Adolescents Are Misunderstood
“Teenagers are the
most misunderstood people on earth. Treated like children but expected to act
like adults”. What is your opinion on this particular saying? As a
teenager myself, I absolutely agree with this quote as adults have been
continuously stereotyping us, teenagers excessively.
Adolescents nowadays
are often considered as rebellious or moody or undependable, as the society
have been constantly exposed to the stereotyping of adolescences. These
stereotyping have a way in altering the society’s mind set, causing them to be
incompetent in differentiating the reality and the chosen representation, thus
leading to the misunderstanding between adolescence and adults.
Adults these days are
too occupied with their expectations for teenagers to act maturely and
independently that they did not realize that the “rebellious” actions that they
continuously opposed of is a way for teenagers to show that they are
comfortable with themselves as well as with those individuals around them.
Adolescents are often viewed
by adults as being too loud or rebellious or even too irresponsible because
these adults may have forgotten what it is like to be a teenager. Therefore,
causing them to judge the teenagers unfairly as they had not fully understand
the matter. Even though there are some adults that may not have any intention
to treat these teenagers wrongly, there are still several adults that
expect adolescents to act in a certain way or dress in a certain way as
they feel that these are the actions that are appropriate and ethical. However,
these adults have failed to consider their feelings and only act in their best
interest.
The public
interpretation of adolescents have portrayed teenagers as “bad” or “naughty”,
leading to the believe that all teenagers are ignorant, immature and reckless
due to how society sees the majority of teenagers. Several have also believed
that teenagers have to be constantly controlled or kept an eye on, as
apparently they are untrustworthy and impulsive to the eyes of adults
everywhere. Unfortunately, the public have failed to realize that only several
number of adolescents behave this way as some have successfully made
world-changing discoveries while showing remarkable talent and potential to
develop the world further in the future. For example, a sixteen-year-old
teenager have discovered an inexpensive way to detect cancer in a human’s
organ.
It was stated previously that teenagers have been stereotyped these way because
of their uncaring or immature behavior, such as, throwing tantrums about
everything, even small and pointless matters. However, the society has failed
to take into account the reasons to why they might behave this way. The first
reason available is due to the occurrence of rapid growth of synapses or
connections in the brain, which have started in the early stage of adolescence.
Evidence have proved that a part of the teenager’s brain, namely the prefrontal
cortex, which functions is to make decisions on situations and helps control impulses
and emotions, is less mature in a teen brain than in an adult brain, therefore,
causing teenagers to feel misunderstood, make poor decisions and also appear
uncaring or impulsive (Source: Edmonds, Molly. "Are teenage brains really
different from adult brains?" 26 August 2008. HowStuffWorks.com.
<http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/teenage-brain.htm> 02 May 2013.)
Adolescents are
assumed by adults to be liars and unreliable as they have observed and come to
a conclusion that all teenagers would carry out any actions,
including lying, in order to have fun and enjoy their life, which will
bring us to our second reason. Lying has become a result of differences in how
teenagers produce a certain hormone called melatonin, which will regulate
waking.
Have you ever heard of
the quote "Age doesn't define maturity"? If you have, do you agree
with this quote? I personally agree with this quote as adults these days have
unconsciously show several signs of immaturity in their actions, as they grow
older. Psychologist all around the world have even agreed with the
regression theory that was created by a psychoanalyst, named Sigmund Freud
(Source: Sigmund Freud. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 May 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud).
This particular theory states that as adults grow
older, their brain will develop a defense mechanism, which will lead to an
alternation of the ego and personality at the start of the age of development,
causing them to develop childish manners, rather than handling the matter in a
more adult manner.
It’s
time that these stereotyping and misunderstanding come to an end as we,
adolescences have been stereotyped by the society for way too long and these
debates on whether who’s right and who’s wrong is just plainly useless. I
personally feel that it’s time for someone to make a change and these changes can
start from you!
