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The concerns and challenges of being a U.S. teen: What the data show

American teens have a lot on their minds. Substantial shares point to anxiety and depression, bullying, and drug and alcohol use (and abuse) as major problems among people their age, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of youth ages 13 to 17.

How common are these and other experiences among U.S. teens? We reviewed the most recent available data from government and academic researchers to find out:

Anxiety and depression

Serious mental stress is a fact of life for many American teens. In the new survey, seven-in-ten teens say anxiety and depression are major problems among their peers – a concern that’s shared by mental health researchers and clinicians .

Data on the prevalence of anxiety disorders is hard to come by among teens specifically. But 7% of youths ages 3 to 17  had such a condition in 2016-17, according to the National Survey of Children’s Health. Serious depression, meanwhile, has been on the rise among teens for the past several years, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health , an ongoing project of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. In 2016, 12.8% of youths ages 12 to 17 had experienced a major depressive episode in the past year, up from 8% as recently as 2010. For 9% of youths in 2016, their depression caused severe impairment. Fewer than half of youths with major depression said they’d been treated for it in the past year.

Alcohol and drugs

Anxiety and depression aren’t the only concerns for U.S. teens. Smaller though still substantial shares of teens in the Pew Research Center survey say drug addiction (51%) and alcohol consumption (45%) are major problems among their peers.

Fewer teens these days are drinking alcohol, according to the University of Michigan’s long-running Monitoring the Future survey, which tracks attitudes, values and behaviors of American youths, including their use of various legal and illicit substances. Last year, 30.2% of 12th-graders and 18.6% of 10th-graders had consumed alcohol in the past 30 days. Two decades earlier, those figures were 52% and 38.8%, respectively. (In the Center’s new survey, 16% of teens said they felt “a lot” or “some” pressure to drink alcohol.)

But the Michigan survey also found that, despite some ups and downs, use of marijuana (or its derivative, hashish) among 12th-graders is nearly as high as it was two decades ago. Last year, 22.2% reported using marijuana in the past 30 days, versus 22.8% in 1998. Past-month marijuana use among 10th-graders has declined a bit over that same period, from 18.7% to 16.7%, but is up from 14% in 2016.

Marijuana was by far the most commonly used drug among teens last year, as it has been for decades.  While more than 10% of 12th-graders reported using some illicit drug other than marijuana in the late 1990s and early 2000s, that figure had fallen to 6% by last year.

The Michigan researchers noted that vaping, of both nicotine and marijuana, has jumped in popularity in the past few years. In 2018, 20.9% of 12th-graders and 16.1% of 10th-graders reported vaping nicotine in the past 30 days, about double the 2017 levels. By comparison, only 7.6% of 12th-graders and 4.2% of 10th-graders had smoked a cigarette in that time. And 7.5% of 12-graders and 7% of 10th-graders said they’d vaped marijuana within the past month, up from 4.9% and 4.3%, respectively, in 2017.

Bullying and cyberbullying

Issues of personal safety also are on U.S. teens’ minds. The Center’s survey found that 55% of teens said bullying was a major problem among their peers, while a third called gangs a major problem.

Bullying rates have held steady in recent years, according to a survey of youth risk behaviors by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About a fifth of high school students (19% in 2017) reported being bullied on school property in the past 12 months, and 14.9% said they’d experienced cyberbullying (via texts, social media or other digital means) in the previous year. In both cases, girls, younger students, and students who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual were more likely to say they’d been bullied.

As for gangs, the share of students ages 12 to 18 who said gangs were present at their school fell from 20.1% in 2001 to 10.7% in 2015, according to a report on school safety from the federal departments of Education and Justice. Black and Hispanic students, as well as students in urban schools, were most likely to report the presence of gangs at school, but even for those groups the shares reporting this fell sharply between 2001 and 2015, the most recent year for which data are available.

Four-in-ten teens say poverty is a major problem among their peers, according to the Center’s new report. In 2017, about 2.2 million 15- to 17-year-olds (17.6%) were living in households with incomes below the poverty level – up from 16.3% in 2009, but down from 18.9% in 2014, based on our analysis of Census data. Black teens were more than twice as likely as white teens to live in households below the poverty level (30.4% versus 14%); however, the share of white teens in below-poverty-level households had risen from 2009 (when it was 12.1%), while the share of black teens in below-poverty-level households was almost unchanged.

Teen pregnancy

Far fewer U.S. teens are having to juggle adolescence and parenthood, as teen births continue their long-term decline . Among 15- to 19-year-olds, the overall birthrate has fallen by two-thirds since 1991 – from 61.8 live births per 1,000 women to 20.3 in 2016 , according to the CDC. All racial and ethnic groups have witnessed teen-birthrate declines of varying degrees: Among non-Hispanic blacks, for example, the rate fell from 118.2 live births per 1,000 in 1991 to 29.3 in 2016 .

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Drew DeSilver is a senior writer at Pew Research Center .

Teens and Video Games Today

As biden and trump seek reelection, who are the oldest – and youngest – current world leaders, how teens and parents approach screen time, who are you the art and science of measuring identity, u.s. centenarian population is projected to quadruple over the next 30 years, most popular.

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The Challenges of Adolescence (and How Parents and Educators Can Help)

Three recent studies show why we need to divert middle and high school students from values and behaviors that may harm them in adulthood.

Over the last few months, three major studies have reported data that sends a strong message to educators, parents, and educational policy makers. These studies challenge our values as educators and parents, and also challenge cultural values that go beyond education. We need to listen to the messages and effectively respond.

The first is a study published in June in the journal Child Development and reported in the New York Times . The study followed the paths of 13-year-olds who were seen by peers as being the "most cool" kids. These kids were viewed with envy and admiration. The girls often wore makeup, had boyfriends, and went to the parties of older students. The boys boasted about sneaking beers and swiping condoms. They all also tended to be good looking.

The research team, headed by Joseph Allen, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, followed these socially precocious kids for a decade.

When these children reached high school, their social status tended to drop significantly, and they began to struggle in other ways. Their peers had begun to mature, and the cool kids' popularity faded. Their pseudo-mature behavior appears to have helped create trouble for them. By the time they reached their early twenties many of them had problems with intimate relationships, drugs and alcohol (a 40 percent higher use of alcohol and marijuana), and even criminal activity. They were now being viewed by peers as socially incompetent and "still living in a middle school world." Their early attempts to act older seemed to have left them socially stunted.

Dr. Allen has suggested that while these kids were chasing popularity, they were missing an important developmental period. Other young teenagers were learning about strengthening same-gender friendships while spending time in less dramatic activities like watching movies at home and going out for ice cream.

While Allen points out that pseudo-maturity is not a firm predictor of later behavior, the evidence clearly indicates a predilection.

This has implications for both parents and middle school educators. Parents should not be concerned over their young adolescents not being "popular." They should watch out for their kids hanging out with older kids who are not good role models, kids who are more deviant and more likely to be using drugs and alcohol.

But schools also have a responsibility to respond to this data. Students spend most of their time in school, and peer interactions are often formed in schools. Schools should build in programs that help increase student awareness of the dangers involved in pseudo-mature, so-called "cool" behavior. Schools should make sure that kids learn about this study and discuss it in terms of their own lives. Challenging peer-group norms isn't easy, but kids are capable of having their consciousness about this raised.

A Distinct Lack of Empathy

The second study, from Harvard's Graduate School of Education , is at least as important. The Harvard project surveyed 10,000 middle and high school students about what was more important to them, "achieving at a high level, happiness, or caring for others." Almost 80 percent of students ranked achievement or happiness over caring for others. Only 20 percent of students identified caring for others as their top priority!

