By Mayen Fan, Staff Writer
Everyone has their standards of maturity and immaturity. Teens find their own standards by looking at the people around them and labeling them based on what they see and how the person presents themselves. But not all the people that teens label as mature/immature are that certain label, because usually we’re judging just based on the first impression of someone.
I used to labeled people who goof off on the bus, in the hallways, or anywhere else in public as immature, and people who I hear take on responsibilities; like taking care of a family member, cooking, and doing the chores as mature. But in reality these actions shouldn’t define someone as mature/immature for all I know the people that I labeled immature could really be mature outside of school and vice versa.
Teens assume that they know what maturity and immaturity is based on what they see. People who are dressed up, or are always understanding of any situation are seen as mature.
Judging a person on how they present themselves also goes for immaturity, because of what teens see at school everyday; the people running around, rough housing, and just making a commotion, they think, automatically label as immature.
How do we really know if a person is mature or immature? Well we don’t’ really know unless we try to get know the person better. Because once we judge too quickly we might not want to get to know that person more, especially if we labeled him/her as immature because we only want to see that one side of that person.
The only way to really know and if someone is truly mature/immature is to personally know the person inside out. We don’t have the right to judge when one person has just walked right into our lives. And the judgment of the person’s level of maturity shouldn’t be based on limited interaction with that person. In order to think about that person’s level of maturity take the time to get to know who he/she really is before making that kind of frank judgment.
To know a person inside and out is to really spend a lot of time with that person, which might take years to achieve. If one person knows someone really well he/she now can judge someone’s level of maturity, based on what he/she knows about the person but not if they label them based on one or two incidents.