Psychological changes
Shyness and sensitivity. As a result of all these physical, physiological and emotional changes, adolescents tend to pay more attention to themselves. The teenager becomes more shy. He can exaggerate worry because of some of his shortcomings.(If the girl has freckles, she thinks she looks "terrible.") A slight deviation in the structure of the body or its functions convinces the adolescent that he is not like others, that he is a freak. He changes so quickly that he does not understand what he is now. The new body obeys him not so willingly as the former, and the same applies to new feelings. When he is blamed, he easily takes offense and feels pain. Today he feels like an adult, a citizen of the world and wants the whole world, including his family, to treat him accordingly, and tomorrow - again a child in need of protection and care of his mother. He may be disturbed by increased sexual sensations. He clearly does not yet imagine what it is and what to do about it. Boys more girls tend to all romanticize and are hard at experiencing different shades of their relationships with people. But in this period the child is not yet ready to demonstrate his feelings toward the adolescent of the opposite sex. The boy can develop an admiring attitude towards the man to the teacher. The girl falls in love with a teacher or a literary heroine. Part of this is because earlier boys and girls communicated mainly with members of their sex, and the opposite sex was considered a natural opponent. And only gradually this antagonism stops and the barriers collapse. Initially, a teenager, perhaps, begins to dream romantically about Hollywood movie stars. Over time, boys and girls from the same school begin to think about each other, but then it should take some time before they show this interest.
The demand for greater freedom expresses fear of freedom. The usual approach to adolescents is that parents do not give them enough freedom. For a teenager who develops rapidly, it is natural to insist on his rights and demand respect for his dignity, appropriate to his age, and he constantly reminds his parents that he is no longer a child. But parents are not required to agree with all of his requirements. The fact that a teenager is afraid of his growing up. He is very unsure of his abilities to become so knowledgeable, skillful, refined and charming as he would like to seem. But he never confesses his doubts, especially to his parents and himself. Instead of admitting that he is afraid of freedom, he indignantly decides that his parents are holding him back.
Teens appreciate reasonable limitations and rules. Teachers, psychiatrists and other professionals working with adolescents often hear teenagers talking about their desire to have parents with them more rigidly and more definitely telling what to do and what not to do. This does not mean that parents should become judges of their children. Parents should talk with other parents and with teenagers' teachers to find out what's going on in this district, and they need to discuss rules of rational behavior with their son or daughter. And in the end decide what is allowed and what is right, and stick to it. If the decision is reasonable, the teenager agrees with him gratefully in the shower. In making this decision, parents should exercise greater caution and prudence. On the one hand, they must say: "We know better than you", but at the same time must show faith in the ability to make reasonable decisions and in the moral qualities of their child. It is rational education and the belief that parents trust him, first of all, keeps the teenager on the right path. However, he still needs the rules, it is also necessary that the parents develop these rules out of love for him.
Rivalry with parents and former affection. Some tension that usually occurs between father and son, between mother and daughter during this period, is associated with natural rivalry. The teenager realizes that it was his turn to become an adult, one of those who rule the world, get carried away by the persons of the opposite sex, become a father or mother. And therefore feels the need to press parents. Subconsciously, parents feel this and, quite understandably, not very happy.
But there may also be a tension between the mother and the son, between the father and the daughter. At the age of three to six years, the boy was passionately attached to his mother, and the girl to his father. Between six years and adolescence, the child tries to forget about his feelings. But when the pressure of new feelings begins, they, like a mountain stream, first rush through the old, habitual, but not used and dried up stream towards parents. However, the teenager subconsciously understands that this is wrong. Therefore, the first difficult and big task that he decides during this period is to take his feelings away from his parents and send them to someone outside the family. A positive attitude, he covers the negative. This at least partially explains why the boy so often quarrels with his mother, and the girl at times shows an amazing hostility towards her father. In some cultures, it was more necessary for the boy to hide his positive feelings for the mother than for the girl-to the father. Many teenage girls can openly and serenely admire their father.
Parents, of course, have more or less affection for their teenage children, and this helps us understand why mothers are almost always experiencing an obvious or secret disappointment with the girls whom the son appoints a date;why the father so vehemently objected when the boys begin to care for his daughter.