If you share my values about what is important for our kids and for our society, you may also share my deep concerns about these results. This is a study that should be read by every teacher and educational leader. Then schools need to take a hard look at their priorities and follow up with an examination of the multiple programs and curricula designed to increase student empathy. Among the many available: Developing Empathy: High School from the Teaching Tolerance project of the Southern Poverty Law Center; Unleashing Empathy: How Teachers Transform Classrooms with Emotional Learning , published in Yes magazine; Roots of Empathy , both a major project and a book; and finally, closer to home, please read Homa Tavangar's Edutopia post Empathy: The Most Important Back-to-School Supply .

But there's a caveat. All of these approaches suggest ways that we can effectively promote empathy among students. Yet (a) early-childhood parenting is probably a much more powerful variable, and (b) it's an uphill battle in a society in which achievement, primarily the achievement of wealth and status, is more highly valued than empathy.

Counting Sheep

Which leads to the final study, described in the best selling book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life by William Deresiewicz, a former professor at Yale University. It focuses on the most successful students at the most elite colleges, and the results emerge as an attack on the colleges for placing the emphasis on the wrong qualities and skills. He writes:

High schools and many parents are complicit in this. While the implications for schools and parents are obvious, the main culprit is the value that many communities place on achievement over caring for others.

Despite this obstacle, we can at least raise awareness and foster learning of more altruistic values. If we fail to respond to these three studies, we share the responsibility for the price that will be paid by many of our students.

Writing About Adolescence: What’s the Story?

While coming-of-age passages are similar, they are infinitely varied..

Posted March 27, 2023 | Reviewed by Vanessa Lancaster

• What Changes During Adolescence?
• Find a therapist to support kids and teens
• Adolescence is the toughest half of growing up–separating from childhood, detaching for independence, and differentiating for individuality.
• Adolescence requires that parents adjust expectations as the child becomes somewhat less close, less communicative, and less readily compliant.
• Having realistic expectations about common adolescent changes and common changes in their relationship with their teenager can be helpful.

So: why a fascination with adolescence and parenting adolescents?

The answer for me is that the process of growing up from childhood to adulthood is a transforming and universal one. In response, the parenting challenges are problematic and complex. On both counts, I find the coming of passage endlessly compelling to think and write about.

Adolescence

I believe that the hardest half of growing up comes last . Gradually detaching from childhood and parents to earn independence and gradually differentiating from childhood and parents to develop individuality, adolescence accomplishes a life-changing transformation: “Now I can function on my own, and I have become my own person.”

This developmental change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes maybe 10 to 12 years to unfold and fulfill: from separating from childhood around late elementary school to forming a second family of friends around middle school, experimenting with acting older around high school, and finally emancipating from home rule around the college-age years.

For gains in growth, there are costs to be paid at every stage of the way:

• Starting adolescence ends the simple security of childhood.
• Peers create pressures to conform socially and belong.
• Worldly dangers come from trying out acting older.
• Claiming independence creates solitude at last.

Claiming self-reliance and creating self-definition does not come cheap. It takes a lot of courage and effort to grow up.

Changing Reality

A family game changer , adolescence isn’t childhood anymore. For parents, raising a teenager is more complicated than raising a child because as the young person pushes for more freedom to grow, they feel less in control. While the child was content to largely operate within the simple family circle, the adolescent wants to explore the complex larger world.

As the adolescent pulls away and pushes against their influence, more social separation and distance grows between them. Now maintaining adequate communication becomes harder to do. As parents need to be told more, they are often told less, so parenting often becomes more worrisome than it used to be. Youthful curiosity about acting worldly and cultural expressions of growing individuality can be harder for parents to tolerate and understand. And all the while, they struggle to decide when to keep holding on and, while providing preparation, when to dare more letting go. For example: “Now you are ready to drive yourself.”

Adjusting Parental Expectations

Parents must adjust their expectations as adolescents grow to fit and foster growing change. Expectations are the mental sets they depend on to anticipate the changing relationship with their changing teenager as she or he keeps acting more grown up.

There are expectations of three kinds that need to be fulfilled:

• Predictions (what will happen)
• Ambitions (what they want to happen)
• Conditions (what they believe should happen)

These mental sets can have upsetting emotional consequences when violated: anxiety from being surprised (“You did what?”), sadness at being disappointed (“You let us down!”), and anger when feeling betrayed (“You did wrong!”)

Unrealistic expectations can be emotionally expensive.

Thus, having realistic expectations about common adolescent changes and common changes in their relationship with their teenager can be helpful.

• For example, when it comes to predictions, anticipate that the primarily family-focused child will become more preoccupied with friends and less close to and companionable with parents.
• For example, when it comes to ambitions , anticipate that the comfortably confiding child now wants more time alone and to be private, and parents will be less fully informed than they wish.
• For example, when it comes to conditions , anticipate that the more compliant child should act more resistant to demands for independence as easy compliance becomes harder for parents.

Of course, expect doesn’t always mean accept . Parents still insist on adolescents helping at home, obeying social rules, observing basic courtesies of family conduct, keeping them accurately and adequately informed, meeting commitments and promises, and spending some good time with each other.

My Interest

My fondness for the coming of age story started with my parents reading me Treasure Island and Kidnapped (by Stevenson) and David Copperfield (by Dickens) when I was an older child, and later reading other tales of youthful adventures on my own.

Then it was further enriched through counseling with parents of adolescents during my years in private practice, writing many columns, blogs, and books about parenting teenagers during that time.

And finally, it caused me to write three coming-of-age novels: The Helper’s Apprentice – The Jackson Skye Mysteries (about a brother and sister, a series of six novels), The Trout King (about fathers and sons), and The Art Lover (about mothers and daughters).

In non-fiction and fiction, I’ve always loved telling the story of adolescence, of growing up, and I suppose I always will.

Carl Pickhardt Ph.D. is a psychologist in private counseling and public lecturing practice in Austin, Texas. His latest book is Holding On While Letting Go: Parenting Your Child Through the Four Freedoms of Adolescence.

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The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents

Faculty experts from the johns hopkins center for adolescent health discuss the challenges faced by adolescents during the coronavirus pandemic.

By Samuel Volkin

Children and adolescents may appear to be less at risk for severe COVID-19 symptoms, but the pandemic has significantly disrupted their lives in other ways. Social distancing and the interruption of typical school routines can be especially challenging for adolescents, two Johns Hopkins experts say.

Tamar Mendelson , director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Adolescent Health and Bloomberg Professor of American Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Beth Marshall , associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Adolescent Health and an assistant scientist at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, joined MPH/MBA student Samuel Volkin to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents, and what parents can do to help. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How is the COVID-19 pandemic affecting adolescents?

Mendelson: The greatest impacts felt by adolescents stem from school closures, being in the house with family members, and not getting to see friends and peers. Adolescents have different developmental needs than adults. Teenagers are at the stage in life when they are very invested in social connections and in separating from their parents. So, COVID-19 social distancing requirements have a different emotional impact on them than on adults. Depending on their age and developmental stage, some adolescents may have a hard time understanding what the pandemic really means and how it impacts their world.

Johns Hopkins responds to COVID-19

Coverage of how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting operations at JHU and how Hopkins experts and scientists are responding to the outbreak

Marshall: Two of the developmental tasks of adolescence are to develop social skills and empathy and a sense of identity. Both of these tasks happen through interactions with peers. Disconnection from social outlets and peers will have some implications when we return to social settings. Schools are much more than just a place for delivering educational content, and I think that schools have started to recognize that students will come back with not only educational setbacks but also setbacks in their social and emotional skills.

What can parents do to help adolescents understand the COVID-19 pandemic?

