Adolescence - what’s it about?

An adolescent is a person who has gone through puberty but is not yet fully mature - in other words, a teenager. There are lots of changes to your body and to the way that you think and feel during puberty .You will continue to develop physically and mentally in many ways until you are an adult. Even adults continue to change the ways they think and behave for all of their lives! You will go on trying new things and learning all the time.You become more sensitive to your own feelings and the feelings of others. You learn about your own sexuality. You learn about your own identity - who you are. You learn to accept and adapt to your strengths and weaknesses. You learn to relate to others in grown up ways. You learn that you really cannot have your own way all the time. You learn that you are not yet fully grown up, and you still have to do things that you are asked to do by your parents and your teachers. There are still ’rules’.This is challenging and frustrating, and makes you irritable and a bit hard to live with at times - both for yourself and those who are closest to you! Teenagers start to question what adults say and do. Getting along with your parents becomes tricky. Respect and good manners are really important if you want to have a good relationship with people. With all these changes happening in a few short years there is a very good chance that every teenager will have problems from time to time.It is imperative that you have the support you need when you run into problems. You may be able to get that support from friends, but often it will be good to have an adult to talk things through with. There are a whole lot of changes to cope with as you move from being a dependent child to becoming an independent adult. The good thing is that all adults have been through these changes so keep talking to your trusted adults and they will understand - even if they seem quite old! (Well at least on the ’outside’.www.cyh.com