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From the American Motherhood Series - No. 32: Adolescence
Every observant parent knows that the physical changes are not the only accompaniments of adolescence. The child who has been amiable and docile, perhaps, now begins to manifest perversity and willfulness. He is strangely restless, perhaps morose at times, at others irritable. The girl is peevish and petulant, the boy unamiable or even impudent. They have before this been confidential and communicative. Now they withdraw themselves and seem inclined to keep their own counsel.
They become opinionated and do not hesitate to express their ideas in the most egotistical way. They are hard to please, hard to govern, hard to live with in any way. The parents can not understand this. What should have changed this sweet, loving, little child into a youth so awkward, opinionated, fault-finding and perverse? The conditions at home have not changed. Everything is as pleasant as ever, and, in truth, everybody is making more effort that ever before to placate this strange, restless, unreasonable creature who seems to care little how much trouble he makes.
Just at this period of their children's lives many mothers suffer greatly with the feeling that everything is going wrong, their children do not love them any more, and they really lost their hold on these growing inmates of their homes simply because they fail to understand the mental significance of adolescence.
In his early life the child imitates. He learns through imitation. He accepts the ideas of those about him unquestioningly, and follows the path marked out for him. But with the new gift of life-power which comes to him at puberty, his own self awakens. He begins to realize that he is a unit, an integer, an individual. He realizes this only in a blind way. He does not comprehend that these new and strange feelings of rebellion are the strugglings of his individuality for expression. Those about him do not understand it, either. They fail to see that these traits which seem so objectionable to them, are, in truth, the struggle to attain that self-hood which will make him of real value to the world.
The individual who in maturity is only a childlike imitator of those about him has very little value to the world. If he is to amount to anything, he must have "a mind of his own," must be able to think for himself, to judge for himself, to act for himself.
And this is what the adolescent is beginning to do. In himself he feels the awakening of his individuality. He is somebody; not merely an appendage to parent or teacher; not merely an imitator of others; not merely a reservoir for the ideas of others. Their ideas may be good, but how does he know until he has thought for himself? So he discards your carefully studied beliefs, your "anciently received opinions," - not because of any newly discovered lack of faith in you, but because of a newly discovered faith in himself. It is a wonderful thing, this discovery of self. It should arouse our respect. Instead of snubbing the crude and dogmatically expressed ideas of the growing boy or girl, we should see in them the dawning of individuality, and rejoice.
It is far better to think wrongly at the outset than not to think at all.
Crude and faulty ideas are more desirable than no ideas.
If encouraged to go on thinking, the probabilities are that the husks of thought will fall off and the sound ripe kernels be found to have matured within.
While not obliged to receive without contradiction every unripe idea of youthful minds, we can still show a courteous recognition of their efforts at thinking, and by polite queries more quickly than by sneers and snubs lead them to see their errors. The boy who at home learns how, courteously, to discuss a subject, how to pay deference to his antagonist, how to differ politely, how, gracefully, to accept defeat, or how, generously, to acknowledge the justice of his opponent's arguments, has had a training the value of which can scarcely be measured.
And the father who accords to his son or daughter the right of an individual to think, has taken the surest way to maintain his influence over them.
The awakening of individuality in the adolescent mind is the secret of the apparent withdrawal from the parental confidence which so often troubles mothers more than fathers. The child has been so confidential, so free to bring to mother all little griefs and joys; why should he now seem to desire less of confidence and sympathy? Why does the girl consult her mother less about the details of her toilet, or why does the boy seem to shun the sweet hour of sympathetic intercourse? In all probability it is simply the growing individuality which makes the youth feel that he must now take charge of his own life.
It is not that he trusts mother less, but he wants to be himself, to assert the Ego. It the mother can understand this and sympathize with it, she will feel less troubled, for she will know that this is only a turbulence which will eventuate in a clarifying of the mind and a strengthening of confidence. If she can only be wise enough to let go with the arbitrary hand of parental authority and grasp with the gentle hand of friendly sympathy, she will find the grasp is firmer, surer and stronger with the passing years.
The mental significance of adolescence, then, means the awakening of individuality, the coming into the possession of self. With this face in mind we shall better understand the youth who is reaching out after a knowledge of his own powers and who needs our wise sympathy in his struggles to gain possession of God's great gift of selfhood.
Excerpt Taken From:
Wood-Allen, Mary, M.D. No. 32: Adolescence. Cooperstown, NY: Crist, Scott, & Parshall, 1907.
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