Every stage of life has its share of stresses and concerns. Infancy is a time of crying, colic and broken nights that parents must deal with. Early childhood ushers in tantrums and disobedience. Because teenagers are full of contradictionsโฆ They demand autonomy and freedom but are still very dependent on their parents. That dependence is not only financial: in order to stay on the right track, teenagers quite simply need their parents.
However, they go to great lengths to pretend that is not the case. Teenagers need a framework to guide them but are always testing the limits of that framework. They find being told off intolerable, but are all too ready to put the blame on others. They want to be left alone, but actively seek conflict. They see themselves as equal to adults, yet constantly feel the need to compete with them. They are particularly cruel to those who matter most to them, especially their parents.
Teenagers are in search of themselves; they are building their identity. Teenagers demand a lot of attention, affection, empathy, availability and willingness to listen, but they can be both ungrateful and reluctant to reciprocate, especially to their loved ones. Parents are not always aware that these contradictions are natural and necessary for the development of teenagers.
It is through these conflicts that they gradually become adults who know who they are, who can commit themselves to a professional path and intimate relationships or to causes whether local, ecological, humanitarian or whatever that make sense to them. Teenagers need to experience the hot and the cold, the hard and the soft, the dark and the light, in order to find THEIR own purpose. They need to hesitate, to go down paths they have been advised not to explore, to go backwards, to contradict themselves, to make mistakes and to suffer the consequences of them.
They cannot be guided solely by the happy or unhappy experiences that others, in particular their parents, have had before them. Teenagers are lively, daring and enthusiastic, and feel invincible. This sometimes puts them in danger, but it also allows them to dream and take action to make the world a better place. Parenting teenagers can be difficult and unsatisfying.
