Troubled Teenagers
The Adolescent Years have traditionally been described as challenging and demanding for both children and their parents. Often, negative adjectives such as hostile, uncooperative, unreliable, unhappy etc., are used to describe typical adolescent attitudes and behaviours. This, unfortunately, overshadows the more positive aspects of the teenager’s demeanour.
Throughout this period, which bridges late childhood and early adulthood, individuals experience significant physical and emotional changes. More than others, puberty has always physically signified the transition from being a child into being a young adult. However, physical development and growth do not necessarily equate with the emotional maturing process. In fact, many adolescents and young adults are continuously practicing “catch up” with their emotional maturity and their physical growth, with different levels of success.
The hormonal changes make this young population prone to swift mood swings, antagonism, and radicalism. Hormones, however, are not the sole factor that determines one’s wellbeing. During this stage, people are shaping and refining their personalities. They become increasingly involved in the process of their individuation and the determination of their own unique ‘self’. Social comparison reaches its peak and a negotiation process of the new role for the teenagers within their family and their environment speeds up of necessity, as the teenager longs to spread his or her wings, and express themselves differently than the child used to do.
Understanding this process is crucial as it serves as the context in which all these rapid (and often overwhelming) changes are happening. This comprehension is important also because these changes are normal and expected. When we try to understand the troubled youngster, we always need to remind ourselves of the context in which the described behaviour is taking place. ALL teenagers are likely to behave differently than they did before, either by being more outspoken or more withdrawn, less communicative or more rebellious. Rather than looking at the differences between the troubled teenager’s behaviour and “normal” behaviour as differing qualitatively, it would be more accurate to describe these differences as quantitative. In other words, to identify how many times MORE a given behaviour takes place rather than IF the behaviour happens or not.
Among the several complicating factors that affect teenagers these days is drug and alcohol abuse. This problem has become so prevalent these days that it is almost impossible to professionally examine troubled behaviour without assessing this possibility. The soaring number of violent and criminal incidents amongst this group may reflect a tendency for more impulse driven behaviours then ever before. Thus, self management skills become especially important nowadays for adolescents to successfully deal with the big social challenges confronting them.
What defines a troubled behaviour? Who are the troubled teenagers? Whether we talk about a person who is overly depressed, anxious, socially limited, antagonistic, short tempered, abusive, confused, academically underachieving, or any other unwanted behaviour, we are probably talking about a behaviour that under different circumstances would have appeared less frequently rather than not at all. For example, it is normal to feel anxious or sad/depressed at times. However, once these feelings begin to paralyse and overwhelm the individual then we may regard that as a troubled behaviour and start to consider professional intervention. Hence in many cases we are not necessarily talking about ‘abnormal’ behaviour but rather about a behaviour that, for different reasons, is ‘encouraged’ to appear more often.
This is the place where a professional intervention of good quality can make a significant difference: It will help the individual (and his family when appropriate) to identify the factors that intensified that particular troubled behaviour and maintained it at a given level. Once these factors are clear, a planned intervention becomes possible.
The psychologist accompanies the teenager along this path and helps her/him to adopt more adjustable and appropriate means to deal with the challenges that life has brought. The family, when appropriate, is encouraged to get involved in this process by learning how to improve their communication with the teenager, to deal more effectively with the challenging behaviour, while supporting and encouraging the teenager to adopt a more flexible and appropriate way of expressing oneself. Acquiring conflict resolution skills, as well as psychoeducation for both the teenager and her/his parents, will help to form the basis on which further behaviour changes can be built.
Here at the Armchair Psychology Practice we have vast experience in helping teenagers and their families to overcome troubled and unwanted behaviour by exploring the reasons for it and by planning and conducting a scientifically proven intervention plan to facilitate such changes. Contact us for further information or for an appointment with one of our skilled Psychologists.