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We expect nothing from our teenagers and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why should they start acting like responsible adults only to be told they're irresponsible kids?

"Expecting" something requires establishment of standards and corrective measures when those standards are not achieved. It is a progressive process that develops additional responsibility as children mature. One should not expose children to challenges and expectations for which they have not yet developed the skills to achieve. Telling the children that they are not ready for certain challenges is a necessary part of the training process. Laissez-faire does not work in child raising.

Which is exactly what we do with kids now. Any of them that act immature and stupid we leave to their own devices, any of them that try to excel and take on responsibility are rebuked and told they're not mature enough for that. We reward laziness and stupidity and punish energy and maturity. I'm not proposing laissez-faire, I'm saying we're making our own problem by constantly drilling into kids heads that they cannot behave as adults so they shouldn't even try. If we want kids to grow up and be smart we need to place challenges in front of them and start expecting them to rise to the occassion. You can never develop the skills to succeed at a challenge until that challenge has been placed in front of you. Kids can't learn to catch a football without footballs being thrown at them. Kids can't learn to buckle down and do their work (school or otherwise) without work to do. They can't learn to be adults without needing to be. Telling children they're not up for a challenge teaches them to not strive, failure provides many important lessons too, the job of parents is to be there to help pick up the pieces and keep the failure from being catostrophic.

If anything the model we're following now is the one that's more laissez-faire. It's like we expect adulthood to develop like fermentation, if we just leave the kids on the shelf in the cellar long enough they'll become grownups. It's a good way to make wine, a bad way to make people. We learn via experience, we need to experience adulthood in order to embrace it. Instead we teach kids that adulthood is to be avoided because they're "just not ready".