The route to preadolescence is pretzel-like. Beneath the cotton-candy exteriority of childhood are realities that need to be carefully addressed. These changes — physical, mental, and social — have their own lessons, challenges, and rewards. There are dramatic mood swings — at once sprite, a crackling wire of energy, and sober, a social solitaire — all of which have the elements of unpredictability. These are the years of growth spurts and the onset of puberty when a pre-teen starts to be conscious of one’s own sexual maturation, of one’s annoyance to look in the mirror and see a pimple-shotgunned face staring back. One honks around a lot with friends on the computer and the social media to help deal with depression and a huge chip on one’s shoulder.
The adolescent stage is always the phase when lessons to be learned surface — the watershed age when layers of innocence become unstruck — to confront with a larger, unfamiliar, less protective world, away from the family womb as they are about to leave school, a world stifled by social strains, and face up to bullies and cyber bullying. One’s hormones also need coherence, an understanding of early sexual curiosity expressed through casual nuzzling, holding hands, fleeting smacks on the lips, tender eye-to-eye contacts and glances, and the itch for exploration through not-so-subtle music videos, unregulated movies, video games, and for girls, a fear of premature pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Generally speaking, adolescents grow into maturity at different levels, bringing a lot of insecurities and indecisiveness. There may be flashes of brilliance, then pockets of loneliness spent within their own impenetrable bubbles to point up some privatized rebellion. Boys mostly
feel peer pressure and conforming to street culture, physical image concerns: cropped hair? Bob Marley rock-flowing locks? super agitated haircut? backward baseball caps? overly saggy a la hip-hop pants? Girls like looking good in girl group bands, fashion trends, hands-on fitness and wellness exercises, beauty products, young romantic episodes on their gadgets, dreams of their first kiss, and, to get by all these, some extra cash.
There is an obvious conflict between the itch for independence, the dislike of being cooped up, and an eagerness to get older in a hurry vis-à-vis the indefiniteness about stumbling through dark experiences and hanging in there without the concentrated stewardship of a tight-knit family.
Needless to say, the teen years are an interesting make-or-break phase. Everybody goes through it: stubborn streaks, inconsistencies, psychological glitches, naïve optimism, and seeds of despair. Counselling is an instrument, showing care and patient love, encouragement, fine examples of positive parenting, sound money management, joy in small pleasures, and a hang-tough mentality instilled in their heads because these kids have to grow up and take their place in the world minus their parents.
Let the adolescents know and learn: their parents’ greatest legacy is love, not wealth.
