When working with parents of teenagers, a phrase that is repeated frequently is "My son or daughter has become a stranger." Hence the title of this article "How to understand adolescents", I think that it adapts very well to the reality of many homes and to the feelings of many parents when they live their children's adolescence.
We are often unaware that adolescence is a time of change and discovery. Sometimes, in the eyes of parents, adolescents are children in the body of an adult, and at other times they see them as strangers who are neither children nor adults. We have to take into account that the hormonal changes that occur in this stage cause very important changes at different levels (physical, psychological, social and intellectual) and to assimilate all this it takes time.
But when parents begin to see that their children move away from them, that they do not want to share time as before, that they have significant mood swings, what happens?? That worry and fear invades them. They no longer see the child who was by their side until recently, the one who showed them that he needed them, but now they see a person who is completely isolated in their world..
But we must understand that they are isolated in their world for reasons, since they have many new things to assimilate and handle, and they must do so in a very short time. Adolescence is a very short period of our life cycle. For this reason, when children reach adolescence, parents must learn together with them to function, to relate and to communicate in another way, because they are no longer children..
For this reason adolescence, on many occasions, becomes a very complicated time at home. But perhaps, more than adolescents, what becomes unknown is adolescence itself. This is a relatively new phenomenon. About 40 years ago, people began to talk about adolescence, because until then, only the sons and daughters of families with high economic status went through this stage. The rest had to enter the world of work at an early age, and driven by need they went straight from childhood to adulthood.
Today, as a result of the social changes that have occurred in recent years, it is gaining more and more importance. There have also been very important changes in the structure and functioning of families, things are done differently, fatigue and lack of patience are present in their day-to-day life, there is less supervision, feelings of guilt appear in the parents, and all this makes it difficult to set rules and limits.
My main objective is to bring some light to this period that is sometimes so hard, because understanding adolescence helps us understand adolescents. Our adolescents have to face great challenges, from the psychic point of view we live in a much more demanding society and this has a direct effect on their behavior, for example, they support a continuous media transmission of ideality, beauty, status , success, power, etc. and all this in a stage full of great changes and personal imbalance.
Their personality is developing, there are changes in their character, and assimilating all these messages that come to them at this stage is really difficult for them..
Normally this stage that goes from childhood to adulthood does not usually have a very good reputation. It is said that adolescents have everything, and from a material point of view, it can be this way in most cases, but from a psychosocial point of view they are much more fragile. For this reason, special attention and understanding must be paid to adolescents, and this must be done both in families and in educational centers..
To understand adolescence, it is necessary to know the changes that adolescents experience, so that the attitude that adults have towards them is not more demanding of the account, so that we do not ask for more than they can give and so that our paths in coexistence go hand in hand.
Below I show the most important or significant changes that occur in adolescence, since these define their characteristics.
In this stage, growth accelerates considerably and the appearance of the body changes. From the physical and physiological point of view, changes occur much faster and deeper than in previous stages. It is said that they can be compared to those that occur in the fetal phase and in the first stage after birth. But now the most important physical changes are in the size and appearance of the body and sexual organs. Therefore, adolescents go from having a child's body to an adult one in a short space of time..
Now they have a new body, externally they have an adult body, although they still have a long way to go to become one.. There is a huge imbalance between what they look like and what they really are. The appearance has a very great influence, and for that reason, there is a tendency to ask for more of them than they are really capable of giving, because of the trap that their new physical image makes. They are on the road to adulthood, they are no longer children, but they have a long way to go to acquire and develop the capacities of adults.
Along with these physical changes comes sexual development. The physical changes named above are triggered by hormones. At the end of the day, in this stage young people acquire reproductive capacity, the first period is present and the production of sperm begins. As a result of this, the sexual desire becomes very strong. And this is one of the biggest changes, as they begin to feel new things. They begin to have the first couple "relationships", desires, sexual relations, disappointments, complexes, and so on. And if we add the social pressure they have to endure, the hard work of maturing becomes complicated..
One of the most important characteristics of adolescence is that they come into adult society and have to socialize in it. From the psychological point of view, it is said that children cease to be children, on the one hand because they have grown up and have acquired the physical characteristics of adults, and on the other, because now they are looking for their place in that unknown world. For this reason, they have to look like them, but at the same time they will have to face them, to position themselves next to them. But the world of adults does not accept the adolescent as such, because it considers him immature and inexperienced, but at the same time the level of demand that we have with them is not the same as that we have with children, but it increases by remarkable shape.
The adolescent to find his place in society, will have to start a new path to find his new identity as an adult, and at the same time adapt to that new body. And that new identity will be different from that of their parents and the references they have around them. For this reason, on many occasions they position themselves against the adult, but not against the person himself, but against what that adult represents..
They usually have games of closeness and distance, they have the adult's need, but they deny they have it. They tend to act like they know everything, and this is where we come into play. It is up to us to make them understand that this is not the case, that the road to maturity is long, but we must do it without damaging their fragile self-esteem..
Also at this time the group of equals, acquires great importance. Feeling accepted in the social group closest to them helps them to strengthen their new identity, that is why from now on they take on a weight that until now they had not had..
In the construction of their new self, in the construction of that new person, they usually do tests, they look for the limits of the people around them, both physically and in terms of their personality, hence they take extreme or radical attitudes.
On an intellectual level it is also a time of change. They acquire the ability to argue and analyze, but this usually does not coincide with the way adults understand or analyze things, and in many cases the arguments they give are considered nonsense.
This, we must understand it as a practice, they are learning to be adults, and for this reason it is essential that we listen to what they say. When we talk about listening, we refer to active listening, which consists of not making judgments or evaluations.
Feeling heard gives them confidence, they feel that they can trust their parents. And this trust is essential both to seek support when they need it, and to reach agreements in conflictive situations that arise as a result of coexistence..
In this period, society takes on an importance that until now it had not had. They are now aware of what goes on behind the walls of home and school, and the effects it has on them. They discover the world. And today also faster and more extensive than ever, thanks to the internet. It is true that society has influence at any age, but it is very different from that of adolescence, because for society children do not have a conscience, but young people do..
Adolescents are aware of the pressure of society, and many times they feel like actors, on the one hand they realize that they belong to that society and understand how they have to act or behave, but on the other hand they want to understand what really happens in it, and many questions begin to arise.
They want to find out if they have to behave as society expects or not, do I have to do what they expect of me? Or do I have to do what I think is right? They sway on a scale constantly.
All these changes have a direct effect on the functioning of the family. If we understand what happens in this period, if we try to get closer to our adolescents, if we give them the space they need to continue growing and reach this adult world in the most balanced way possible, perhaps we will be able to erase that "bad reputation" of the one who enjoys this period.
The presence of parents is essential for proper development, in charge of establishing clear rules and limits. And the support, communication and mutual trust, in this vital period become the basis of the foundations on which this new identity will be built. That new person.
Yet No Comments