Mendelson: It is important for adolescents to know that the disease generally does not affect them the same way as it affects adults. Parents can reassure them that it is not likely to make them seriously sick if they do not have underlying conditions that put them at risk. At the same time, communicate the importance of them playing their part in keeping other people safe. Give concrete steps about what they can do to keep the disease from affecting them and the people that they love. And make sure to use specific examples, such as the importance of protecting their grandparents.

Marshall: Some adolescents process things much more emotionally while others are more logic-oriented. That will impact what kind of information you share with them—be it a nurse's story for the former or a graph of the epidemic curve for the latter. We also need to think about how young people develop empathy skills. Give them concrete things they can be part of to help their community. Explain what wearing a mask in public does for someone else, or encourage them to write letters to health care workers and connect with those on the frontline keeping us safe.

How can parents of adolescents try to maintain a routine while they are at home?

Mendelson: Helping adolescents develop a consistent schedule is important for maintaining a sense of normalcy. It should include time to get homework done and participate in distance learning as well as time to exercise and get outside of the house, even if it's for a short amount of time. A routine should help young people to feel grounded and reduce stress to some extent.

Marshall: The only thing I would add in there is sleep. Not having to leave the house for school means that adolescents no longer have to wake up early to get to school. That could really throw off any sleep schedule. Adolescent brains need nine to 10 hours of sleep a night. Without a routine, sleep levels could be reduced and when that happens several nights in a row, adolescents may experience much higher levels of stress and lower levels of cognitive functioning.

Mendelson: Normally, early school schedules force adolescents to wake up whether or not they're ready. Adolescents' sleep clocks are programmed to go to sleep later in the night and wake up later in the day than children's sleep clocks are. Adolescents can follow these rhythms to a greater extent now that they are not forced to wake up early to get to school, as long as they're getting an adequate amount of sleep.

What advice do you have for parents about giving adolescents more leeway in screen time at home?

Marshall: How we usually limit consumption of screen time prior to the pandemic is less relevant now. Trying to maintain the same screen-time rules as pre-pandemic times is just going to increase stress both for adolescents and for parents. We have to make some changes in terms of what we find acceptable.

Mendelson: More important than the amount of screen time is actually the type of screen time. Screen time is different depending on whether adolescents are talking to friends or family members versus watching scary news programming that increases anxiety or being on social media in a way that exposes them to bullying or something negative. It is important to make sure that adolescents are using social media in positive and healthy ways. Adolescents depend on their mobile devices to connect with their friends, and it's more important for parents to help them use screen time in a good way rather than simply limiting its use.

Are there ways for young people to replace the support they typically receive in school settings while engaging in social distancing?

Mendelson: For those that have access to the internet and necessary technology, adolescents can reach out to friends through virtual platforms to stay in touch and maintain social connections. Having more time together as a family also produces developmental benefits. Families can start doing things they may not have had time to do together before—like playing board games after dinner and starting new family traditions.

Marshall: Youth development organizations like Heart Smiles and Harlem Lacrosse , both partners of the Hopkins Center for Adolescent Health, have really stepped up to support young people during this pandemic. Even though they are both in-person mentoring programs, they have completely shifted all of their mentoring programming online and are in touch with their members more frequently than they used to be. Programs like these allow young people who had healthy outlets outside of school like sports teams and youth development organizations to maintain these connections during the pandemic.

How can high-schoolers cope with disappointments about experiences that they are now unable to have—such as prom and graduation?

Mendelson: I am confident that they will come up with creative ways to celebrate these milestones. Young people should be given power and leadership to decide for themselves how to make up for not being able to do these things in person. They are incredibly innovative, so we will stay tuned to see the fun ways they choose to celebrate virtually.

Marshall: One thing that is really important for adults is to remember to allow their kids to grieve over their losses. We should not trivialize their stressors or grief in the context of the larger issues playing out during this pandemic. Their grief over what they are experiencing—or not getting to experience—is real and parents need to give them time to process it.

What challenges exist for adolescents in lower-income communities?

Mendelson: This crisis is highlighting a lot of existing societal divides in the way it is disproportionately impacting lower-income communities. The levels of stress and trauma in low-income communities are higher because the impacts are more severe—there is more food insecurity, housing instability, loss of family income, as well as higher rates of illness and death among community members.

Adolescents in these scenarios have major barriers to receiving the support that their peers in higher-income communities are getting. Having access to internet and technology is an issue—even in households with access, there may not be enough devices in the house for each kid. Older children may also be taking care of younger siblings. They may have less time and opportunity to do homework and concentrate on keeping up with schoolwork.

Across a range of communities, those adolescents who are living in households where there is abuse and interpersonal violence are at even higher risk now that families are stuck at home. There will be fallout from this for a long time to come. Stress and trauma are known to have significant impacts on mental health.

Marshall: We already have really alarming health disparities and educational disparities in this country along socioeconomic and racial lines, and the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to exacerbate them without a conscious effort to address the multitude of issues that Tamar raises.

Can the impacts of these disparities be mitigated?

Marshall: The digital divide must be addressed. This is not something for school districts to solve—they are dealing with enough right now. Access to internet must be addressed at the municipality level, but it is not. Everyone, not just students, depends on access to the internet to continue to stay safe at home.

Mendelson: Relevant governmental sectors must themselves step up and provide the required resources. We must meet the needs of families. I hope that this pandemic can shine a light on the disparities that exist and can help galvanize more of a response moving forward to deal with these structural inequities.

Marshall: This pandemic is also creating some opportunities that may reduce disparities in the long term. We have to think about the positives. The pandemic has given schools a push to move everything online. There will be an incredible utility for this even after the pandemic has ended. For instance, schools may now be able to tailor learning to specific kids by supplementing their classroom education with online material. It is often a struggle to meet the learning level of all students. With virtual content, students can access gifted and advanced learning opportunities that are otherwise unavailable in a school building that is short on staff with 1,500 students. But now that all curricula are digital, it is easier to pull a kid out of class and move them ahead online.

The same is true for districts that are resource-poor and do not have enough textbooks for their students. Many of the texts that accompany curricula are now online. If we can continue to access these when we return and have a hybrid of online and in-person education, it might start to reduce some of the inequities we have in school systems.

There can be a lot of positive aspects if we can maintain some of these changes as we start to reopen and return to in-person contact.

Posted in Health , Voices+Opinion , Politics+Society

Tagged q+a , adolescents , coronavirus , covid-19

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Adolescents and the new challenges of the 21st century

Adolescence is known as a turbulent period in a person's life, in which they develop from a child into an adult. It is important for the mental health of adolescents that they establish and maintain social relations. Global trends and developments in the 21st century are making this increasingly difficult. The Educating 21st Century Children report , by, among others, Utrecht University Professor of Youth Studies Catrin Finkenauer, describes some of the associated challenges. The researchers show how global trends in the 21st century, such as climate change, forced displacement, increasing individualism and digitalisation, can influence the development of adolescents, their relations and their mental health.

Climate change

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Its effects range from agricultural downturns and decreasing biodiversity to rising sea levels and increasingly severe heat waves. In addition to these effects, climate change also makes it more difficult to establish and maintain social relations. For example, a limited harvest or supply of water due to climate change can heat up social tensions as a result of mutual competition. Moreover, extreme weather conditions cause fear, stress and insecurity, which can lead to reduced empathy and a greater chance of conflict.

These examples demonstrate that climate change creates social challenges, but it also creates social opportunities, including increased social connectivity in relation to climate change concerns, at both the national and international level. Swedish pupil Greta Thunberg, who held a solo climate protest in 2018 in the form of her school strike, is an example of this. Her actions were soon echoed by over 20,000 adolescents worldwide, who participated in school strikes of their own.

