Adolescence and Identity Development

Life with the adolescent individual and the period of adolescence has been a period that parents often have difficulty in understanding and often face with anxiety in today’s society and family life. In fact, many adults have trouble defining this period. Of course, there are many reasons for this difficulty experienced by parents. One of these reasons is related to the fact that while many of us have definitions and meanings about childhood, adulthood or old age, the definitions of adolescence are more limited. So, what is adolescence? And how is this period described?

Adolescence is among the developmental periods of human life, just like childhood or adulthood. During this period, the individual experiences a number of changes in physiological and psychological areas. These changes bring about growth and maturation in the physical, social, emotional and behavioural areas of the individual. The most typical feature of this period is that the adolescent individual is stuck between childhood and adulthood. In other words, in this period, the adolescent individual is neither entirely child nor completely adult. Because in this period, the adolescent individual is gets into want to show that he/she is an adult with the states of being just out of childhood. Consequently, while he/she does not accept to be treated like a child, he/she tends not to fulfil the requirements of growing up (responsibility, rules, etc.) and can often be in conflict with people in authority (mother, father, teacher, etc.).

Adolescents commonly think that they are not understood by adults at this stage, where they try to understand themselves and relate to the environment. Trying to build himself, the young person experiences the development of self and identity along with the feeling of not being understood in this period. The concept of individualism that we talked about here; While the concept of identity consists of the individual’s perception and evaluations of himself, the concept of identity is described as a holistic element reflecting all the ingredients of the person. In other words, with the self-pursuit and identity development, the adolescent actually experiences the state of being in search with the following questions;

• ‘Who am I?’
• ‘What will I do with my life?’
• ‘What’s my difference?’

With this search process, the adolescent individual also experiences elements such as self-esteem, self-reliance and autonomy. While the young person, who is in this experience, wants to be more self-reliance and more respected by the things he/she chooses for his/her life, he/she also shows that he/she is independent from authority figures by reflecting his/her autonomy. Undoubtedly, in all these developmental processes, there are factors that both feed and affect the adolescent. One of them is the environment and peer relations, the other is the social media areas that young people actively use in today’s society. Adolescents are most influenced by peers and social media among these elements in the construction of identity. The family, on the other hand, is more secondary to the young individual in this period. The fact that the family is in the second place in the world of the young person, and the anxiety experienced by the parents in this period and the instinct to protect their children from the outside world bring some communicative and identity conflicts.

So, why are the adolescents in conflict with their parents? As well as there are many answers to this question, the most effective reason is the adolescent individual’s search for independence. Adolescents want to make their own decisions, organize their own life and do all these on their own without anyone’s intervention. Because in this period, in the mind of the adolescent individual, the thought of “My parents know everything” is replaced by “How will my parents know? Is their time the same as my time? I know much better than them”. For this reason, while the home became the place where communication problems are experienced for the young person who needs independence, at the same time, the individual within that need for independence wants the show that he/she is different and complete his/her identity development.

Well, how should parents approach the young individual during this period and what kind of communication should they have? the following answers and suggestions can be given to this question;

• The relationship between the adolescent individual and the parent is based on trust,
• The fact that the parent has undertaken the role of parenting on the adolescent and made this felt to the young person with elements such as love, interest and family belonging,
• Parents trying to reveal the positive features of the adolescent individual instead of just focusing on the negative aspects,
• Parents avoiding advice while communicating and taking on the role of a secret follower about the youth’s life,
• The ability of parents to focus on the young person while communicating with the adolescent, to be in a relationship, and to feel the sense of being understood by taking their opinion with questions (How do you think it should be? What is your opinion? etc.),
• During communication, the parent occasionally summarizes and interprets, as well as preferring to criticize the event rather than criticizing the young person,
• Ensuring communication with elements such as the parents’ empathy and making them feel while communicating with the young person will undoubtedly contribute to this period.

 

Elif DEMİRER

Specialist Psychologist/Child-Adolescent Psychotherapist