Who Am I?

The primary developmental task of young adolescence is forming a working definition of self.

Myth of Storm and Stress

The myth of adolescence as a time of inherent storm and stress is harmful to adolescents in two ways. First, it fosters the expectation that young people entering adolescence are irresponsible, unresponsive, inactivated crazy and unpredictable. Since adolescents are especially vulnerable to adult expectations, they tend to live up (or down) to what adults expect of them. Second, teenagers who are having excessive difficulty during this period of dramatic change may be written off as "going through a stage" and may not get the professional attention they need.

Adolescents need permission for both kinds of behavior. It's okay to be stormy sometimes. One individual may move in and out of both periods.

Disturbing or Disturbed

It is essential for adults who work and live with teenagers to distinguish between behavior that is disturbing or annoying to adults (loud music, messy rooms) and behavior that is disturbed and harmful to the child (substance abuse, suicide attempts, depression, harmful risk-taking).

One sign of serious disturbance in young people is the inability to relate to peers and fit into a peer group. The peer group and peer pressure are often viewed as the pervasive, all-powerful, negative force to which adolescents are totally subject. While the peer group can be a source of negative influence in some situations for some adolescents, involvement with friends is necessary if youth are to become socially competent adults. Close examination of adolescent peer groups often reveals that the peer group represents not a counterculture, but a less polished, more blatant version of the adult culture that surrounds it. Don't separate friends on principle. "Sit by someone you don't know." Consider whose needs are being met.

It is through the peer group that youth begin to learn how to develop and maintain close, mutually supportive relationships with people their own age. This is a social skill not characteristic of younger children, whose most significant relationships are dependent relationships with parents, but it is an essential skill for a normal, fully functioning adult.

Friendships are laboratories for learning appropriate "adolescent" and "adult" behavior. Young adolescents learn social skills, such as how far to take a practical joke and how to ask a boyfriend or girlfriend to go to a movie, by trying out a variety of behaviors on their friends. The feedback teens give to each other about behavior may or may not be either sensitive or subtle. Peer groups exist within community and cultural contexts.

Young adolescents' preoccupation with conformity to others in their peer groups is often troubling to adults, but it is normal for 10- to 15-year-olds. Because an individual adolescent believes that everyone constantly scrutinizes his/her appearance and every act, it is excruciatingly painful to be "different." As they adjust to their own dramatic physical and social changes, and see their friends developing either faster or slower than they, young adolescents’ insecurities and uncertainties drive them to look and act like their friends.

Supporting Healthy Development

There are times when adolescents need some adult-guided protection from the peer group. For example, an adult facilitating a conversation to establish ground-rules for an event. Because of their need to be like their peers, their collective belief that "it can't happen to me," situations arise in which young adolescents need to be protected from themselves and one another. In our society, many adolescents are abandoned to the peer group in the adults’ belief that they cannot offset peer pressure. Adults who work with adolescents can have an influence on peer groups through the expectations they set, the relationships they build and the opportunities they provide for adolescent peer groups to function in a constructive, healthy manner.

Positive Interaction with Adults

In addition to other close relationships with peers, close relationships with families and other adults are necessary for healthy adolescent development. Studies have shown that while peer influence and emotional closeness to peers increase during young adolescence, peer relationships supplement but do not replace ties with parents.

In expanding their social world, young adolescents frequently seek the company of adults other than their parents. These other adults, often youth workers, teachers, relatives, neighbors, or clergy members, serve as crucial role models and advisors. These new relationships with other adults are an important part of adolescent social development. As young people begin to explore what it means to be an adult man or woman, they need positive role models, especially of their same gender, race, and ethnicity, who are "living proof" of what they can become. Other adults also can provide young adolescents with a secure respite from the intensity of peer and family relationships. It is important to provide a wide range of adult involvement in ministries with young adolescents. Leadership teams are better than "gurus."

Supporting Families

Although adolescents report that they look to the peer group for companionship and for guidance in some aspects of behavior, such as dress, music, hair style and entertainment, young adolescents look to their families for affection, identification, social and moral values, and help in solving big problems or making important decisions.

Problems in relationships between young adolescents and adults, whether the adults are parents or youth workers, often center on the increasing desire of young adolescents for personal autonomy. If adolescents are to move from the dependency of childhood to the interdependency of adulthood, they must have increasing independence and responsibility. Young adolescents’ requests (or demands) for more autonomy in some areas, such as dress, curfew, how they spend their free time, specific activities they will engage in, and the selection of friends, are sometimes misinterpreted by adults as cries for complete independence. While they do need gradually increasing amounts of autonomy as they mature, young adolescents continue to need limits for behavior that are set by adults. These limits should expand as youth mature, enabling young teens to have a voice in determining specific rules and expectations.

Disagreements between young adolescents and their families are usually related to the family having to reassess its expectations of a child who is growing up. Periods of disequilibrium are typical in families, as young teens and parents work out mutually acceptable ways to accommodate the teens' new concerns (e.g., the desire for more privacy and autonomy) and parents' continuing sense of responsibility. Families that can make adjustments in mutual expectations, rules, and the way the family members relate to each other emerge from periods of disequilibrium with family ties intact and sometimes strengthened. Most adolescents report good relationships with their parents. They feel their parents are understanding, reasonable, fair and reliable.

Cultural Diversity

In some cultures where identification with the traditional ethnic culture and family influence are strong, these periods of disequilibrium take on a unique character. As these young people seek personal autonomy and deal with their feelings of being caught between their traditional ethnic culture and the dominant culture that surrounds them, conflict with parents, especially disagreements related to involvement in peer groups, may be intensified.

Youth leaders need to recognize that young people live in the context of their families and their cultural heritage, as do adults. "Autonomy... ""community... " "family" ---all of these can be interpreted differently by persons from diverse cultures. Youth leaders need to be careful not to impose their cultural biases on the young people with whom they minister. Moreover, youth leaders should educate themselves on aspects of culture, their own culture as well as that of others, and should consistently work to uphold cultural diversity as a positive value.