The adolescent stage, between the ages of 13 and 21, is perhaps the most difficult, challenging, confusing, and dangerous. Not only is the adolescent struggling with typical adolescent identity challenges, they may also be struggling with past needs that have not been fully met, such as initiative, competence, or even autonomy – developmental needs and “tasks.” from earlier stages of development.
The main task, the primary need of the adolescent for the next decade, is the development of an individual identity. This is no small feat and in fact it can continue into adulthood. Peers and peer groups are now much more important than parents or teachers. Ironically, the adolescent seeks an individual identity by striving for the approval and affiliation of his peers and peer groups. Belonging to a group or set of like-minded people is important. Sex and intercourse also become important. Adolescence is the time when most of us first experience kissing, fondling, and intercourse. Staying stable and breaking up add to the mix of emotional turmoil so common in adolescence. Self-absorption is common as is defiance of parents. The pressures placed on an adolescent can be significant, and the task of defining an identity is not accomplished without a struggle.
Parents can help their teens meet the demands of their developmental needs by:
- Recognize that this stage of development requires the adolescent to make their own decisions. This is part of becoming an independent individual with a unique identity. Try to provide increasing opportunities for the adolescent to be alone, responsible for his own actions. Use the natural consequences of violations and the natural rewards for compliance.
- Honor the peer pressure that often regulates teen behavior. Again, let the adolescent make decisions and reap the consequences, positive or negative. This may be the most important point in helping the adolescent reach responsible adulthood. Although it may be a school of hard knocks, there is nothing like real experience to teach the way of the world.
- Make sure the house rules are established and firm. Also make sure the adolescent understands their limitations in terms of: various freedoms such as bedtime, curfew on weekdays and weekends, homework, minimal notes, friends, activities, etc. Natural consequences can be established for each one. The adolescent needs to learn that their actions (or lack of actions) result in pre-established consequences. Consequences can also be positive, such as rewards for appropriate behavior. These parameters will change as the adolescent grows from early adolescence to late adolescence.
- Watch for signs of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, or other behaviors that may indicate problems meeting the demands of this developmental stage. If such signs are seen, be supportive and offer community resources and assistance, but don’t demand. Teens are known for self-sabotage as a way of being independent and individualized. For some, a bad identity is better than no identity or a “used” identity. In our society, which has few ceremonial rites of passage, criminal behavior often becomes that rite of passage. Being the “bad boy” or the “loose girl” can become a badge of individualization and a way of gaining identity.
- Try not to react emotionally to the teen’s behaviors. Simple, reasonable, and rational responses based on enforceable natural consequences will not aggravate already tense situations.
- Be available for open, honest, heart-to-heart talks, but don’t demand or require it. Teenagers are self-centered and don’t necessarily care about how their parents feel. They can be very reluctant to reveal personal information on their own. But when the opportunity arises, these open and honest discussions can be very rewarding.
- Do some kind of family activity like camping, playing sports, playing board games, going out to dinner / movies, etc. something the adolescent may choose to participate in but may often reject. This rejection of family activity is part of their breakup, which is necessary and important.
- Help your teen move into adolescence and adulthood by letting go of the past. Don’t treat a teenager like a child. Don’t treat a 16-year-old the same as a 13-year-old. Treat the 18-year-old like an adult. Teens value being treated as responsible people and will generally live up to those expectations.
- As a parent, seek guidance and help, read books, take classes. Communication and behavior management are topics that are interesting in themselves and also relevant to raising a teenager. The saying “it takes a village to raise a child” applies more appropriately to the adolescent and specifically to the needs of the adult / parent / caregiver to access community resources to help ensure that the adolescent is meeting the challenges of the child. development properly. This is especially true in our modern culture with an inordinate amount of options and diversions.
If an adolescent does not meet the developmental needs of acquiring a sense of identity, role confusion can lead to fanaticism or repudiation. The fanatic zealously promotes rigid idealological positions, a kind of exaggerated identity. Such a person can join a sect or a gang. Repudiation is a rejection of society and its norms and such a position can lead to criminal behavior or isolationism. If everything has gone reasonably well, the baby has grown, reached adulthood, and has become a responsible citizen in the rest of the world. But that does not mean that development needs have stopped. Higher needs will now attract. Marriage, family, work, and social contribution become as important to the adult as initiative to the young child.
