Yeah, I really hate getting spoon fed. See a lot of this at the writer panels during conventions and such, but in their defense it's hard to get into the technical stuff when you don't know the level of your audience. Having written a YA (not by choice, it just came out that way) I'd say the hardest part was trying to figure out what a young one's thought process would be. I suspect kids don't tend to think too far ahead as much as what's going to happen next and how it effects them at that particular moment. Once emotional, everything is either a blinding victory or outright disaster (usually the latter) with little room for moderation. Social responsibility is still being developed. In my work, the character started out very much a woe-is-me self-centered eleven year old and only started thinking more of others toward the latter half of the book when she was in her early to mid-teens.
And that's simply *my* way of handling it, among a myriad of ways. Best advice I can think of is to both observe the little beasties, and remember when you were a little beasty yourself. Not sure at all how you could teach any of this with any effectiveness. So many paths down that same road.
Organised or what? 
But I have some great ideas and spent all day yesterday developing them with a friend.