Forced displacement

Following a historical increase in violence and conflict and the effects of climate change, more and more people have no choice but to leave their homes. Young people are the most vulnerable group in this context. Many of them have dealt with traumatic experiences either before or during migration. Such traumas can impede the establishment of social relations, even though these relations are incredibly important in recovering from traumas. Additionally, most people forced to leave their homeland are faced with complex legal systems and persistent insecurity regarding residence rights in their host country. This persistent insecurity can affect their capacity for trust, which forms an obstacle to establishing and maintaining social relations.

Adolescents could have the conviction that asking for help is a sign of weakness

Increasing individualism

The increase in prosperity, education, urbanisation and technology has resulted in another global trend: individualism. Increasing individualism is not without benefits, as it contributes to free speech, self-expression and the fight for equal opportunities. However, the global increase in individualism also presents challenges, by disturbing adolescent development of the balance between independence and mutual dependence, for example. Among other things, this may result in the conviction that asking for help is a sign of weakness, even while dealing with personal hardships or mental health problems.

Increasing individualism can also undermine young people's motivation to continue helping their relations, for example, when these relations are dealing with hardships (such as disease) or when maintaining the relation is demanding or difficult (making sacrifices or showing forgiveness). Young people can experience this as infringing on their personal freedom. New technologies that simplify the process of establishing alternative relations exacerbate this problem by making it easier for young people to find and establish new relations.

New technologies

New technologies, particularly information and communication technologies and social media, are developing at a rapid pace and are increasingly omnipresent. On the one hand, these new technologies have a positive effect on social relations, as they make it possible to contact others from anywhere and at all times. On the other hand, digital communication has proved to present challenges of its own. Research has shown that digital communication is less comforting than face-to-face communication. This is in part because there is no physical contact, such as hugging someone or holding their hand. Even if you send someone a hug emoticon, this does not have the same impact as an actual hug. Enjoying the benefits of new technologies while reducing the associated difficulties can be a challenge for young people.

As the examples above demonstrate, global challenges such as climate change, forced displacement, increasing individualism and new technologies can influence and shape the social development of young people. The Educating 21st Century Children report has made a start on this analysis, but future research will be necessary to more accurately chart these influences and improve young people's resilience.

Research theme Dynamics of Youth

If you want to tackle social problems, it would be best to start with children. The Utrecht-based research theme Dynamics of Youth invests in a resilient youth. Academics from all fields collaborate in order to learn to better understand child development. How can we help children and youngsters to grow and flourish in our rapidly changing society.

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• Adolescent Psychology

Challenges of Adolescence

Recognizing adolescence

Adolescence is a period of life with specific health and developmental needs and rights. It is also a time to develop knowledge and skills, learn to manage emotions and relationships, and acquire attributes and abilities that will be important for enjoying the adolescent years and assuming adult roles.

All societies recognize that there is a difference between being a child and becoming an adult. How this transition from childhood to adulthood is defined and recognized differs between cultures and over time. In the past it has often been relatively rapid, and in some societies it still is. In many countries, however, this is changing.

Age: not the whole story

Age is a convenient way to define adolescence. But it is only one characteristic that delineates this period of development. Age is often more appropriate for assessing and comparing biological changes (e.g. puberty), which are fairly universal, than the social transitions, which vary more with the socio-cultural environment.

CHALLENGES OF ADOLESCENCE

Adolescence is a time in a young person’s life where they move from dependency on their parents to independence, autonomy and maturity. The young person begins to move from the family group being their major social system, to the family taking a lesser role and being part of a peer group becomes a greater attraction that will eventually lead to the young person to standing alone as an adult.

No-one can deny that for any one person facing changes in their lives in the biological, cognitive, psychological, social, moral and spiritual sense, could find this time both exciting and daunting. With the increase in independence comes increases in freedom, but with that freedom, comes responsibilities. Attitudes and perspectives change and close family members often feel they are suddenly living with a stranger.

Biological Challenges

Adolescence begins with the first well-defined maturation event called puberty. Included in the biological challenges are the changes that occur due to the release of the sexual hormones that affect emotions. Mood changes can increase, which can impact on relationships both at home with parents and siblings and socially or at school.

Cognitive Challenges

Piaget, in his theory of social development believed that adolescence is the time when young people develop cognitively from “concrete operations” to “formal operations”. So they are able to deal with ideas, concepts and abstract theories. It takes time for confidence to build with using these newly acquired skills, and they may make mistakes in judgement. Learning through success and failure is part of the challenge of the learning process for the adolescent.

Adolescents are egocentric, they can become self-conscious; thinking they are being watched by others, and at other times want to behave as if they were on a centre stage and perform for a non-existent audience. For example, acting like a music idol, singing their favourites songs in their room, with all the accompanying dance steps.

Psychological Challenges

The psychological challenges that the adolescent must cope with are moving from childhood to adulthood. A new person is emerging, where rules will change, maybe more responsibilities will be placed on him/her so that a certain standard of behaviour is now required to be maintained. Accountability is becoming an expectation from both a parental and legal concept.

As adolescents continue their journey of self-discovery, they continually have to adjust to new experiences as well as the other changes happening to them biologically and socially. This can be both stressful and anxiety provoking. It therefore is not surprising that adolescents can have a decreased tolerance for change; hence it becomes increasingly more difficult for them to modulate their behaviours which are sometimes displayed by inappropriate mood swings and angry outbursts.

Health Issues of adolescence:

Eating Disorders

An eating disorder is a serious mental illness, characterised by eating, exercise and body weight or shape becoming an unhealthy preoccupation of someone's life. Eating disorders are not a lifestyle choice, a diet gone wrong or a cry for attention. Eating disorders can take many different forms and interfere with a person’s day to day life.

Types of Eating Disorders

An eating disorder is commonly defined as an all-consuming desire to be thin and/or an intense fear of weight gain.  The most common eating disorders among adolescents are anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating disorder.  Even patients that do not meet all of the clinical criteria for an eating disorder can be at serious risk and should seek medical treatment.

Anorexia Nervosa

Teenagers with anorexia may take extreme measures to avoid eating and control the quantity and quality of the foods they do eat.  They may become abnormally thin, or thin for their body, and still talk about feeling fat.  They typically continue to diet even at very unhealthy weights because they have a distorted image of their body.

Signs of anorexia nervosa

• A distorted view of one’s body weight, size or shape; sees self as too fat, even when very underweight
• Hiding or discarding food
• Obsessively counting calories and/or grams of fat in the diet
• Denial of feelings of hunger
• Developing rituals around preparing food and eating
• Compulsive or excessive exercise
• Social withdrawal
• Pronounced emotional changes, such as irritability, depression and anxiety

Physical signs of anorexia include rapid or excessive weight loss; feeling cold, tired and weak; thinning hair; absence of menstrual cycles in females; and dizziness or fainting.

Teenagers with anorexia often restrict not only food, but relationships, social activities and pleasurable experiences.

Physical Signs and Effects of Anorexia Nervosa

Bulimia Nervosa

Teenagers with bulimia nervosa typically ‘binge and purge’ by engaging in uncontrollable episodes of overeating (bingeing) usually followed by compensatory behavior such as: purging through vomiting, use of laxatives, enemas, fasting, or excessive exercise.  Eating binges may occur as often as several times a day but are most common in the evening and night hours.

Teenagers with bulimia often go unnoticed due to the ability to maintain a normal body weight.

Bulimia Nervosa often starts with weight-loss dieting. The resulting food deprivation and inadequate nutrition can trigger what is, in effect, a starvation reaction - an overriding urge to eat.  Once the person gives in to this urge, the desire to eat is uncontrollable, leading to a substantial binge on whatever food is available (often foods with high fat and sugar content), followed by compensatory behaviours. A repeat of weight-loss dieting often follows, leading to a binge/purge/exercise cycle which becomes more compulsive and uncontrollable over time.

