Research findings are reported which depict characteristics and conditions of young adolescents in the 1980s. Discussion begins with an overview of what is known about the physical, socioemotional, and cognitive growth of young adolescents. It is argued that: (1) adults perpetuate many myths about teenagers; (2) adolescence is no more pathological a time than middle or old age; (3) the capacities and new talents of young adolescents are not used in their communities; (4) young teenagers are not overly influenced by peers in their development of long-term values; and (5) adults must recognize that a difference exists between the emergence of formal operational thinking in youth and the ability of the young adolescent to apply such thinking skills in every situation. While the young need adults and want their support, the myth that youths are to be feared and are not to be trusted continues. Concluding remarks focus on problems of adolescents, including mortality among infants born to teen mothers, teenage motherhood and poverty and school dropout rates, negative attitudes of dropouts toward school and their successes in special programs outside their regular classrooms, single parent working mothers, extended day school programs, adolescents' use of leisure time, substance abuse, the abuse of adolescents, and the increasing numbers of the young born and raised in poverty. (RH)