My friend Andrew Lewis and I were sitting at a café drinking some great Colombian coffee last week when he made a remarkable statement, “26 year olds today have the emotional maturity of 21 year-olds of our generation and the 16 year olds of the generation before ours (the Silent generation).”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“It’s because young people, instead of interacting with real life issues, are caught up in an entertainment addiction.”

“Why does that suppress emotional maturity?”

“Because people develop emotionally as they interact with other people and as they make decisions about life issues. Instead of learning how to read people, they’re playing video games and watching movies and do not experience the results of their decisions. They cannot face decisions .”

“Is it that bad?”

“No, it’s even worse than that. Parents compound the problem by protecting their children from the hard edges of reality; they protect them from the consequences of their children’s bad decisions.”

“So you’re saying, ‘The result of protecting kids from the consequences of their actions is to fill the world with fools?’”

“Exactly.”

My five kids are 16-22 and struggling of life issues. I left the conversation feeling better about the fact.