Signs of bulimia nervosa

• Eating unusually large amounts of food with no apparent change in weight
• Hiding food or discarded food containers and wrappers
• Excessive exercise or fasting
• Peculiar eating habits or rituals
• Frequent tips to the bathroom after meals
• Inappropriate use of laxatives, diuretics, or other cathartics
• Overachieving and impulsive behaviors
• Frequently clogged showers or toilets

Physical signs of bulimia include discolored teeth, odor on the breath, stomach pain, calluses/scarring on the hands caused by self-inducing vomiting, irregular or absent menstrual periods, and weakness or fatigue.

Teenagers with bulimia often have a preoccupation with body weight and shape, as well as a distorted body image.  The clinical diagnosis commonly defines a teenager as having bulimia if they binge and purge on average once a week for at least three consecutive months.

Physical Signs and Effects of Bulimia Nervosa

Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are infections that are passed from one person to another through sexual contact. The causes of STDs are bacteria, parasites, yeast, and viruses. There are more than 20 types of STDs, including

Genital herpes

• Trichomoniasis

Most STDs affect both men and women, but in many cases the health problems they cause can be more severe for women. If a pregnant woman has an STD, it can cause serious health problems for the baby.

Antibiotics can treat STDs caused by bacteria, yeast, or parasites. There is no cure for STDs caused by a virus, but medicines can often help with the symptoms and keep the disease under control.

Correct usage of latex condoms greatly reduces, but does not completely eliminate, the risk of catching or spreading STDs. The most reliable way to avoid infection is to not have anal, vaginal, or oral sex.

Chlamydia  is an STD caused by Chlamydia trachomatis (C. trachomatis). This bacterium only infects humans. Chlamydia is the most common infectious cause of genital and eye diseases globally. It is also the most common bacterial STD.

Women with chlamydia do not usually show symptoms. Any symptoms are usually non-specific and may include:

• bladder infection
• a change in vaginal discharge
• mild lower abdominal pain

If a person does not receive treatment for chlamydia, it may lead to the following symptoms:

• pelvic pain
• painful sexual intercourse, either intermittently or every time
• bleeding between periods

This STD is caused by the  herpes  simplex virus (HSV). The virus affects the skin, cervix, genitals, and some other parts of the body. There are two types:

• HSV-1, also known as herpes type 1
• HSV-2, also known as herpes type 2

Herpes is a chronic condition. A significant number of individuals with herpes never show symptoms and do not know about their herpes status.

HSV is easily transmissible from human to human through direct contact. Most commonly, transmission of type 2 HSV occurs through vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Type 1 is more commonly transmitted from shared straws, utensils, and surfaces.

In most cases, the virus remains dormant after entering the human body and shows no symptoms.

Symptoms of genital herpes

• blisters and ulceration on the cervix
• vaginal discharge
• pain on urinating
• generally feeling unwell
• cold sores  around the mouth in type 1 HSV

This sexually transmitted bacterial infection usually attacks the mucous membranes. It is also known as the clap or the drip. The bacterium, which is highly contagious, stays in the warmer and moister cavities of the body.

The majority of women with gonorrhea show no signs or symptoms. If left untreated, females may develop pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). Males may develop inflammation of the prostate gland, urethra, or epididymis.

The disease is caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The bacteria can survive in the vagina, penis, mouth, rectum, or eye. They can be transmitted during sexual contact.

Symptoms of gonorrhea may occur between 2 to 10 days after initial infection, in some cases, it may take 30 days. Some people experience very mild symptoms that lead to mistaking gonorrhea for a different condition, such as a yeast infection.

Males may experience the following symptoms:

• burning during urination
• testicular pain or swelling
• a green, white, or yellow discharge from the penis

Females are less likely to show symptoms, but if they do, these may include:

• spotting after sexual intercourse
• swelling of the vulva, or vulvitis
• irregular bleeding between periods
• pink eye, or  conjunctivitis
• pain in the pelvic area
• burning or pain during urination

HIV and AIDS

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) attacks the immune system, leaving its host much more vulnerable to infections and diseases. If the virus is left untreated, the susceptibility to infection worsens.

HIV can be found in semen, blood, breast milk, and vaginal and rectal fluids. HIV can be transmitted through blood-to-blood contact, sexual contact, breast-feeding, childbirth, the sharing of equipment to inject drugs, such as needles and syringes, and, in rare instances, blood transfusions.

With treatment, the amount of the virus present within the body can be reduced to an undetectable level. This means the amount of HIV virus within the blood is at such low levels that it cannot be detected in blood tests. It also means that HIV cannot be transmitted to other people. A person with undetectable HIV must continue to take their treatment as normal, as the virus is being managed, not cured.

HIV is a virus that targets and alters the immune system, increasing the risk and impact of other infections and diseases. Without treatment, the infection might progress to an advanced disease stage 3 called AIDS. However, modern advances in treatment mean that people living with HIV in countries with good access to healthcare very rarely develop AIDS once they are receiving treatment.

Mental Health Disorder

1.Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders  are a group of mental disorders characterized by significant feelings of anxiety and fear. Anxiety is a worry about future events, and fear is a reaction to current events. These feelings may cause physical symptoms, such as a fast heart rate and shakiness.

Occasional anxiety is an expected part of life. You might feel anxious when faced with a problem at work, before taking a test, or before making an important decision. But  anxiety disorders involve more than temporary worry or fear. For a person with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time. The symptoms can interfere with daily activities such as job performance, school work, and relationships.

There are several types of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and various phobia-related disorders.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

People with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) display feel excessive, unrealistic worry and tension with little or no reason , most days for atleast 6 months, about a number of things such as personal health, work, social interactions, and everyday routine life circumstances. The fear and anxiety can cause significant problems in areas of their life, such as social interactions, school, and work.

Generalized anxiety disorder symptoms include:

• Feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge
• Being easily fatigued
• Having difficulty concentrating; mind going blank
• Being irritable
• Having muscle tension
• Difficulty controlling feelings of worry
• Having sleep problems, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, restlessness, or unsatisfying sleep

Panic Disorder

People with panic disorder have recurrent unexpected panic attacks. Panic attacks are sudden periods of intense fear that come on quickly and reach their peak within minutes. Attacks can occur unexpectedly or can be brought on by a trigger, such as a feared object or situation.

During a panic attack, people may experience:

• Heart palpitations ( unusually strong or irregular heartbeats) , a pounding heartbeat, or an accelerated heart rate.
• Trembling or shaking
• Sensations of shortness of breath, smothering, or choking
• Feelings of impending doom
• Feelings of being out of control

People with panic disorder often worry about when the next attack will happen and actively try to prevent future attacks by avoiding places, situations, or behaviors they associate with panic attacks. Worry about panic attacks, and the effort spent trying to avoid attacks, because significant problems in various areas of the person’s life, including the development of agoraphobia - People with agoraphobia have an intense fear of two or more of the following situations:

• Using public transportation
• Being in open spaces
• Being in enclosed spaces
• Standing in line or being in a crowd
• Being outside of the home alone

2. Mood Disorders

            The development of emotional or behavioral symptoms in response to an identifiable stressors that occur within 3 months of the onset of the stressors in which low mood, tearfulness, or feelings of hopelessness are predominant.

3. Major Depressive Disorder (MDD):

            A period of atleast 2 weeks during which there is either depressed mood or the loss of interest or pleasure in nearly all activities. In children and adolescents, the mood may be irritable rather than sad.

4. Bipolar Disorder:

A period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood and abnormally and persistency increased activity or energy, lasting at least 4 consecutive days and present most of the day, nearly every day, or that requires hospitalization.

5. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

            Definitions of the symptom complex known as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) differ, but severe problems with concentration or attention and/or hyperactivity are estimated to affect adolescents. Six times as many boys as girls are affected. The main consequences of ADHD are poor academic performance and behavioural problems, although adolescents with ADHD are at substantially higher risk of serious accidents, depression, and other psychological problems. About 80% of children with ADHD continue to have the disorder during adolescence, and as many as 50% of adolescents still do throughout adulthood.

6. School phobia

            School phobia also called school refusal, is defined as a persistent and irrational fear of going to school. It must be distinguished from a mere dislike of school that is related to issues such as a new teacher, a difficult examination, the class bully, lack of confidence, or having to undress for a gym class. The phobic adolescent shows an irrational fear of school and may show marked anxiety symptoms when in or near the school.

7. Learning disabilities

            Learning abilities encompasses disorders that affect the way individuals with normal or above normal intelligence receive, store, organize, retrieve, and use information. Problems included dyslexia and other specific learning problems involving reading, spelling, writing, reasoning, and mathematics. Undiagnosed learning disabilities are a common but managerable cause of young people deciding to leave school at the earliest opportunity.

Social Issues

Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse is sexual behavior or a sexual act forced upon a woman, man or child without their consent. Sexual abuse includes abuse of a woman, man or child by a man, woman or child.

Sexual abuse or violence against children and adolescents is defined as a situation in which children or adolescents are used for the sexual pleasure of an adult or older adolescent, (legally responsible for them or who has some family relationship, either current or previous), which ranges from petting, fondling of genitalia, breasts or anus, sexual exploitation, voyeurism, pornography, exhibitionism, to the sexual intercourse itself, with or without penetration.

Sexual abuse in childhood may result in problems of depression and low self-esteem as well as in sexual difficulties, either avoidance of sexual contact or, on the other hand, promiscuity or prostitution. Research studies suggest that the kinds of abuse that appear to be the most damaging are those that involve father figures, genital contact, and force.

As reports of sexual abuse of children have increased, ways to protect children are now being carried out. Some information campaigns have concentrated on children’s contacts with strangers-for example, “Never get into a car with anyone you don’t know, “Never go with someone who says he or she has some candy for you”. However, in the majority of reported assaults children are victimized by people they know. To prevent this kind of assaults, children need to be taught to recognize signs of trouble and to be assertive enough to report them to a responsible adult. How to accomplish this task represents an important challenge to prevention-oriented researchers.

Sexual abuse of children is regarded by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the major public health problems. Studies conducted in different countries suggest that 7-36% of girls and 3-29% of boys suffered sexual abuse.

Substance Abuse

  Many communities are plagued with problems of substance abuse among youth. Some children start smoking or chewing tobacco at an early age, aided by easy access to tobacco products. Many of our youth, with limited supervision or few positive alternatives, drink too much beer and liquor. Other youth, influenced by their peers, use other illegal drugs. Our youth suffer from substance abuse in familiar ways: diminished health, compromised school performance, and reduced opportunities for development. Our communities also bear a heavy burden for adolescent substance abuse. Widespread use and abuse of tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs by teens can result in increased accidents, health costs, violence, crime, and an erosion of their future potential as workers and citizens.

Protective factors are personal and environmental factors that decrease the likelihood that a person may experience a particular problem. Protective factors act as buffers against risk factors and are frequently the inverse of risk factors.

Personal risk factors for substance abuse include: poor school grades, low expectations for education, school dropout, poor parent communication, low self-esteem, strong negative peer influences, peer use, lack of perceived life options, low religiosity, lack of belief about risk, and involvement in other high-risk behaviours. Environmental risk factors include: lack of parental support, parental practice of high-risk behaviors, lack of resources in the home, living in an urban area, poor school quality, availability of substances, community norms favorable to substance use, extreme economic deprivation, and family conflict.

Protective factors may include peer tutoring to improve school grades, mentoring and scholarship programs to increase educational opportunities, programs to build strong communication and refusal Preface Work Group for Community Health and Development iv skills, information to increase understanding about risk, and the enforcement of local laws prohibiting the illegal sale of tobacco and alcohol products to youth.

Influence of Electronic Media

Electronic devices are an integral part of adolescent's lives in the twenty-first century. The world of electronic devices, however, is changing dramatically. Television, which dominated the media world through the mid-1990s, now competes in an arena crowded with cell phones, computers, iPods, video games, instant messaging, interactive multiplayer video games, virtual reality sites, Web social networks, and e-mail.

Electronic devices are defined as any object or process of human origin that can be used to convey media as books, films, mobiles, television, and the Internet. With respect to education, communication or play.

Adolescents, in particular, spend a significant amount of time in viewing and interacting with electronic devices in the form of TV, video games, music, and the Internet. Considering all of these sources together, adolescence spend more than six hours per day using media. Nearly half of that time is spent in watching TV, playing, or studying with computer. The remainder of the time is spent using other electronic media alone or in combination with TV.

The  electronic  media  mainly  consist  of  radio,  television,  and  movies,  and  are  actually classrooms without four walls. Media is an important source of shared images and messages relating to political and social context.   Technology of media is an important part of student’s lives in the twenty-first century and play  very  important  role  in  creating  awareness  related  various  aspects  of  life  and personality  as  found. The world  of  electronic  media,  however,  is changing  dramatically.  Television,  which  dominated  the  media  world  through  the  mid-1990s, now competes with cell phones, iPods, video games, instant messaging, interactive multiplayer video  games, Web social networks, and  e-mail.  We learn skills, values and patterns of behavior from the media both directly and indirectly. There is no doubt that electronic media have a important influence on children from a very early age, and that it will continue to affect children's cognitive and social development. Electronic  media  activate  and  reinforce  attitude  and  contribute  significantly  in  the formation of new attitudes.

Effects of Technology on Adolescence

Technology and internet addiction in adolescence can have far reaching effects on the addict and his family. Adolescence with technology addiction can suffer from a variety of physical and psychological health problems.

General Effects

• Poor eating habits
• Increased obesity
• Attention problems in school, low attention span
• Lack of empathy
• Poor academic performance
• Social phobia
• Increased instances of cyberbullying
• Increased instances of substance abuse
• Growth issues
• Unable to control impulse to use the Internet/technology
• Feelings of happiness when using Internet or thinking about using the Internet 

Negative effects of video games on adolescence's physical health, including obesity, video-induced seizures and postural, muscular and skeletal disorders, such as tendonitis, nerve compression, and carpal tunnel syndrome as well as delayed school achievement. However, these effects are not likely to occur for most adolescence. Parents should be most concerned about two things: the amount of time that adolescence play, and the content of the what to be play or watching.

In addition, symptoms associated with using mobile phones most commonly include headaches, earache, warmth sensations and sometimes also perceived concentration difficulties as well as fatigue However, over exposure to mobile phone use is not currently known to have major health effects. Another aspect of exposure is ergonomics. Musculoskeletal symptoms due to intensive texting on a mobile phone have been reported and techniques used for text entering have been studied in connection with developing musculoskeletal symptoms. The central factors appearing to explain high quantitative use were personal dependency, and demands for achievement and availability originating from domains of work,

To protect adolescence from harm, all health staff must have the competences to recognize adolescence maltreatment and to take effective action as appropriate to their role. They must also clearly understand their responsibilities, and should be supported by their employing organization. In addition, Parents have no idea about electronic devices effects on adolescence. So, parents need to understand that electronic devices can have an impact on everything they are concerned about with their adolescence's health and development, school performance, learning disabilities, sex, drugs, and aggressive behavior.

Preventive Measures

• Set strict time limit for phone use at home.
• Restrict the use of video games, television and other gadgets.
• Ask your teens to use only the family computer for all their online activities at home.
• Supervise the time your teens spend on the Internet.
• Spend time with your child to understand the source of his addiction. It is important for parents to know what makes their children find solace on the Internet.
• Talk to your teen’s teachers to understand problems at school, if any.
• Create positive environment at home. Your teen could be spending excessive time on the Internet to escape the problems at home. This excessive time spend on technology can easily turn into an addiction.
• Enforce no-Internet time at home or consequences for breaking rules about using technology at home.

