THE DIFFICULTY OF LETTING GO!

Adolescence is not an easy time.

People in the twelve to twenty age group often face a variety of difficulties. While one person is straining to compete successfully for academic honors another is about to quit school in spite of opposition from parents, and a third may be depressed and thinking of suicide. Some problems center around the individual adolescent's psychological state, but most center around the adolescent's relations with peers, authority figures, and the largest society in general.

Few adolescents have totally smooth relations with their parents. Conflicts seem to arise over the simplest matters. You may have said or heard some of the following statements:

"When I was your age..."
"You spend money like water."
"You must get good grades if you want to amount to something."
"If you quit now, you'll be sorry for your life."
"Why don't you trust me?"
"You can't stay late outside, be home by ... "
"Don't go with the wrong group!"
"You are grounded!"
"Leave me alone!"

Sometimes these problems have a common source, the difficulty of letting go. Parents know their son or daughter will soon be independent, so sometimes they need to say and sometimes to show "I'm still in charge." Sometimes parents go too far by exercising control that are too rigid.

The difficulty of letting go affects young people as well. An adolescent sometimes expects full adult privileges without being willing to accept adult responsibilities. Other times, the young person is ready, but society refuses to grant adult responsibility. It is not unusual situation for young people to want to be free of parental control, but still to want parental support. This sets up difficult expectations for parents to meet.

UNDERSTANDING ADOLESCENT YEARS

At about age 12 to 14, a child moves from a society of children into a culture of youth. As the word culture implies, the customary behavior of this period is set as much by social forces as it is by physical changes. In fact, a person is called an adolescent only because society decided that he or she should be.

Adolescence is one stage that is characterized by the strong emergence of the need to belong. At this stage, friends or peers become significant. Oftentimes they influence growth, but sometimes they lead you to destruction. A well-known psychologist, formulated the theory of man's hierarchy of needs, asserting that the third hierarchical need of man is the need to belong and be loved, or man's longing for affective and affiliative relationship.

The idea of adolescence, and even the word, has come into common use only in the last few generations. In many part of the world, a young person goes directly from childhood into adulthood. Other societies require longer periods of training and education for most young people. This happens in part because people must be more sophisticated to take part as adults in a technological society. Also, an extended adolescence keeps the competition of young people out of the work force a few extra years.