My Views on Adolescence
And it's not just puberty - - all through the teenage years and even beyond, young people often have a difficult time being taken seriously by society due to hormonal and societal pressures as well as unfair ridiculing, demonizing, and stereotyping by the media.
Much of the hardship faced by many adolescents comes from peer pressure. Eager for companionship of others within their own age groups, adolescents can frequently be bullied into smoking, alcoholism, drug use, sexual promiscuity, stealing, vandalism, and other types of violence, by their peers. Unfortunately, this surplus of misguided teens - - both male and female - - has caused many adults, in and out of the media, to unfairly generalize the entire American adolescent populations, causing a backlash of hostility and mistrust from teens toward their adult superiors and authority figures. Hence, an influx of tension and disharmony is created between people with generational differences.
There are several sources as to what drives adolescents to so often rebel or cause trouble. Everything from bad parenting, broken homes, bad influences of peers, miscommunication between students, teachers, and parents, and societal negativity toward teenagers in general, may contribute to such acidic attitudes in various adolescents. When parents are too permissive or too strict or too judgemental, their kids can launch onto perilous tracks leading to lives of crime, danger, and/or death. Adolescents may join gangs, and consequently be headed on a road to self-destructiveness.
Sexuality is another pivotal factor in adolescent development. As teens experience changes in their bodies and hormones, they individually begin to explore their inherent sexual orientations. Raging hormones in young males and young females, for heterosexuals, homosexuals, and bisexuals alike, result in multiple emotions complicating teenagers' lives. In today's society, heterosexual teens see their friends becoming romantically and sexually active, and they themselves become pressured to confront their own hormonal instincts. Homosexual teens and bisexual teens also begin to recognize their personal sexual desires, but are unfortunately antagonized by the fear of confronting or begin open with such feelings due to the dominant "heterosexual ideal" along with homophobia inflicted in young minds by parents and society.
Social barriers, especially within the American school system, effect the self-esteem and self-worth of female and male students in middle school, high school, and even post-secondary education. Students are too often subjected to horrid teasing and ridicule from their peers. Young females and young males may become ashamed and self-conscious of their bodies and physical appearance, leading to anorexia, bullemia, and other health disorders. Aristocracies within communities, especially small communities, are reflected by environments of schools, creating outcasts who end up being left out of cliques and circles of popularity. Other students become snobs or bullies (or both simultaneously) toward their "inferior" classmates, creating a superiority complex in such egotistical students. And the bubble has only begun to burst with the rise of national violence in schools across the country.
As someone who at age 17 has not even yet escaped the treacherous plight of adolescence, I encourage people of all ages to try to learn from each other without exerting hostility or humiliation upon others. And be nice. Don't tease. Don't bully. Someone who could have been one of your best friends may end up becoming one of your worst enemies - - potentially with deadly consequences.
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