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6.3: Challenges of Adolescence

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• Identify and explain some of the social problems facing contemporary teenagers.
• Analyze the factors that contribute to social problems of teenagers.
• Explain the consequences social problems cause adolescence.

Universal Generalizations

• Adolescence can be confusing and challenging time of life.
• The norms dealing with sexual behavior vary greatly from society to society.
• Early sexual activity can have negative health effects.
• Adolescents are faced for the first time with important decisions which can have serious consequences on their lives

Guiding Questions

• Is it more difficult to be a teenager today than 20 years ago? 40 years ago?
• What type of social issues do teenagers face today?
• What are the causes and consequences of these problems?
• What causes and what are the consequences of suicide?

Challenges of Adolescence

The teen years are a time when adolescents begin developing a separate identity from their parents. It can be an exciting and confusing time for teens as they gain independence and begin preparing for adulthood. Teens in Americans face several common problems that can affect their emotional, social and physical development. America's teens face new problems when it comes to bullying. While past generations might have worried about getting into a fistfight with a bully, many of today's teens face possible violence with weapons. Cyberbullying also is a new problem, and it can lead to rumors and insults being spread in an instant. According to HealthyChildren.org, bullying places teens at risk for many other problems, including low self-esteem, social withdrawal and social anxiety. Truancy and academic problems can also stem from bullying.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/1000831-common-teen-problems-america/

While bullying has been around for ages, the Internet has made bullying easier and more widespread than ever, making it one of the major issues teens face today. It gives people who are normally afraid of confrontation the ability to bully others anonymously and those who would bully anyway a wider selection of “weapons” with which to attack. Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks give bullies the ability to enlist the help of others in their bullying schemes and publicize whatever they want to about their victim. A lot of teens are left stressed out, wondering if something they said or something they did will wind up posted on Facebook for all to see. lifestyle.allwomenstalk.com/issues-teens-face-today

Another issue concerning teens is depression. According to the American Academy of Adolescent and Child Psychiatry, "About 5 percent of children and adolescents in the general population suffer from depression at any given point in time." While adults with depression often appear sad, teens with depression usually report physical health problems, appear irritable and exhibit behavioral problems. Depression can cause teens to isolate themselves and withdraw from activities. Academic problems often arise as depression can lead to increased absences from school, difficulty concentrating and decreased motivation.

Obesity is an issue affecting many American teens. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, "Between 16 and 33 percent of children and adolescents are obese," which means they are more than 10 percent exceed the recommended weight for their height. Obesity can place teenagers at risk of many medical problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and breathing problems. It can also cause social problems for teenagers because they are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem and be less popular with their peers.

Substance Abuse

A major concern for many adolescence in the United States is substance abuse. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, adolescent substance use is America's No. 1 public health problem. According to a recent study by the center, "46 percent of all high school students currently use addictive substances; 1 in 3 of them meets the medical criteria for addiction." The use of addictive substances before the age of 18 greatly increases the likelihood of developing an addiction. Many factors contribute to teen substance abuse problems, such as peer pressure and media messages. Alcohol is the substance abused most frequently by adolescents, followed by marijuana and tobacco. In the past month, 39 percent of high school seniors reported drinking some alcohol, almost 23 percent reported using marijuana, and 16 percent reported smoking cigarettes.

More adolescents drink alcohol than smoke cigarettes or use marijuana. Within the past month, almost four out of 10 high school seniors report drinking some alcohol and more than one in five have engaged in “binge drinking” daily in the past two weeks. Drinking endangers adolescents in multiple ways including motor vehicle crashes, the leading cause of death for this age group. Nearly one in four adolescents has ridden in a car with a driver who had been drinking. Genetic factors and life stressors influence adolescents’ alcohol abuse, but parents and guardians can help by monitoring adolescents’ activities and keeping channels of communication open.

Cigarette smoking among adolescents has declined dramatically in the last 15 years. Today, most adolescents do not smoke, but about one in ten has smoked within the past month and the use of smokeless tobacco increased between 2008 and 2010, but has remained fairly steady since 2010. Tobacco use harms nearly every organ in the body, and more than six million children born between 1983 and 2000 will die in adulthood of smoking-related illnesses. Multiple factors influence whether an adolescent becomes a regular smoker, including genetics and having parents or peers who smoke. Many adolescents start trying tobacco products at a young age, so prevention efforts in schools, in communities, and in homes, can help and should begin early.

Illicit drug use—which includes the abuse of illegal drugs and/or the misuse of prescription medications or household substances—is something many adolescents engage in occasionally, and a few do regularly. By the twelfth grade, about half of adolescents have abused an illicit drug at least once. The most commonly used drug is marijuana but adolescents can find many abused substances, such as prescription medications, glues, and aerosols, in the home. Many factors and strategies can help adolescents stay drug free: Strong positive connections with parents, other family members, school, and religion; having parents present in the home at key times of the day; and reduced access in the home to illegal substances.

http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-health-topics/substance-abuse/home.html

Adolescence and Sexual Behavior

Many young people engage in sexual risk behaviors that can result in unintended health outcomes. For example, among U.S. high school students surveyed in 2013

• 47% had ever had sexual intercourse.
• 41% did not use a condom the last time they had sex.
• 15% had had sex with four or more people during their life.
• Only 22% of sexually experienced students have ever been tested for HIV.

Sexual risk behaviors place adolescents at risk for HIV infection, other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and unintended pregnancy:

• Nearly 10,000 young people (aged 13-24) were diagnosed with HIV infection in the United States in 2013.
• Young gay and bisexual men (aged 13-24) accounted for an estimated 19% (8,800) of all new HIV infections in the United States, and 72% of new HIV infections among youth in 2010.
• Nearly half of the 20 million new STDs each year were among young people, between the ages of 15 to 24.
• Approximately 273,000 babies were born to teen girls aged 15–19 years in 2013.

Among American teenagers, the birthrate is substancially higher than other industrialized countries. The CDC has established national health objectives to address the issue of sexual behavior. One of its major objectives the CDC encouraged abstinence- not engaging in any type of sexual behavior . Surveys have indicated the CDC programs have had some success. Sexual activity among teens has declined and the use of birth control has increased.

To reduce sexual risk behaviors and related health problems among youth, schools and other youth-serving organizations can help young people adopt lifelong attitudes and behaviors that support their health and well-being- including behaviors that reduce their risk for HIV, other STDs and unintended pregnancy.

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/sexualbehaviors/

Influences on Early Sexual Activity

Social scientists have theorized a series of explanations for why teens partake in sexual behavior. Many scientists believe social and economic factors contribute to early sexual activity. Some of these factors are family income level, marital status of parents, and religious participation. Typically teens from higher income two parent families have lower rates of sexual activity than those teens who come from a lower social income and one parent families. Sexual activity is also influenced by the norms concerning sexual behavior among teens. Those teens whose friends engage in sexual behavior are more likely to engage in sexual behavior than those whose friends do not engage in sex.

Teen Sexual Activity and Outcomes

Early sexual activity is associated with a host of negative outcomes that can have lasting physical, emotional, social, and economic impacts on the lives of young people, particularly teenage girls and young women.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in four teenage girls has at least one sexually transmitted infection (STI). Teenage girls, especially, are physiologically vulnerable to these infections, and early sexual activity increases the risk of infection. One study found that those who begin sexual activity at age 13 are twice as likely to become infected as peers who remain sexually abstinent throughout their teen years.

