BY PARIMAL PANDIT
The coming of age period for children is a delicate time. To be on the brink of adulthood yet not there, is tough. A time for encounters with the world around them with all that they are born with and all that there is potential to become. The most riding emotions are a sense of freedom, overwhelming anxiety and at the same time excitement to enter another world. The main focus of this stage is developing ones own identity. If the childhood has been safe and education health giving, the children engage with the world constructively. A strong sense of self and feelings of independence and control are developed. The way of constructing their self image is through social interactions. No wonder you see them constantly glued to their phones or on social media checking their ‘likes’ or ‘hanging out’ with friends. Sometimes you wonder at their friendships and loyalty to their friend whom we see letting them down constantly. These are important encounters to meet oneself. An educationist, once wrote ‘The mental soul of a person gradually takes shape and receives its own dimensions like a room that has width, height, and depth.’ It’s a process of becoming.
This stage is termed by Eric Erickson as ‘Identity v/s confusion’. Its the time to form one’s own beliefs, ideas that define one’s own identity. If the opportunities are not given to develop these, one can see adolescents and youngsters who are unsure, insecure and confused.
The frontal lobe responsible for decision making is developing but is not yet completely developed. Behaviour is being regulated by emotions because of the activity and influence of the limbic brain. And hence the impulsive behaviour, risk taking and experimentation. As the brain is ‘under construction’ in this phase and regulated by sex hormones, it’s important that this brain gets proper nutrition in many ways. Towards the end of adolescence, children need to engage in independent action out of free will and have the ability to judge for themselves. We allow them to vote at 18yrs, as we assume they can now take informed decision. The capacity to reflect is being nurtured in the times of long silences.
Emotionally, as if overnight, the peaceful, loving, ever enthusiastic child of yesterday is transformed into this sulking, withdrawn or argumentative one. There are many physiological changes that they undergo in the years of 13/14 till 18 yrs. Suddenly the body is no longer as they knew it and they experience emotions they have never experienced before. That creates excitement, a sense of new power but also anxiety.
If you study them carefully, you will see how the boys actually go inward and become suddenly unsure of themselves, as their bodies grow heavier, muscular but also chiseled. The girls, meanwhile, post puberty become more outward, physically rounded, open and communicative. The disparity between physical maturity and psychological maturity is seen very clearly in this stage. As the age of puberty is advancing, the gap or overlap between the physical and psychological maturity is widening. The more the disparity, more the chances of mental health issues.
One does what is ‘in’, be it clothes, gadgets, accessories, courses, friends anything. Friends and gangs become the priority. Make up, heals, clothes, can compensate for lack in attributes like figure, height, hair, etc. In today’s world of digitization , the difference between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ often is blurred. The gap is filled with false sense gained through substance dependence.
The teenager’s relationship changes with the adults and the adults around them need to see it change. In Sanskrit, there is a saying that when children are in this stage we should treat them as friends (लालयेत्पञ्च्वर्षाणि दशवर्षाणि ताडयेत् , प्राप्ते तु षोडशे वर्षे पुत्रं मित्रवदाचरेत् ). Suddenly they start taking interest in politics, want to get justice for things. They are usually impressed by or idealise people who walk the talk. The birth of idealism is the end of puberty! On one side you see this idealism and on other sometimes complete immersion into sensuality. They need somebody to look up to, a living hero, who is inspirational.
The heredity doesn’t define them anymore. In a teen drama film ‘Lady Bird’, at an audition for a drama, the mentor asks the heroin, ‘Is Lady Bird your given name?’ And the seventeen year old answers, ‘Yes ! It’s given to me by me’. This little spark of becoming one’s own person is a huge step into adulthood. It is ‘birthing’ yourself and hence it’s as painful but yet as exciting a process. They need to undergo the pain for this new young self with one’s own thoughts, values, feeling, ideas developed by themselves through the oscillation.
So what can we do as parents, adults and educators to resurrect, develop a generation which is going to build the world tomorrow?