Adolescent When Speaking About Adolescence,

Adolescent

When speaking about adolescence, one interesting aspect seems to be there generally met in families with adolescents. The generation gap or, to be more specific, the conflict between adolescents and their parents seems to have a wide of explanations, from psychological to sociological and cultural perspectives.

In the early years of adolescence, the general tendency for the teenager is to feel more related to his peers of the same age than to his parents. The young ones share the same interests, preferences, same new experiences and fears and find easier to talk about these with people that feel in a similar way. At the same time, they feel more and more misunderstood by the adults surrounding them. The conflict that appears involves all aspects of life, from dressing and acting to going out to and the friends one chooses.

Researchers in the area have established some general explanations for this. One of them is the fact that both children and parents feel that, along with adolescence, the dependence on the adults (emotionally, legally and financially) is coming to an end. This can cause an emotional tension among members of the family, together with the pressure caused by understanding that significant changes are about to happen.

Davis (1944) identifies 5 main structural factors that promote conflicts between parents and their sons as following: the rate of socio-cultural change, decelerating rates of change among the adults, the contrast in the trajectories of physical power (adolescents experience new forms, while parents start feeling the decline), the conflict between adult realism and youthful idealism and last, the unequal authority wielded by parents and children.

How to successfully manage this type of conflicts related to the generation gap? A modern approach speaks about these conflicts as a consequence of the fact that we live in different environments, segregated by each one's age. Therefore, for a family to feel closer to their son in a moment he/she needs it the most (even if the tendency is for teenagers not to show this), a good option would be to get involved in his/her activities. A good starting point would be the institution of school, as it is the place where an adolescent spends most of his time and resources. Specialists say that, by spending more time with each other, people from different generations develop a better understanding of other's needs and points-of-view. One sees this as a very good opportunity especially for families living in small communities.

Q2. An interesting approach of this stage of life, the adolescence, is the one seen from the young ones' point-of-view. A personal small research based on interviews conducted on adolescents revealed the fact that they generally feel misunderstood by their parents and they label them as being conservatory and not open minded to changes. They seem to do not quite have a well-determined strategy for dealing with adults, which was predictable due to the rashness and irascibility that characterizes this specific age. What they admitted to use when negotiating with their parents is the argument of evoking the elders' years of youth by reminding them how they felt as teenagers, together with the promise of coming back home at the precise established hour.

Researches done in the area indicate as the main reasons for adolescents' behavior the small stressing events that they must cope with every day: conflicts with close friends, communication problems with peers, the feeling of being left outside. As they tend to be more emotional than their parents and adults, in general, and they experience opposite moods very frequently, one agrees that they feel extremely affected by small and, one could say, meaningless events, because they perceive these events from the angle of their increased emotionality. Another interesting fact is that, even though teenagers seem to experience conflicts most often with mothers than with fathers, they closer to them, due to the fact that, in a subconscious way, they perceive mothers as primary caregivers.