Teenage Years Changes You

Jhey Gregg Scott M. Jabalde

J1A

Growing up starts from being a child, then achieving adolescence, and lastly becoming an adult. When we were young, the words child and adult are very easy to understand because these terms are used regularly in a normal days. And because of that we as a child can clearly differentiate each from one another. On the other hand, the term adolescence is not that used unlike the others thus we have a very little knowledge about it. We are taught this lesson only when we are about to experience or achieve it. According to Pickhardt (2009),adolescence describes the teenage years between 13 and 19 and can be considered the transitional stage from childhood to adulthood. However, the physical and psychological changes that occur in adolescence can start earlier, during the preteen or "tween" years (ages 9-12) (Pickhardt, 2009). Adolescence can be a time of both disorientation and discovery. The transitional period can bring up issues of independence and self-identity. During this time we experience a lot new things such as living away from our parents, attending college, doing part-time jobs, and many more. This is also the period that exposes us on things that may harm our future such as drugs, alcohols, and sexuality. Every change that happens during teenage years is for us to be ready on adulthood. In other words many things happen as we become teenagers and some of them are changes in perspective, mentality and emotion.

A very visible change during teenage years is the changes in perspective. The way we act, react on different situations and our way of living now is different than we are in our childhood days. When we were still in our childhood years, most of our daily needs are given to us by our parents. This makes our way living dependent on our parents thus leaving us with no choice but to agree and obey. Now that we are on our teenage years and too old for our parents to babysit us, we can now decide and choose our own way of accomplishing things. And because of that, teenagers of the present time often decides to stick on what’s easy and convenient because that is what we were used to when we are in our childhood days. A very good example of what’s easy and convenient is the modern technology. Most teenagers use it in accomplishing tasks. For example in order to go to school we use modern transportation and to be in contact with our friends we use the social networking sites. “Computers and modern technology are taking up a lot of teens' time.” - Raychelle Cassada Lohmann(Cyber Etiquette for Teens, 2010). We all know that those things are the products of modern technology and that they are easy and convenient. With these we leave and forget the traditional way of living which might even cause us to forget our own culture.

The next one is changes in mentality. Next to way of living is way of thinking. As we grow we gain information about different things we see unlike when we are in childhood where in we only see them and not understand them. An example of that is fashion or way of dressing, during our child we wear everything that are given to us by our parents without complaining but now that we are teenagers we now have standards and points to consider in our way of dressing. The color, size, style, brands now matter to us because of our standards. These standards are the result of what we see and learned as we become teenager. In terms of mental ability we are now thinking more critically and less logically. We think and decide on our own and we do not rely on our parents anymore. “They won’t always be there when I have need. I am on my own.” -Pickhardt (2012)

The last but not the least is the emotional changes. Most of our childhood friends are from the same gender. Visit any school playground and you'll see it: From about age four onwards, boys mostly play with boys; girls mostly play with girls.One reason for this separation is that boys and girls tend to play in different ways. Boys are more likely than girls to do pretend aggression and rough-and-tumble play. Girls are more likely to do make-believe play about family or school interactions. Boys spend more time competing whereas girls spend more time talking. While it's more typical for children to stick to their own sex when it comes to friendship, many children do have friendships with members of the opposite sex. Boy-girl friendships are most likely to occur outside of school. This is called intimate relationships. It can be considered a sign that we are already in our teenage years. During this time we become sensitive on our feelings. We can now express ourselves easily and comfortably. And because of this our socializing skills improves making us easily gain friends and acquaintances. In short during teenage years our relationships are getting more complicated at the same time stronger. Our socializing skills improve which is great for our future.

Adolescence is the stage wherein we are between childhood and adulthood. It is somewhat our preparation for adulthood. We experience changes and different new things that we didn’t experience when we are in our childhood days. There are physical changes at the same time changes that cannot be perceived by the five senses. Our perspective, principles and way of living changes as we are now independent. We need to make decisions on our own. We need to do things on our own ways. During this time our preference and way of thinking changes because we mature. We don’t stick to our childish plays, toys and clothes. We choose styles based on our standards. We think more complicatedly, more critically and sensitively on different situations. We engage on intimate relationships, gain peers and emotionally satisfied. Our feelings are expressed easily and comfortably that makes us socialize easier. All these things happen for us to be ready for adulthood which is a lot harder than childhood.