Adolescents

Modern adolescence has been likened to as a long, circuitous, car journey from childhood to adulthood, as opposed to the shorter, predictable, more-controlled train journey characteristic of adolescence a couple of generations ago. This modern car journey provides more freedom and less structure in which some adolescents creatively experiment and grow. For some there are break-downs and wild detours, depending on who is in the car with them, the engine they have inherited and the supplies they have managed to load into the car before they started on this trip. The parents' influence is still very significant but now somewhat indirect. Communication back from the teenager is hard to read. Sometimes, teenagers communicate by evoking in you the very emotion that they would be flooded with if they weren't so skilled at passing it over to you. Is your teenager making you feel extremely anxious or angry or scared? Then maybe he/she is feeling anxious or angry or scared. Your emotions may, in fact, be a good barometer of how he/she is traveling and of whether intervention is warranted. We expect turmoil and conflict. But if we are feeling almost unbearable levels of concern, anger or fear, then it would seem to be time to access intervention.

The adolescent may face so many issues:-

• Increased peer-pressure, body-image pressure, bullying and exclusion at a time when the importance of friends increase and family decreases.
• Parent-adolescent conflict as the child rejects the parent whilst attempting to develop a separate identity.
• Stress of time-pressures, assessments and exams, and ultimately of choosing a career.
• Coming to terms with oneself as a sexual being with a sexual identity.
• Experimentation with drugs, alcohol and other risk-taking behaviour.
• The internal chaotic world of feelings, thoughts, memories and desires.

Mood swings, heightened anxiety, risk-taking behaviour, shaky self-esteem and poor motivation can be products of the interaction between the internal and external world and the lived experiences to date.

Sometimes the best intervention is in assisting parents to interpret what is being communicated by the behaviour and thinking about how to respond so as not to negate the adolescent's reality, not to over-react and not to disengage. Sometimes working directly with the adolescent may be the most productive intervention in the situation. Combinations of working with parents and working separately with adolescents often provide the best result.

Also see: Working with Adolescents