Archive for the ‘Adolescence’ Category
To bring positive change, you must take an honest look at your child’s behavior and your family situation. You may or may not know the underlying issue for your child’s behavior. Your child might have a diagnosed disorder (such as bipolar disorder) — or not. That’s not the point.
The character of a person is shown through his or her personality — by the way an individual thinks, feels, and behaves. When the behavior is inflexible, maladaptive, and antisocial, then that individual is diagnosed with a personality disorder.
Most personality disorders begin as problems in personal development and character which peak during adolescence and then are defined as personality disorders.
Personality disorders are not illnesses in a strict sense as they do not disrupt emotional, intellectual, or perceptual functioning. However, those with personality disorders suffer a life that is not positive, proactive, or fulfilling. Not surprisingly, personality disorders are also associated with failures to reach potential.
Many teens experience a time when keeping up with school work is difficult. These periods may last several weeks and may include social problems as well as a slide in academic performance.
Research suggests that problems are more likely to occur during a transitional year, such as moving from elementary to middle school, or middle school to high school.
In a famous experiment, students were asked to take a lemon home and to get used to it. Three days later, they were able to single out “their” lemon from a pile of rather similar ones. They seemed to have bonded.
Is this the true meaning of love, bonding, coupling?
Do we simply get used to other human beings, pets, or objects?
SIMPLY LISTEN
Helping Others Cope With Grief
It’s part of life. Someone special died today. Someone’s father or mother, husband or wife, son or daughter. A family, a lifetime of memories and a lot of pain are left behind. And, for the survivors, the pain is just beginning. Working through that pain and sadness is often a long and grueling process called mourning.
Almost everyone worries about what to say to the survivors. You don’t want to hurt their feelings or upset them. But more important than knowing what to say is knowing how to listen. You cannot take away the pain that friends or co-workers are suffering from the loss of a loved one, but you can listen to their stories. Storytelling is a very common and effective way for the grieving person to keep the memory of a loved one alive. The biggest fear for someone in mourning is that those around them will forget the loved one now that they are gone. Read more…
Your Teen’s Friends
Peer Influence & Peer Relationships
Teens want to be with people their own age — their peers. During adolescence, teens spend more time with their peers and without parental supervision. With peers, teens can be both connected and independent, as they break away from their parents’ images of them and develop identities of their own.
While many families help teens in feeling proud and confident of their unique traits, backgrounds, and abilities, peers are often more accepting of the feelings, thoughts, and actions associated with the teen’s search for self-identity. Read more…
Emotional Health
What Should I Know About My Teenager’s Emotional Health?
The teenage years are a time of transition from childhood into adulthood. Teens often struggle with being dependent on their parents while having a strong desire to be independent. Ideally, they are maturing from the one-sided self-centeredness of childhood to a self-identity that balances responsible self-interest with care and love for others.
Youth Who Drop Out
Young people who don’t complete high school face many more problems in later life than do people who graduate. While national leaders have demanded that schools, communities, and families make a major effort to retain students, the dropout rate remains high. A report from the Educational Testing Service, One-Third of a Nation: Rising Dropout Rates and Declining Opportunities, warns little is being done to stem rising dropout rates and their economic costs. This report also found:
BULLYING
What Parents and Teachers Should Know
In a 2001 study by the Kaiser Foundation in conjunction with Nickelodeon TV network and Children Now, 86% of children ages 12-15 interviewed said they get teased or bullied at school — making bullying more prevalent than smoking, alcohol, drugs, or sex among the same age group.
What is bullying?
Bullying is abusive behavior by one or more students against a victim or victims. It can be a direct attack — teasing, taunting, threatening, stalking, name-calling, hitting, making threats, coercion, and stealing — or more subtle through malicious gossiping, spreading rumors, and intentional exclusion. Both result in victims becoming socially rejected and isolated.
Anger in Our Teens & in Ourselves
by Linda Lebelle
Karen is a 9th-grader and has been feeling that nothing is worth it anymore. As hard as she tries, she just doesn’t seem to fit in. The day before she had tried out for the school play, but when she got on stage, she froze up and just stopped in the middle of her audition. Now, everyone in the school must know about it and Karen is sure they’re laughing at her. She’ll never let them know how bad she feels. She knows what they’re thinking and they’re right — she isn’t good enough and she’ll never fit in. Karen hates them all.
Chris punched his fist into the bedroom wall. But it wasn’t enough. He picked up his soda can and threw it into the hall. The brown sugary liquid dripped down the walls and onto the carpeting. “You can’t make me!” he screamed. “I’m not going anywhere with you! I’ll do what I want!” Chris ran down the stairs and out the front door. His father ran after him, yelling at him to get back in the house, but he had already gotten into his car and sped away. Chris was so mad at his father. He had better things to do than go visit family. He and his friends had plans, and his father wasn’t going to run his life. He knew he’d feel better when he smoked some weed.
What do these young people have in common?
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