Childhood ends with the onset of puberty.
Teenagers undergo profound changes in mental tendencies and abilities as their
brains change during and after puberty. Puberty raises the ante so that the
relatively safe play of younger children is replaced by the more dangerous and
consequential play of teenagers. Parents are often unprepared for the major
transformations that occur after puberty and feel estranged from the new person
emerging awkwardly and contentiously in their own home. I noticed a bumper
sticker that said: "Teenager for sale cheap - take over the
payments."
Campbell :
“female adolescent disputes often center upon three issues relating to
successful mate choice: management of sexual reputation, competition over
access to desirable males and protecting established relationships from
take-over by rival females. Interestingly, the peak age for female assault
occurs at ages 15-19 compared to the male peak at 20-24 reflecting girls
earlier sexual maturity… suggesting that the rise in female aggression during
adolescence, like that of males, is associated with mate selection. Nanci
Hellmich,
writing about mean teenage
girls in the USA
From Children and the Family. Stephen Gislason Persona Digital books
Parents of teenagers will often doubt that
they have any role to play except to offer custodial support and then recognize
that their jurisdiction is limited. I
have attempted to help many parents change the diet of their sick adolescents
and often failed. The reasons for failure are apparent to most parents. Let us
review the status of adolescents hoping for some insight:
The time-honored principle of adolescent
management is to fill idle time with useful work, learning and supervised play.
Otherwise, teenagers use idle time to hang out in groups and engage in
activities that frighten the adult community. Idle time is dangerous time.
Teenagers are in the business of separating
from their family and are drawn to the values, activities and norms of their
peer group. They seek role models in the media and imitate examples of costume,
values and behavior that seem attractive to them. You could argue that other
teens, movies, “music” and television programs are strong influences, stronger
than parental example or advice.
Old and New, The Teenager's Limbo
Teenagers have a tense mix of old primitive
features in their mind and new modern ideas. They tend to manifest old primate
group behavior and at the same time develop individual, modern personalities.
Adolescent society is stratified, competitive and relatively unforgiving. Teenagers
cluster in small groups with strict inclusion/exclusion rules. They manifest
ancient human social patterns spontaneously and the importance of group
affiliation with their peers takes precedence over family affiliation. Family
values and teenager group values often conflict and the conflict is seldom
resolved in favor of the family unless parents are determined and on the job 24
hours a day.
The parents’ main task is to locate their
children in peer groups that have the most congruent values with their own.
Teens who hang out on the street inevitably resist, oppose and challenge
societal values. They get into trouble fast. Individual teenagers may have a
well-developed understanding of the adult rules, but even those with a
well-developed sense of local mortality will participate in behaviors that the
adult community finds unacceptable.
Girls, like boys, cluster in small tribal
groups with strict inclusion/exclusion rules. Teenagers tend to invent their
own vocabulary and use jargon to identify members of their own social group.
Teenage groups are not kind to outsiders and adolescent society reflects all
the strengths and weaknesses of an adult society sometimes in exaggerated,
dramatic ways.
Teenagers of both sexes are narcissistic
and are often trapped in selftalk and case making. Girls are gossips and use
language as a weapon. Some teenagers are kinder than others and develop an
idealistic view of human life and may be at risk because they are too trusting
and suggestible. Other teens are more cynical and aggressive and practice power
politics in school hallways and cafeterias. Bullying is an ancient tendency that will not go away, but can be countered, by good examples and learning focused on win-win social interactions.
Group Membership
The greatest cause of teenage suffering is
to be excluded from a desirable group. Members of inferior groups are treated
badly by members of superior groups and outsiders emerge who are isolated and
alienated individuals. Inferior or isolated individuals are taunted,
threatened, pushed, bullied, ridiculed, sexually harassed, beaten, robbed and
sometimes killed, even by nice children in affluent Canadian and American
suburbs. Alienation pushes an unwanted teenager toward one of four
destinations:
1.
