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Preteens, teens abound

Sunday, June 10, 2001

By Eleanor Chute, Post-Gazette Education Writer

Brett Bielewicz loves being 13.

"I love this time of life. It's awesome," said Bielewicz, who just finished the seventh grade at Trafford Middle School in the Penn-Trafford School District.

Bielewicz feels more freedom than he did when he was younger. He loves school dances and hasn't missed a single one. He enjoys seeing his friends at school and "instant messaging" them on the Internet at home. He plays in a community basketball league and likes sports video games best.

Seventh-graders make up the largest class in the Penn-Trafford School District, reflecting a regional trend: The 2000 U.S. Census shows that 10- to 14-year-old population is growing while populations of other ages are declining. Sitting on a couch in Trafford Middle School's library are, from left, Brett Bielewicz, Jaira Teamann, Giulia Molinaro, David McLaughlin, Terri Lynn Shigle, Kurt Skvarla. Kyle Vogel and John Musser hang out in back. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

He has noticed there are more youths his age than any other at his school because his grade level has an extra teacher to accommodate them all.

"There's a lot more people you know, a lot more people you can get along with," said Bielewicz.

He is part of a "bubble" of students in the Westmoreland County school district.

Assistant Superintendent Debbie Kolonay said the district buys 20 to 30 additional copies of each textbook for the seventh grade as it moves up. This school year, there were 416 students in seventh grade, compared with 380 in sixth grade and 377 in eighth grade. The smallest grade was kindergarten at 322.

The latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Penn-Trafford isn't the only place where the middle-schoolers, or tweens as some people call them, stand out.

At a time when the number of people in many age groups, particularly under 25, are declining, the 10- to 14-year-olds are growing in Western Pennsylvania. They are the largest segment of the five age breakdowns under 25 in many towns.

In the six-county region, there were 154,705 in the age 10-to-14 group in 2000, an increase of 8 percent over 1990.

Or, you can look at those numbers another way. A decade ago, there were 148,929 children under the age of 5. In 10 years, of course, they would be in the 10- to 14-year-old category. But it turns out that there are 5,776 more -- an increase of about 4 percent -- than would be expected just by counting the little ones already here.

In most Allegheny County communities, for example, the percentage of 10- to 14-year-olds as a portion of youth under age 24 grew from 1990 to 2000.

These figures aren't surprising to Gordon DeJong, professor at Penn State University's Population Research Institute.

He has seen the same trends statewide.

He said those 10- to 14-year-olds aren't walking here from Ohio; they're arriving with their parents. He said there was a net gain in the state in adults in their late 30s and early 40s.

Why are they coming here?

DeJong thinks the most likely explanation is that some previously lived in Pennsylvania, moved out and have returned with their children.

Another explanation would be that industries are moving senior employees into the state, but he said, "I haven't seen that being a dominant pattern in the late '90s."

While the increase in the middle school group compared with the same youngsters (the 0- to 5-year-olds) in 1990 is difficult to explain, the bubble itself is not.

Pennsylvania had an increase in the number of births, beginning in the mid-1980s and peaking around 1990 and 1991.

DeJong considers this an echo of the so-called baby boom. Nationwide, the echo -- sometimes called a baby boomlet -- is forecast to continue until 2008, but it has run its course in Pennsylvania, DeJong said.

"It was a pretty faint echo in Pennsylvania," DeJong said.

And one blip in the demographics doesn't make Western Pennsylvania a mecca for youth. Allegheny County remains the second-oldest among the 34 largest counties in the nation. The median age in the county is 40, compared with 35.3 for the nation.

For the purposes of the census, the 10- to 14-year-olds are in one age group, but there's no one way to describe who they are or what they like to do.

Gretchen White, a social worker who is a psychotherapist at the Child and Family Counseling Center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, said, "It's very different at one end than it is at the other end. Fourteen-year-olds are in eighth, ninth grade. They're high-schoolers or just about to be high-schoolers.

"Ten-year-olds are fourth-graders, maybe fifth-graders. They're very, very different."

White said that early adolescence is a "unique area of developmental tasks and struggles that's studied quite a bit. It's leaving behind a childhood identity, and it's struggling to find a new emerging identity. That's tough."

She said this age group also was "extremely concerned" about its peer group. David Spudy, principal of Trafford Middle and Elementary schools, said each young adolescent had "unique traits, interests, problems."

But for the group as a whole, he said they can be a "little kid" one minute and adult the next, and have plenty of ups and downs.

He said the group enjoyed activity, and the school provides many opportunities, including dances, sports, clubs and music, not to mention the sports and activities organized in the community.

Spudy said the youths are searching. "They're still looking for their niche, who they want to be like, how they want to dress. It's an interesting age group. You can't pigeonhole any one of them on any given day."

In interviews with eight Penn-Trafford Middle School seventh-graders, a common theme was the freedom and opportunities that open up during these "tween" years.

John Musser, 13, said his age group was "one of the best times to be a kid" because there is both the knowledge of how to do more things and the additional freedom in doing them.

Jaira Teamann, 13, said she thought the best years were the middle years. She's old enough to be able to do more but young enough that she doesn't have to face the SAT pressures yet.

"Your parents trust you and give you more responsibilities," said Giulia Molinaro, 13, who is now old enough to baby-sit.

They have a wide range of interests.

Their musical tastes run from classical Rachmaninoff to rapper Nelly (in some cases the edited version).

Some like video games, such as Madden NFL, WWF Smackdown and the Legends of Zelda. But such board games as Monopoly still are high are some lists.

Favorite movies run from the scary "The Mummy Returns" to Jim Carrey comedies.

Magazines include Sports Illustrated and Nintendo Power. The young teens participate in organized sports or pickup games with neighboring friends.

White is concerned about the consumerism that is so important to some young adolescents.

She said she saw kids who "are most concerned about what I consider extremely expensive Sony PlayStation 2 and new games and electronic devices, and own videos and computers and CD players and DVD players -- all within their own room in addition to what their family has. ... It's not just electronic devices. It's clothing and it's music and it's many other things."

She views this generation as "very different" from those 15 years ago, noting that many girls enter puberty earlier than before.

"It's moving into adolescence sooner and all the pressures that go into adolescence. Some might say this age group has become sexualized in a different way than years ago," White said.

"In terms of emotionally and psychologically, this age group is also stuck between their peer group and wanting to fit in and wanting to be liked by kids."

But White said parents were still very important.

"They really want to be connected to their parents. ... Because of what's happening to us in early adolescence, emotionally, cognitively and physically, we need our parents more at that age to help us with values, changing emotions and the power of our emotions."

DeJong wonders whether this boomlet of 10- to 14-year-olds will choose to stay in Pennsylvania once they're old enough to be on their own. He noted census figures showed that some of those already in their 20s have left, taking their children and their potential children with them.

"Will the future be the same?" asked DeJong. "The question gets to be what I asked the governor: Are we going to keep them or are they going to leave also?"