How To Understand A Teenager?

“You don’t have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is painful enough as it is ”.

It is in this dramatic way that the poet John Ciardi speaks of adolescence. Although it is obvious that a teenager can feel deeply misunderstood, this phase of the child’s growth does not have to be tragic.

Indeed, studies in other cultures show that the conflicts that occur in adolescence are the product of a set of cultural factors. 

The psychologist and educator G. Stanley Hall believed that “adolescence is a new birth because with it, more complete and higher human traits are born”.

A rather radical assertion, because it is a stage of childhood which opens on an unknown world, as if everything were new.

As much in the street as in the circles of recognized intellectuals, one understands adolescence as a period of time when the person suffers from many changes, some of them radical, in addition to being subjected to great pressures on behalf of his fellows or his family.

So, at least in our culture, the question is simple: what can we do to help them at this time?

What is in our power to make teens integrate these changes in a way that is as least traumatic as possible?

Understanding a teenager

Understanding a teenager is no easy task, for it takes great exercise and effort on the part of adults, who observe how this once understandable and close youngster is now becoming gruff and distant.

However, there are a series of keys that can help parents understand the teenager’s true needs and the sudden changes in their psyche.

Empathy

Empathy is needed in all facets of life, but especially when talking to a teenager.

The ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and understand their feelings and mental processes is basic.

We have all been teenagers. Since each of us has gone through this phase, it is important to connect with this earlier self and analyze what our feelings, thoughts, longing, and weights were.

But beware ! The past can help us, but if we are to understand them, we need to see the situation from the present circumstances, and not from those of the past.

Let’s not think, for example, that since we didn’t have a cell phone during our teenage years, our child shouldn’t have one either.

We cannot do this because the norms of society during our teenage years and that of our child are not the same.

So, to understand the current adolescent, we have to make an effort that goes beyond memories.

The need for social adjustment

A teenager begins to live a stage in his life that needs more independence.

The way he is dressed or the way he is in his social world is of vital importance to him.

Denying or neglecting this importance is a big mistake that an adult should not make, because the young person’s brain and his own life experience have not come to the point of realizing that it is not so important.

You need to understand that a problem that you think is insignificant is of utmost importance to them.

Act on consequences, use empathy and acknowledge their suffering, and their need for independence and problem solving according to their ability.

Give them the importance they place on it, or they will walk away from you.

The revolt

Many people think that the teenage years are synonymous with revolt. But this is not true.

Adolescents only arrive at a stage where they need independence, new horizons and a certain distance from their progenitors to find their own path.

If we don’t grant them, they will rise up against them.

It should be remembered that the young person begins to think rationally and abstractly.

His body changes and with it his brain and his way of seeing the world. They need to assert themselves, to get out of the comfort of paternal control and to find their own ethical code.

You have to understand that this is a bad time to try to impose things on the person.

It is normal that he gets angry, that he speaks his points of view, that he is wrong or not, and that he is opposed to you.

If you don’t accept this as natural and logical, and you don’t have a dialogue, you will never be able to understand children of this age.

I want to understand a teenager

If you want to understand a teenager, you are facing a daunting task!

It is advisable to talk a lot, to leave him his private space, to understand that he is no longer your “baby” nor the “apple of your eye”, to be realistic in your objectives, to give him a lot of information about possible problems like lack of sleep, drastic changes in the educational model and in the radical change of friends.

Understanding a teenager is complex if you are too late.

But with the right information and an empathetic and understanding attitude, it doesn’t have to be too difficult or frustrating.

We must not forget to put ourselves in the shoes of this child whom we have educated, and who is going through a difficult period.