TEENAGERS-PARENTS CONFLICT

“Everyone can see, there’s a change in me. They all say I’m not the same. Kid I used to be.” (Nikka Costa-first love) The lyrics show the teen girl feels that she was changes and everyone can see it. The changes happen after she pass her childhood. It is adolescence. The Latin root of adolescence is esso which means “becoming”. The term of “adolescence” describe the period which young people are neither children nor adults. Psychology seems this period as the period of storm and stresses, when the conflict begin to rise. Since the conflict between teenagers-parents happens because of biological, cognitive, social, and emotional changes, several actions such as communication, opportunities to teenagers, and discipline should be taken.

            Adolescence begins with a period of physical development marked by a biological changes that leads to puberty, the maturation of the primary sex organs. For boys and girls, the time of this process are vary among individuals of both sexes. For girls, the puberty occurs between the ages of nine and fourteen, with twelve being the average. Female puberty is characterized by breast development, increase in height and menstruations begins. Boys start to mature around the age of eleven, more late than girls. Male puberty marked by increase in height, testicles development that produce sperm, penis enlargement, broadening of the shoulders, the voice become deep, the growth of facial hair like moustache and beard, and wet dream.

            Jean Piaget-a development psychologist from Swiss-in his theory of cognitive development says that when someone was adolescence, the cognitive development entered the formal operational stages. Contrary to concrete operational stages when childhood, at the formal operational stages, adolescence think more abstract, logic, and idealistic. Abstract think means that adolescence can build  the imagination, hypotesis and logical reasoning.

            Sometimes, when what teens think aren’t match with what their parents think, teens will be arguing it. Adolescence says that what they think is right and what parents think is wrong. Parents would listen to their teens than trying to win the debate because listening doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing. Parents have to be active listener.

            Idealistic means that teens start to think about their ideal things and try to compare it with others ideal standard. Teens often see that their parents are out of style and old fashioned. Teens are easily embarrassed with their parents’ looks or dress or by what their parents say, especially in front of teens friends. When parents appearance  and act aren’t match with teen ideal standard, they will criticize their parents.

            As the result of abstract think is a logic reasoning. Teens always thinks something that abstract but logic. Teens are able to built a logical reasoning from what they see, think, and feel. If something isn’t logic, teens will criticize and argue it.

            Another factors that causes the teenagers-parents  conflict is the changes in social aspects. There are three aspects from social changes that happens in adolescence. The first is independent. A long time ago, when we’re still a kid, we’re depend on our life to our parents. But now, when we’re adolescence, gradually the dependence to parents will be lost. This is a natural process that happens to all human. Independent described as someone ability to not depend to others.

The second is self-identity. When teens ask themselves “who am I ?”, “what will I become?”, and “how will peoples see me?”, etc. it means teens try to find their self-identity. Erik.H.Erikson-social development psychologist-classified social development into eight stages. The fifth stages, identity versus identity confusion happen when someone are adolescence. At this stages, teens want to know their roles and status in social environment, besides they want to know themselves. Of teens can’t find their self identity, they will be identity confusion. It causes someone withdrawal from the social life, separated from peer and family, or maybe they can lose their identity.

The third is peer-group orientation. When adolescence, the orientation is peer-group. In contrast to childhood when the orientation is parents. Teens tend to focus to their peer and parents less to listen. Peer become the measure, directions or standard to looks and act. Stenberg studies shows that peer-group influence tend to anything that related to fashion style, music, hair style, etc. But, for fundamental values teens still tend to their parents’ values.

Hormonal changes when adolescence are related to emotional changes. When the girls get their menstruation, the Pre Menstruation Syndrome (PMS) stimulate emotional changes like moody, easy to angry, and explosive emotions. Boys hormonal stimulate the explosive emotions too.

Another changes is mood swings. Teens can change from day to day, or even from moment to moment, from bright cheerfulness to sullen withdrawal. Mood instability affected teens activity and feels. When the mood changes, teens can be so lazy to do activity or they’ll bored with anything they do even if that is something that usual to do.

Those changes make parents frustrated, but several actions would be the solutions. With communication, we can share the problems. To solve the conflict effectively, the communication has to two way such as discussion. It means both parents and teens have the opportunity to say any trouble and how they feel about the problems.

If two way communication seems too formal, parents can choose another way of communication. Spend time together can be the alternative way to communicate the problems. Informal situation may make teens feel more comfortable than discussion.

The last communication strategies is parents be the friends of teens. It seems look simple but it’s important. Remember that adolescence is a process to find self-identity and teens really need friends that teens can trust to help their pass the process of maturation. The ideal friends is parents. Parents have to be “trash can” for teens to capacious teens problems. Based on research in psychology, “90 % parents aren’t know their child. Parents live with their child but most of the interaction between parents and teens just in physical. If parents can be the friends of teens, parents will know more about their teens.

Parents should give their teens an opportunities to solve teens own problem. Parents should be the observer that see teens solve the problems with themselves. Be responsible of anything that teens do is key to be independent. If teens dare to be responsible, they will learn to not repeat act that give the negatives impact not only for themselves but also for they parents.

The last solutions is disciplines. Parents should to set the rules. When parents set the rules, they should think ahead and predicted what will happen with the rules and their teens. Will be teens obeyed by the rules? That is the question  from parents when they decide set the rules. The answer is be consistent with the rules. Not only for teens but also for parents. 

In conclusion, parents and teens can live together harmoniously if parents try to understand the problems with teens’ point of view. When, parents and teens know that the conflict between parents and teenagers happens because of biological, cognitive, social, and emotional changes, several actions such as communication, opportunities to teenagers and disciplines should be taken. Adolescence still be the period of storm and stress, full of trouble and conflicts. But, if we know why it happen and how to solve the conflict, it will look more easy to deal with the teenagers-parents conflict.