The difficulties of being a teenager.
What a hard and confusing time of life! I often tell my teen clients that, for many reasons, adolescence is typically not an age adults wish to experience again. It can be a very lonely time for people, not really understanding why we're feeling the way we do, or what exactly we're going through that makes it so difficult, and therefore, that much harder to talk about with those around us. And yet, despite all of it's difficulties, adolescence is such an important time of life. It's a time where we're leraning more about ourselves and the world around us, who and how we want to be, starting the process of individuation from our families. Our self-awareness increases as we become more aware of our how we are in our relationships and what our values and beliefs are. It is a needed life stage in order to prepare us to become the more independent young adult in our 20's and then onto adulthood in our 30's and beyond.
A few of the reasons that the teen years can be so difficult are:
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Hormones are fluctuating and changing rapidly.
This alone effects so many things! Our emotions can swing from one moment to the next, making us feel unpredictable and confusing to both ourselves and those around us. In general, it typically isn’t pleasant to feel like our emotions are all over the map. Because we’re experiencing the range of our emotions during this time, sometimes we can react in ways that we aren’t proud of or that we want to do something different but don’t really know how.
Our bodies are also changing drastically due to the hormonal changes: voice octaves change, hair is growing in different places that it wasn’t before, our sexual organs are maturing. While there is absolutely no norm for when and how these things are to happen, we can feel like we’re “different” from the norm if maybe we’ve either matured “faster” or “slower” than those around us, which can lead to self-judgment and insecurity.
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It's a stage of life where we aren’t quite yet adults but we aren’t kids anymore, either.
This effects both our sense of self, as well as the family dynamics. Parents and teens both are figuring out how to relate to each other differently in that “in-between” space (in-between kid and adult). This is the time for individuation to begin (which continues well into our 20’s), where teens are trying to figure out who they are apart from their parents and family. Individuation and being in the “in-between” gray area in the family can cause a lot of strife in the family, as well as a lot of confusion and heated emotions due to dynamics needing to change but not always knowing how to go about it.
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Sense of self: who am I?
On top of all the family dynamics, when we are adolescents, we are trying on different “hats”, too. We are trying to figure out who we are among our peer groups and in the many areas in our lives (school, home-life, in the community, etc).
One month we might be into rap and baggy clothes, and the next we might be into pop music and tighter fitting “preppy” clothes. One year we might run track, the next we might try drama club. The year after that we might not want to try anything.
This is all a normal part of figuring out who we are: we need this phase of life to experiment with what we like and don’t like, and who and how we want to be. In addition, friends will come and go as we try on different hats, and among that will typically be feelings of hurt, insecurity, and rejection as friends, emotions, and family life can feel pretty unstable.
Adding to the adolescent
challenges can be:
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Emotional Expression.
As human beings, we don’t really have a blue print on how to express our emotions. All we know, we’ve learned from observing our culture and our family (parents and extended family). It is quite common and actually the norm for all of us to learn maladaptive ways to deal with our feelings.
Some of these maladaptive coping skills could be yelling, name calling, or hitting things when we’re angry; stuffing feelings inside so as to “not feel them” until we later explode in some way; substance use or overusing technology so as to not feel our emotions; promiscious sexual behavior in order to feel loved; risky behavior in general for an adrenaline rush and to get other needs met.
When we become teenagers, the maladaptive ways we deal with our feelings can become more apparent by us or those around us, and we may realize that the way we are expressing our emotions isn’t serving us and what we want and need (who and how we want to be in the world).
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Difficulties in school.
This can happen for a number of reasons. It could be in response to something going on emotionally, and more as a symbol that the adolescent needs help sorting through some things. This could be due to something happening at home or at school.
It can also happen due to learning difficulties that are either currently coming to light, or past ones that the individual continues to struggle with. Either way, difficulties in school can impact one’s self esteem and therefore also their emotions, how social they are, how motivated they are to work on school work, and their passion about life in general, leading to issues with depression or anxiety. Oftentimes those with learning difficulties can begin to have the belief that something is inherently wrong with them, when that couldn’t be further from the truth, but that’s just how it feels to them.
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Other life events can happen, further complicating emotions and sense of self.
