Chronologically, a
span of life between twelve and eighteen years welcomes the most wonderful
period of age for “being young and youthful” and concludes with maturity of
early adulthood. To aid in adaption to the challenges and growing
responsibility burden in future adulthood, the years of adolescence, which is often
known as a time of “stress and storm”, prepare us well by exposing us to
numerous contexts in reality, change in perceptions, authority and freedom issues,
and most importantly, own emotional responses in different situations. It is
clearly shown that with the onset of puberty, an adolescent is challenged to
make a number of adjustments to conform into the society.
Now, let’s check out the
top ten crises that our adorable youth need to undergo during the process of
conforming to their peers, family, and general public’s interaction and
expectation for them while maintaining their own identity! See how relevant is
it applying to your children or you – teenagers who are reading this article.
“Oh my God, why are you
so ‘lag’?” It is common for teenagers today to engage in such self-talk session
with their laptops or computers, especially when they are rushing their
assignments or school tasks. The slowing of the response time definitely lead
to a muscle-tension in teenagers especially when the laptops “lag” until they
cannot move the cursor but to force shut down and restart the laptop again.
That is the moment where they question why the laptop cannot function as
efficient as how it was while first being purchased.
Suggested Solution: Do not download or install free softwares online which carry “TROJAN”
that causes your laptops’ function to decease.
“I thought I can finish on time!” The unrealistic optimism
of the teenagers often lead them to a tendency of believing that they can get
more work done in a given period of time than they actually can. Therefore, they
tend to procrastinate and delay their work until the last minute, while
indulging in the positive illusion or convincement that they can finish the
assigned tasks in few hours’ time and they should be confident about their
abilities. Such overoptimistic predictions always make them have difficulty of
meeting deadlines, causing extensive stress.
Suggested
Solution: Always look backward in
time to see how long similar tasks took in the past and be more realistic in
future estimation of time for completing the task.
“McDonalds, Sushi King, Starbucks – I’m loving it” but
would the problems of meeting the budget of the month ever make you hold a step
back before entering those shop lots? Teenagers are bombarded with dozens of
temptation each day, especially where food is concern as seemed their stomachs bottomless pit.
“What is the point of living if you do not enjoy food now?” Such statement
often leads to insatiable desires which burn the pocket of the young without
them realizing.
Suggested Solution: Come out with a
budget list planning of the month to balance between the input pocket money and
output spends on desired food. Postpone the wish-to-have meal to next month if
over-budget.
Crisis
No. 4: Counterfeit Omniscient
“I know…I came across this…I get what
you mean.” Omniscient is one who perceived to have great and unlimited boundary
of knowledge. Teenagers tend to act if they know everything that their parents,
teachers and most commonly seen - their peers talking about, even though most
of the time they don’t. Such behaviour is pursued automatically to obtain the
attention, affirmation and good impression of others towards them, for they
believe that this stems and represents a good interaction with all. Pretending
to “know” can be rather stressful for them as they might feel they are not
themselves.
Suggested Solution: Learn
to say “I don’t know” while asking for guidance of others humbly and take
action to build up general knowledge which enhances interaction.
Crisis
No. 5: Self-shot Syndrome
“One more shot,
please!” Surrounded by camwhore peers, teenagers would undeniably conform to
the influence and trend of taking and posting photos online to get attention of
not only the peers but general publics. They tend to have think that even if
their looks are just “so-so” in reality, with the advancement of technology
nowadays, like the photo editing tools, and the good skills of self-shooting,
by catching the nicest angle of own looks, they can at least look nice in the
photos. Self-shooting is becoming an essential skill that seems to associate
with every teenager and it somehow causes inferiority for those who possess a
poor skill in this aspect.
Suggested Solution: Do not be shy
to ask help from your peers and rehearse repeatedly to train up your skills.
Practise makes perfect.
Crisis
No. 6: Nomophobia
“Where the hell
is my phone?” Living in a cellphonic society where losing one’s phone is perceived
to be more dramatic than losing one’s virginity, people are at a relatively-high
potential risk of engaging in such psychological-concerned syndrome, that is
nomophobia – fearing of having the mobile phone out-of-sight. It is a navigable
myth of the reasons with some saying that they cannot afford to lose such an
expensive cellphone while others fear of losing contact with others or are just
too indulge in the games of their smartphones.
Suggested Solution: Buy a cheap
1950’s Nokia phone instead of a costly smartphone which strike your fear of
losing it. Learn that there are a lot of people in real around you and it is
extremely hard for you to lose contact with others. Channel your addiction to
games in smartphones to other beneficial academic or cocurricular activities.
Crisis
No. 7: “Like” Urging
“Let see, how
many ‘Like’ has I got?” Nowadays, instead of focusing on likeableness of others
in face-to-face daily interaction, teenagers are urging for a virtual and vague
form of affirmation by simply viewing the amount of “Like” given by others on
the most popular social networking site – that is Facebook. They tend to have
the perception that the amount of “Like” clicked by others reflects how popular
one is in the social circle and it can be quite inferiority-striking when a
teenager is comparing and competing with other peers who sometimes getting more
amount of “Like” simply because they post more statuses or confirm more number
of friends on Facebook.
Suggested Solution:
This is just a matter to do with the teenagers’ cognition and false perception.
Do understand that likeableness during face-to-face interaction is more
important and realistic than worrying over the abstract “Like”-ableness on
Facebook with people you sometimes do not ever meet.
Crisis
No. 8: Friends-Dating
“We are just
friends.” It can be quite tiring to build on a strong and intimate friendship
with the opposite sex peers, especially when a scandal starts spreading among
the ingroup friends which your explanation about the relationship just fall on
deaf ears of the friends. The process of defending and clarifying can be
somehow exhausting and frustrating. This can even happen among same-gender friends-date
sometimes in the homosexual-prominent society. Yet, self-disclosure is a good
way of enhancing friendship and it is best to be carried out during a
one-to-one friends-dating.
Suggested Solution: Bear in mind that we cannot
control others’ mouth and speech and just continue to date with your friends if
you feel comfortable to be with him or her.
Crisis
No. 9: Keratin Upkeeping
“Wow, nice
manicure and new hairstyle”. Instead of paying attention to the face which is
frequently exposed to pimples-attack due to hormonal change that is out of the
teenagers’ control, they focus on their nails and hairstyles, which are synthesized
by tertiary protein called keratin in the body, by ensuring they are
up-to-date. Failing to match the nail-polished design with clothes worn or suitable
hairstyles that fit the shape of the face can be a form of stressor for the
teens.
Suggested Solution: Read and
surveyed through the abundant fashion magazines in the markets to do some
homework before you deciding for a certain haircut that suit you. Go for simple
manicure courses or simply interact with peers to acquire new skills of
designing the nails.
Crisis
No. 10: Mindfulness-Lacking
"I don't know
whether it's me or the world around me that has gone wrong".
Teenagers are often indulging in the cycle of stressful and problematic
consequences caused by the above nine crises by attributing the incidents or
problems faced to external factors or others’ fault. As a result, they end up
trapping themselves in the same problems regardless of how they struggle to
change the situation.
Suggested Solution:
Acknowledge and do take time to reflect your own behaviors and thoughts which
lead you to the crisis. Meditation can be a good alternative in this context.
Finally, transform your thoughts into actions to eliminate the crisis
eternally.
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