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1 SEPTEMBER 2010
NO 1622
Youth
In current popular views of adolescents and youth, myths abound. Somehow professionals and the public alike have "bought" messages regarding contemporary youth which are often invalid, colour their thinking, and worst of all, impose powerful expectations on our youth, which in tum can shape behaviour. We then have a clear instance of the "tail wagging the dog." lf it isn’t so, we’ll change our perceptions, and then our reality, in order to make it so.
What are these myths?
First of all, it is just not true that the majority of adolescents go through inevitable sturm and drang (storminess and turbulence), during those formative years. To be sure some, upwards of 20 percent, do have tension and turmoil associated with hormonal and other changes, personality problems, family conflicts or related stress. But the majority go through that phase of life quite smoothly, and many do so with exuberance, energy, enthusiasm, and optimism.
Second and related to the first, it is not the worst decade (or so) of an individual’s life. Would not many of our readers prefer to relive those years of relative freedom from the shackles of responsibilities, when we had only to look "forward to" (instead of behind us)? Is it not at least as difficult to be elderly, or middle-aged‘?
Third, it is not the worst era of all time to be an adolescent. Certainly multiple options, rapidity of technological changes, unemployment, and the spectre of nuclear disaster are niceties of the last decade, but not too many generations ago, youth were deemed lucky to have lived as long as adulthood, and the threat of dying a violent or painful death was much greater. The possibilities for the future are frightening, to be sure, but they are also full of potential and promise.
Fourth, adolescents are not paragons of virtue, nor are they the scourge of civilization. Trite, you say? There are still many individuals who harbor dogmatic, unwavering, close-minded views of our youth, and try to fit any behavior or activity of young people into their rigid preconceived notions. Young people are not grossly dissimilar from their parents. Many have the same hopes and ideals, the same value systems and attitudes, as their mothers and fathers.
Fifth, identity, the theme which Eric Ericson postulated as the central task of adolescence, providing answers to such questions as "Who am I‘?"; “‘Where am I going?"; "How"; "Why"; is not the sole domain of that age group. We all ask ourselves these same questions to a greater or lesser extent almost on a daily basis — for life.
It is perhaps no wonder that we are confused about the process of growing up, and out. Adolescence is a complex multifaceted concept, which defies exact and unanimous definition. The inherent confusions abound: chronologically, depending upon the jurisdiction, the ages of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen can represent the age of informed consent sixteen(l6), driving(l7), voting(18), or drinking(l9), with all kinds of added variations thrown in for good measure.
The onset of puberty supposedly characterizes the physical onset of adolescence, but we know this to have the widest possible variation in timing. Even this is not always heralded by the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics. By the same token, the closing of the epiphyses of the long bones of the body is as ludicrous a definition of the end of that phase of life.
We know that adolescence is characterized by an upsurge in various hormones produced by different endocrine glands: the gonadotrophins (estrogen, androgen, testosterone) and growth hormones are produced at much higher levels, and there are increases in adrenal hormones (steriods) and thyroid hormones. Accompanying these physiological changes are new and powerful urges, especially in the areas of strength, power and body awareness on the one hand, and sexuality on the other.
There are also psychological changes occurring during that period which enable the young person to move from the relatively concrete thinking of childhood to the hypothetics deductive reasoning of adulthood, enabling him/her to reason much more along theoretical, abstract, philosophical, and ideological lines. They are also burdened much more by thoughts of the Self, which may appear narcissistic but usually have to do with insecurity and bolstering their self esteem.
Finally, this is a period of the relative ascendance of the peer group, with a commensurate diminution in the time spent with the nuclear family. But we should never forget that the family is still vital to the adolescent.
What all this means, of course, is that the sine qua non of this all to brief period of life is change. Not only are they in a changing world: customs, values, attitudes, as well as actual life styles, but their bodies and minds are changing at the most rapid pace of the life span, except for infancy and old age. There are hormonal changes and anatomical changes, especially in secondary sexual characteristics, height and bulk. There are cognitive changes, moving from concrete to more abstract reasoning pattems. There are new bodily urges which must be controlled and contained, especially sexual and aggressive, and new bodily capabilities which accompany them. There are new behaviour pattems, more time spent with friends, more questioning of parental authority, and more demands on everybody, including themselves.
SAUL LEVINE
Levine, S. (1986). Growing up: The development challenge of leaving home. Journal of Child Care, Special issue. pp. 29-30.
