea? Support them—but don’t over-manage it. Let them figure out how to deal with a flaky customer or a problem they didn’t anticipate.
This is the moment to build the resilience they'll need at twenty-one.
The value of low-stakes mistakes
This is the hard part for a lot of parents. Watching your teen mess something up can be painful.
They burn the meal. They blow a first job interview. They miss a sign-up deadline because they didn’t set a reminder.
You want to jump in. Help. Prevent it from happening again. But resisting the urge to solve it for your teen is the very thing that allows them to learn from the experience. The consequence is the natural outcome that they learn to adjust to.
I’ve seen so many kids—and adults—who never had that chance as teens. They always had someone managing the calendar, fixing the misstep, smoothing the way.
And then one day they’re 18 or 19, and suddenly expected to just know how to manage all of it on their own… and not surprisingly, they struggle.
It doesn’t work like that.
What’s your role in all this?
Think of yourself less like a teacher or director, and more like a coach.
You’re there to help your teen reflect. To talk it through. To notice patterns. To regroup.
You’re not running the show.
But you’re also not walking away.
This doesn’t mean throwing them in the deep end. It means letting them wade into deeper water while you’re still nearby.
It’s hard to watch kids and teens make mistakes. It’s natural to want to step in a save them from a missed deadline or ‘failed’ project. But giving your teen the support and independence to experience ‘adulting’ is one of the most significant things you can do for them.
And no—This isn’t just for ‘other’ kids
This approach isn’t just for future entrepreneurs or straight-A students or unschoolers. It works whether your kid is neurodivergent and/or on a college-bound track and/or still totally unsure of what they want.
All kids need practice being themselves in the world.
They need time to test things out.
They need experiences that connect the dots between learning and living.
And the more they practice now, the more confident and grounded they’ll feel when it’s time to head out on their own—whatever that ends up looking like.
You’re raising a Whole Person—Not just a student
When you look at your teenager, don’t see them as ‘just a high schooler.’ See them as a future adult.
The goal isn’t to push your teen through a system. It’s to help them grow into someone who can build a life—who can make choices, take responsibility, ask for help, stay curious, and contribute something real.
That starts now. Today. In the midst of the messy rhythm of their teenage life.
It starts with giving your teen space to fail forward.
Letting them fall down sometimes.
And letting them try again.
We’ve all had to make this shift into adulthood. And I’m pretty sure we have all loved having both the independence and responsibility to figure it out.
It’s the very thing we can give to our teens.
In Part 2, I’ll share more practical ways to create this kind of environment—how to offer real responsibilities, encourage initiative, and give your teen a taste of real-world learning (without handing them the car keys and saying ‘good luck’).