In my opinion is a very difficult to speak about this age, as every person thinks differently about this topic. g8g2gc
I think that you, as a teacher, gave us this title "Sweet fourteen " for various reasons. When I saw this title I asked myself : "Why sweet?" and I began to imagine the answers: problably because the age of first true love or because the age of fourteen maybe considered as a main step between childhood and adultwood.
On the other hand, we may consider this age as the age when every teenager begin to learn the little secrets of success in life. We have to pass several exams that give us the feeling of power.
It is also the age when we begin to differentiate the good from the evil as we learn to feel and to think beautifully.The inner beauty is just like a flash which ennobles every figure when passing over all the defects.
Or,in other words, "to love means to love the other 's defects" as Antoine de Saint- Exupery' s Little Prince said in the book with the same title.
To be happy at fourteen also means to be understood. not only to give love , but also to receive love :" Etre compris , c' est etre aime" .
Happiness also means for us the ability to adapt ourselves to reality and in the case we need some freedom from the part of our parents as well as from our teachers.
I read some day in a book that every person must pass through a period in which he/she may play the fool and it seems to me that the age of fourteen is the the perfect age for this.

At fourteen sometimes you realize that adults are so awful.Their faces get all pulled and tight and mean and they want to hit you, but the law says they can ' t(can not ) , so they make you miserable for as long as they can and they call your parents to say you are bad and they try to get your parents to hit you because it is legal and to punish you some undre.
But there is nothing I am afraid off. For me, it doesn't (does not) matter what the adults think, because they lie and sometimes they are stupid. I am sincere and smarter than them. I belive in universal love . I want to love everybody even if I don't (do not) know them and not to have small minds like the adults . I don't (do not) mind if people are strangers or how they look and no matter how raw somebody is they are human ;it is the plastic owers that aren't (are not) human.
Fourteen is also the age when someone can be too strong or too weak, too brave or too shine, it is the age of deep feelings and strong characters at the sometime , or as someone said metaphorically :"My room is small , but I can hide behind the door ".