Conventional wisdom

The teenage years are trying years for parents. Teenagers are more rebellious toward authority. It is only normal to experience clash between teenagers and their parents. The parents must not overreact when conflicts, bad behavior and poor communication occur. It is simply part of growing up and it is to be expected.

What if

What if the whole concept of a “teenager rebellion phase” was only a theory? What if the whole thing simply did not exist? What if the theory was accepted just because it is convenient? What if no serious studies backed it up?

Let us start by examining the theory behind the “teenager crisis”. Psychologists speculate that the child reaching puberty realizes that in order to reach maturity (socially and otherwise), he will have to distance himself somewhat from his parents. To do precisely that he needs to go against some of the household dogma or even against society’s accepted rules. This clash with authority, although not always pleasant, is very much needed for the proper social development of the child. So much so that the absence of a clash should worry parents.

Now, a few things needs to be considered. First, this is a widely accepted theory in our culture. To everybody, even people less read in psychology, that “makes sense”. It sounds logical and it explains a lot of things. Furthermore everybody is happy with it. The teenagers are. The adults are. So, why question it? Well for one thing we have to realize that an intellectual theory, as tempting and self-serving as it can be is only that … an intellectual theory! We are very far away from a physic law. For instance, if you drop any object in the air, that same object will go down with a gravitational acceleration of around 9,81 meters per second once friction is removed from the equation. You can demonstrate it, it is a law. If you can only talk about it even with great conviction, it is only a theory.

Second, the fact that most people agree with it does not necessarily translate in a serious validation of a theory (please see almost any other article on this website). That many people say it does not make it so and to say it over and over does not help. Some people will accept something as the truth if they hear it often enough.

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Third, and maybe the most important, if a theory fits perfectly with what we want to hear, it is no reason to embrace it blindly. Parents just love the “teenager crisis” theory because it becomes, as it were, an emotional blank check to use on any problems they might encounter during those (arguably) dreaded years.

To our knowledge, no serious studies have been conducted to clearly establish a significantly higher occurrence of hostile acts during the teenage years compared with other periods in children-parents relationships. If that statement seems naive to you please consider the following observations:

• Young children very frequently object to what you want them to eat. It is in fact a major cause of stress in a household.
• Young children often object to the clothes you want them to wear.
• They throw tantrums that would be terrible by teenage standards (yelling, screaming, hitting, throwing themselves on the floor, saying that they will kill you or will stop loving you, etc…)
• They have contempt for their official bedtime and will sometimes even physically resist it.
• They have mood swings or will remain grumpy for periods of time.
• They will remain between themselves not wanting to be with adults. they will also talk against adults with a “us against them” mentality.

What makes it less noticeable is that we have a physical superiority that allows us to take it in stride because we do not feel as threatened. Mind you, parents who are momentarily having problems with a child will state that it is a “phase” meaning by that, that the problematic situation is not a bad handling of a situation. No, not at all, it is just a phase that the child will grow out of. You, of course, nod politely either because you are polite or because you fear it might happen to you.

This bears repeating, no one has, to our knowledge, proven (or bothered trying) such a thing as a formal teenage rebellion phase. It has not been done!

If you go into most high schools, the principal will be able to tell you that students who are behavior problems are usually less than four percent of the student population. Hardly a compelling statistic for advocate of the “teenager crisis theory”.

At home, most parents, while acknowledging the existence of a “teenage syndrome” report that communication has not worsened in the teenage years within their family. So, on one hand everybody acknowledges the theory but the perception does not warrant it from a statistical point of view.

One element that helps the “teenage theory” is the trend in the last twenty years to depict teenagers as stupid rebels in movies thus creating (and effectively promoting) a false image of the typical teenager.

What to make of it

Any relationship is difficult. A relationship in which one party must ascertain authority is even harder. So, to make the case that teenagers, because of their age or social position are harder to deal with still remains to be seen. It is quite possible that teenagers are indeed tougher to deal with than the rest of the population but until we see solid statistical evidence comparing age groups obtained by scientific observation, it remains speculation.

This bears repeating, no one has, to our knowledge, proven (or bothered trying) such a thing as a formal teenage rebellion phase. It has not been done!

Oh and please … hormonal changes and important ones at that occur at all ages even though they are not the same.

The Institute would welcome any input from our readers on solid research.