module 10 Unit Feelings and questions BEFORE READING Answer these questions about yourself. a. Do you read magazines for teenagers? Which ones? What are the articles about? b. Do you like doing quizzes in magazines? Which do you prefer? general knowledge quizzes psychology quizzes music quizzes cinema quizzes Adolescence Adolescence is an awkward time, the young person needs to define themselves as distinct from the family, but at the same time feels a continuing need for them. The adolescent is involved in a struggle to make himself or herself a separate person and they can t imagine that their parents understand. Adolescents can find their parents behaviour embarrassing and they will say so, which can be hurtful for a parent. The adolescent feels the parent as a massive boulder that they need to push off and become separated from and criticising a parent s action distinguishes the child from what he or she considers silly behaviour. At the same time, teenagers need to see their parents as stable, adult, permanent people, a boulder that stays in place as something fixed and durable. In adolescence we try to redo and remake the things that went wrong before. If we felt emotionally deprived, we search desperately for emotional connection. If we don t get it, we seek it through intense friendships or joining groups with a strong identity or through sex or drugs. Or we resort to restructuring the Self. The epidemic of eating problems amongst adolescent girls is one result of the way femininity is seen in our culture. These young women speak with their bodies about the contradictory pressures that trap them. For boys, the path to adulthood is no less complex. The modern-day crisis of masculinity and the pull to create a personal identity is very strong. Gangs and their classroom equivalents are a way for young men to rework their dependencies without appearing weak. Adolescence is also an exuberant time, when a generation makes claims on the culture and tries to influence it in its own image. It is necessarily a time of contestation, of flamboyant rejection of what exists. Adolescents challenge adult views of morality, aesthetics, music, politics and literature and make them look at things anew. ACTIVITIES 1 This reading passage is adapted from an article by Susie Orbach, a leading British psychotherapist. Read the article and answer the questions below; then discuss the points it raises in small groups or as a class. a. Which adjectives does the article use to describe adolescence? b. What does the article compare the parents to? c. What do adolescents challenge? d. Why do adolescents sometimes find their parents behaviour embarrassing? e. How do girls often express their emotional conflicts? f. How do boys express their emotional conflicts?