Creative alienation – poetry,
music, art, political activism
2.
Withdrawal, depression and
sometimes suicide.
3.
Revenge, antisocial ideas, and
affiliation with groups that express hatred
4.
Crime
Alienated individuals can form groups that
express their disappointment and anger in destructive ways. Often these groups
borrow costumes, ideology, ritual and values from old malevolent ideologies.
The skinheads, for example, adopt fascist values and admire German Nazis of the
1930’s and 40’s who now epitomize, to most reasonable adults, evil intentions
and despicable deeds.
The
greatest cause of suffering among teenage girls is to be excluded from a
desirable female group. The next greatest cause of suffering is to be rejected
by a desirable male. Members of inferior groups are treated badly by members of
superior groups and outsiders emerge who are isolated and alienated
individuals. Inferior or isolated individuals are taunted, threatened, pushed,
bullied and ridiculed even by nice female children in affluent suburbs.
According to
The process of become a civilized,
competent, compassionate human is arduous and some teenagers do not make
it. Teenagers tend to invent their own
vocabulary and use jargon to identify members of their own social group.
Teenage groups are not kind to outsiders and adolescent society reflects all
the strengths and weaknesses of an adult society sometimes in an exaggerated,
dramatic way. Food sharing is one the most basic tribal bonds and teens with
deviant (i.e. healthy) food habits are not well-tolerated. Parents who want
their teenage children to follow a rational family plan, for example, will have
two choices:
1. To separate their teenager from his or
her peer group
2. Involve the peer group in the rational
plan
Teenagers are prone to anger and question
the values of their parents. They are sensitive to cheaters and some become
disillusioned with the values of their family and community when they discover
discrepancies and deception in the stories they have been told. This is the
Santa Claus/God problem. Some teenagers become contemptuous of adult society
that appears to them to be shallow, hypocritical and futile.
A young child will be eager for reassurance
and gifts from apparently benevolent characters in adult stories, but teenagers
feel cheated or betrayed when they fully comprehend the deception involved.
Disillusionment may push a sensitive teen into an angry withdrawal, seeking
escape from the deceivers or occasionally, teens seek revenge by engaging in
criminal and random, destructive activity.
JD Salinger's Catcher in The Rye, published in 1951, remains a contemporary description of the sensitive, disappointed
adolescent who finds himself or herself in limbo, the transition from child to
adult. The book begins with Holden Caulfield stating: “If you really want to
hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born
and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all
before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t
feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
Dougan, a teenager writing in a New York
Times 2010 discussion had this to say:" Asking a bunch of adults whether
or not Catcher in the Rye will really
reach teenagers is pretty funny, if you ask me. This only helps prove
Salinger’s point — adults were once young and disillusioned themselves, but
they’ve grown out of it, and they assume the rest of the world has grown with
them. I’m 18 years old and every bit as confused and wandering as Holden. When
I read this book for the first time, I laughed so hard I cried and cried so
hard I could barely breathe. Yeah, my generation has Twitter and Facebook and
cellphones and what-have-you. The world is always changing in little ways like
that. It’s the big things that don’t change — and even in an era of such
impossible interconnectedness, there is no way to circumvent the feeling of
being utterly alone and misunderstood. Plenty of teenagers still love Catcher in the Rye. In fact, my Facebook
feed was full of tributes to Salinger the day he died. If that doesn’t prove
that this book has got appeal that spans generational differences, I don’t know
what could."
From Children and the Family. Stephen Gislason Persona Digital books
[i] Anne Campbell Staying alive: Evolution, culture and women's
intra-sexual aggression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, XX (X): XXX-XXX. a.c.campbell@durham.ac.uk
[ii] Hellmich, N Girls' friendships show aggression at younger ages. , USA
[iii] See Obituary by Charles Mcgrath. J. D. Salinger, Literary Recluse, Dies
at 91. NYT. January 28, 2010