Understanding Your Teenager
We always hear kinds of comments thousands of bewildered parents are making about their teenagers. Their children often feel the same, too.
Life with a teenager can be pretty rough on a parent’s ego, and it is not surprising if we sometimes find ourselves wishing that our child could leap from twelve to twenty without having to plow through the difficult years between. Probably your teenager wishes it, too. For parents who tell their youngster that the teens are the most wonderful and enjoyable years of his life have almost certainly forgotten the many moments of misery that adolescence can bring. This is a time when a teenager has to grapple with a host of physical and emotional changes that make him a puzzle even to himself. It is when we fail to understand the stresses and tensions he faces, and focus our attention on behavior rather than the reasons behind it, that the greatest conflicts can arise.
A teenager is eager for independence, but desperately unsure of his ability to handle it. Back and forth he seesaws from childishness to maturity. Up and down swings his moods from elation to despair. Changes in body chemistry, more specific sexual feelings, psychological and social pressures, throw his emotions into turmoil. Unresolved conflicts from earlier years may reemerge now to demand fresh solutions. Academic and career pressures, the pace and shifting values of present-day society, add to the problems a teenager faces in his search for a sense of identity, and a basic philosophy by which he can live. Apparent apathy and indifference may cloak anxious self-questioning as the teenager asks: “Who am I?” “Where am I going?” “Why am I here?” Wild irritation, bursts of anger, sudden tears, or fits of giggling may stem from feelings of insecurity and tensions that are hard for them to control.
They fell insecure, but a teenager has to work toward final independence from his parents if he is to become a responsible adult in his own right. As a result, he may challenge our authority, resent it, and argue with us. He may become withdrawn and secretive, taking the telephone well out of earshot as he shares lengthy whispered confidences with a friend. A teenager cannot simply take over our standards without thinking them through for himself. Questioning our ideas and values is one way of establishing his own—even if they do turn out to resemble ours in the long run. Most teenagers need to see their parents in an unflattering light before they can come to terms with them as normal, fallible human beings. By criticizing our behavior, and calling attention to our faults, they make it easier to snip away at the strings of dependency.
The thing to remember about those difficult teenage years is that they are most difficult for your teenager who is going through them. This is when your sympathy and understanding are most needed. If you have had good communications in the past, there should be no major breakdown at this time.
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