Moving.
Change in location, especially moves to different cities or states, can be ungrounding for a teenager during their already identity finding stage. Sometimes it can be a welcomed change. Since moving is a transition for anyone, as well as one of the top life stressors, teenager or otherwise, it can elicit grief and loss and fluctuating feelings in general. During adolescence, friendships start to have a significant role in their lives and so changing those and having to start over can be difficult.
Divorce.
Divorce effects everyone in the family: parents struggle with the grief and loss of their partnership and that can oftentimes consume them. Teens can often feel neglected as their parents are navigating their own process, but at the same time, confused because they like the freedom to individuate more. They aren’t kids anymore and so in many ways, can take care of themselves, however emotionally, they are suffering. Everyone's sense of what a family is and their role in one is turned upside down for a bit or even years, thus impacting even more how difficult it can be for a teen to find their sense of self and discovering who they are in the world.
Death.
Grief and loss, like with divorce or even friendships ending, can happen in many different ways and forms. A family pet’s death can impact kids and teens and even adults: pets have unconditional love for the family in ways that is difficult to feel in other relationships. When children move into their teens, grandparents are moving into old age and can sometimes pass on during this time. Tragedy can happen as well where a peer of the adolescent dies for a number of reasons, leaving the teen with an experience of mortality and the bitter-sweetness of life at an early age. Any unresolved grief from any point in our lives can arise when we experience new grief, creating compound grief that feels very big and heavy, because it is.
Whatever the reason and whatever the behavior, therapy can be extremely helpful for adolescents or families for a number of reasons:
As an adolescent, it is easy to feel like what you’re experiencing is abnormal or strange, and those feelings and thoughts alone have a great impact on a person. There is no blueprint of how to be an adolescent, and the issues that teens commonly struggle with typically aren’t discussed because usually people don’t really know how to discuss them.
Oftentimes teenagers aren’t sure of who to talk to: maybe they are putting some space between themselves and their parents (which is very normal at this developmental life stage); maybe they are having conflict with friends and not really sure who they can trust; or maybe they’ve tried talking to others and just aren’t getting the response or help that they want or need.
Therapy is a space where individuals, teenagers or otherwise, come to realize that they are in fact not alone, that what they are experiencing is actually quite common, it’s just not typically talked about, and sometimes people aren’t even aware of what is going on inside of them.
Sometimes the issues that we have as kids or teenagers can effect us down the road (whether that be the relationships we are choosing, the experiences we have, or the patterns we develop because of them). If you find, as a teenager, that you’re consistently or more often that not, feeling ways you don’t understand or that don’t feel good, it is better to come and get help now rather than waiting. I often tell my teenage clients that they are way ahead of the game for doing this work now (becoming more aware of oursevles in therapy gives us choice in who and how we want to be, allowing us to feel more empowered and in control of our lives).
Therapy is a space where you can talk to a therapist who is typically an outsider in your life: a person that you do not normally connect with at school, at home, or at work. Therefore, what you say in therapy is very contained, and the client can keep it as compartmentalized as they want to. Therapists and helping professionals can interact with you in a more objective manner with an unbiased opinion.
Things that are said in the therapy office remain confidential, only between you and your therapist (although there are specific reasons why confidentiality would be broken: if client is threatening to harm themselves or others; if child abuse or abuse of the elderly is suspected; if client gives written or verbal permission; if court were to subpoena the therapist to testify in a case, etc: this will be discussed more in the initial session).
Therapy is also a space of acceptance. One of my goals as a therapist is for clients to love and accept themselves more in order to reduce unnecessary suffering, so it is important that I create that atmosphere for my clients by myself being loving and accepting of them, whatever is going on.
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If parents notice that their teen or kids are struggling but unwilling to go to therapy, parents might consider coming to therapy themselves.
Just as teens are dealing with their own ‘stuff”, so do parents, as they too are human beings. Parents, just like their children, were inadvertently taught different ways of how to act, feel, and think, and sometimes those ways are causing themselves and their families more pain. The adolescent stage, at times, can highlight norms in the family that aren’t working anymore. When we change ourselves, naturally the relationships around us change, so therapy for parents can be just as important and effective for the whole family.