teenage brain

Hitting adolescence and having a teenage brain is a tough challenge. Being a teenager is a tough challenge in itself. You are perpetually fighting between two odd sides, one of still being a child and one of turning into an adult, the confusion between being mature and immature, the question between who you thought you were, who you are, who you want to be and what the society expects you to be. A person is normally messed up and confused about which side of the coin is easier to be but they are left with no choice but to accept both the sides and struggle between the two sides and decide which is more important. The teenage brain has the immature part that a person is trying to develop into a mature part and thereby the person is very confused about how to handle several situations and is prone to make few vivid mistakes at this time. There will be a drastic change in a human being as their teenage brain starts coming into action. The teenage brain though immature while transitioning into a mature brain is gradual. The struggle however, is ongoing. The child’s brain is conditioned into believing, thinking, reacting in a certain manner.  They have for several years believed what other people wanted them to believe. Their faith is the faith that other people instilled within them. They act in certain situations or do things because for so many years they have observed the elders do the same. The brain of a child is not his/her own. It’s a conditioned one. However, when they hit adolescence they begin to question everything that ever made sense to them. They question their beliefs, their faith, and their religion. They start looking for answers on their own, from peers, by experimenting, maybe by reading or even by questioning. Adolescents often face a challenge when asked who they are because they are still on the path of figuring it out. During early adolescence, friends are the top priority, fitting in to a certain group means the world to them. Even after probably topping school, when you as an adult think they have finally grown up they will probably come home drunk or bang the car because they were busy texting and suddenly they aren’t as grown up as you thought they were. A teenager is prone to experimenting with drugs, alcohol, smoking probably because of peer pressure, mere curiosity, to impress a certain someone or group and even to fit in. They start listening to different kind of music, look different, behave differently or maybe even hide a few things. The teenage brain is not fully an adult brain. Being a teenager is a huge transformation. The brain is finally breaking free and finding some individuality. Most adolescents achieve a sense of identity regarding who they are and where their lives are headed.

"Throughout infancy and childhood, a person forms many identifications. But the need for identity in youth is not met by these."(Wright, Jr, J. Eugene (1982). Erikson: Identity and Religion. New York, NY: Seabury Press. p. 73). This turning point in development seems to be the reconciliation between ‘the person one has to be’ and the person society expects one to become’. Erikson, believed that this ‘identity’ stage was unique because of a special sort of synthesis of earlier stages and a sort of anticipation of the later ones. Adolescence is a bridge between one’s childhood and adulthood. Apart from all the bodily changes, puberty, the mind grows to understand one’s thoughts as well as infer someone else’s. One becomes aware of the roles society has to offer for later life.

Adolescents "are confronted by the need to re-establish [boundaries] for themselves and to do this in the face of an often potentially hostile world.”(Wright, Jr, J. Eugene (1982). Erikson: Identity and Religion. New York, NY: Seabury Press. p. 73) .This is often challenging since commitments are being asked for before particular identity roles have formed. At this point, one is in a state of 'identity confusion', but society normally makes allowances for youth to "find themselves," and this state is called 'the moratorium':

Given the right conditions—and Erikson believes these are essentially having enough space and time, a psychosocial moratorium, when a person can freely experiment and explore—what may emerge is a firm sense of identity, an emotional and deep awareness of who he or she is?(Wright, Jr, J. Eugene (1982). Erikson: Identity and Religion. New York, NY: Seabury Press. p. 73) According to Erikson, when an adolescent has balanced both perspectives of “What have I got?” and “What am I going to do with it?” he or she has established their identity. (Gross, F. L. (1987). Introducing Erik Erikson: An invitation to his thinking. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. p. 39.)

sanika shah

FSLE 3