Teen Pregnancy and Unwed Childbearing

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy estimates that about one in two Hispanic and black teenage girls and one in five Caucasian teenage girls will become pregnant at least once before turning 20. Overall, nearly one in five adolescent girls will give birth in her teens.

Engaging in early sexual activity elevates the risk of teenage girls becoming pregnant and single mothers. Girls who become sexually active during early adolescence are three times as likely to become single mothers as those who remain abstinent throughout their teenage years. Nearly 40 percent of girls who begin sexual activity at ages 13 or 14 will give birth outside marriage, compared to 9 percent of those who remain abstinent until their early twenties.

Marital Stability and Maternal Poverty

Sexual activity at an early age may also affect marital and economic stability later in life. Among women in their thirties, those who were sexually active during early adolescence are half as likely to be in stable marriages as those who waited until their early twenties to have sex. Early sexual activity is also linked to maternal poverty. At the time of a large national survey in 1995, nearly 30 percent of mothers who began sexual activity at ages 13 or 14 lived in poverty compared to 12 percent of those who waited until their early twenties.

Parental Influence and Teen Sex

Many policymakers, health professionals, and "safe sex" advocates respond to these troubling statistics by demanding more comprehensive sex education and broader access to contraceptives for minors. They assume that teens are unable to delay their sexual behavior and that a combination of information about and access to contraceptives will effectively lead to protected sex, preventing any form of harm to youngsters. Not only are these assumptions faulty, they tend to disregard important factors that have been linked to reduced teen sexual activity. A particularly noticeable omission is parental influence.

Parents, as teens themselves reveal, are the ones who have the most influence on their children's decisions about sex. Indeed, two-thirds of all teens share their parents' values on this topic.

When it comes to talking about teen sex, both teens and parents report high levels of communication. Parents, however, tend to perceive a greater level of communication than do teens. Nearly all parents (90 percent) report having had a helpful conversation about delaying sex and avoiding pregnancy with their teenage children, compared to 71 percent of teens who report having had such a conversation with their parents. Many parents are also unaware of their teens' actual behavior. In a study of 700 teens in Philadelphia, 58 percent of the teens reported being sexually active, while only one-third of their mothers believed they were.

The empirical evidence on the association between parental influences and adolescents' sexual behavior is strong. Parental factors that appear to offer strong protection against the onset of early sexual activity include an intact family structure; parents' disapproval of adolescent sex; teens' sense of belonging to and satisfaction with their families; parental monitoring; and, to a lesser extent, parent-child communication about teen sex and its consequences.

That parents play a role in teen sex points to at least two significant policy implications. First, programs and policies that seek to delay sexual activity or to prevent teen pregnancy or STDs should encourage and strengthen family structure and parental involvement. Doing so may increase these efforts' overall effectiveness. Conversely, programs and policies that implicitly or explicitly discourage parental involvement, such as dispensing contraceptives to adolescents without parental consent or notice, contradict the weight of social science evidence and may prove to be counterproductive and potentially harmful to teens.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/10/teen-sex-the-parent-factor

www.heritage.org/~/media/images/reports/2008/bg2194/b2194_chart2.ashx

Youth Suicide

Suicide (i.e., taking one's own life) is a serious public health problem that affects even young people. For youth between the ages of 10 and 24, suicide is the third leading cause of death. It results in approximately 4600 lives lost each year. The top three methods used in suicides of young people include firearm (45%), suffocation (40%), and poisoning (8%).

Deaths from youth suicide are only part of the problem. More young people survive suicide attempts than actually die. A nationwide survey of youth in grades 9–12 in public and private schools in the United States (U.S.) found that 16% of students reported seriously considering suicide, 13% reported creating a plan, and 8% reporting trying to take their own life in the 12 months preceding the survey. Each year, approximately 157,000 youth between the ages of 10 and 24 receive medical care for self-inflicted injuries at Emergency Departments across the U.S.

Suicide affects all youth, but some groups are at higher risk than others. Boys are more likely than girls to die from suicide. Of the reported suicides in the 10 to 24 age group, 81% of the deaths were males and 19% were females. Girls, however, are more likely to report attempting suicide than boys. Cultural variations in suicide rates also exist, with Native American/Alaskan Native youth having the highest rates of suicide-related fatalities. A nationwide survey of youth in grades 9–12 in public and private schools in the U.S. found Hispanic youth were more likely to report attempting suicide than their black and white, non-Hispanic peers.

Several factors can put a young person at risk for suicide. However, having these risk factors does not always mean that suicide will occur.

Sidebar Notes:

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255), or visit the Web .

Suicide has many warning signs. For more information, visit the American Association of Suicidology's Web site .

Risk factors

• History of previous suicide attempts
• Family history of suicide
• History of depression or other mental illness
• Alcohol or drug abuse
• Stressful life event or loss
• Easy access to lethal methods
• Exposure to the suicidal behavior of others
• Incarceration

Most people are uncomfortable with the topic of suicide. Too often, victims are blamed, and their families and friends are left stigmatized. As a result, people do not communicate openly about suicide. Thus an important public health problem is left shrouded in secrecy, which limits the amount of information available to those working to prevent suicide.

The good news is that research over the last several decades has uncovered a wealth of information on the causes of suicide and on prevention strategies. Additionally, CDC is working to monitor the problem and develop programs to prevent youth suicide.

www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pub/youth_suicide.html

The Sociological View of Suicide

Suicide is a major challenge facing American adolescence. Suicide among teens now exceeds the suicide rates of the general population. In order to gain a better understanding of suicide, a sociological view must be taken into account. Social Integration is the degree to which people are connected to their social groups. Let's check your own personal degree of social integration. On a piece of paper right down how many close family members you have. Then add in how many close friends and coworkers you have. Finally add in all others whose name you know and they know yours. This number is one measure of your social integration. But, to really get an idea you might evaluate these relationships. In other words list your top 6 closest relationships in order. Make a short list of the 6 closest relationships you have. Now, rank 1 for the closest, 2 for next closest and so on up to 6th. Durkheim realized from his suicide studies that the closer we are to others, the more socially integrated we are and the less likely we are to commit suicide. The second concept to understand is called anomie.

As a larger social fact, anomie is a byproduct of large complex societies, especially around large cities. It's easier to get lost in the crowd, not be noticed, and to rarely receive praise or criticism for personal actions. Durkheim and others were aware that society impacted the life of the individual even if the individual had very little impact on society. By the way, Durkheim measured suicide rates and so do we in our day. Suicide is the purposeful ending of one's own life for any reason. Suicide Rate is the numbers of suicides per 100,000 people in a population.

Interestingly, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center gives a few suicide prevention strategies that relate to social integration: "Strong connections to family and community support, cultural and religious beliefs that discourage suicide and support self-preservation and various other types of social support are recommended" (retrieved 13 January, 2009 from www.sprc.org the "Risk and Protective Factors for Suicide," National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for Action, 2001).

Being a teen comes with exciting milestones that double as challenges – like becoming independent, navigating high school and forming new relationships. For all the highs that come with getting a driver’s license or acing that difficult test, there are lows that come with growing up in a rapidly changing world being shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, social media and distance learning.

Teens’ brains are growing and developing, and the ways they process their experiences and spend their time are crucial to their development. Each great experience and every embarrassing moment can impact their mental health.

Sometimes a mood is about more than just being lonely or angry or frustrated.

Mental health challenges are different than situational sadness or fatigue. They’re more severe and longer-lasting, and they can have a large impact on daily life. Some common mental health challenges are anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use, and experiencing trauma. They can affect a teen’s usual way of thinking, feeling or acting, and interfere with daily life.

Adding to the urgency: Mental health challenges among teens are not uncommon. Up to 75% of mental health challenges emerge during adolescence, and according to the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) curriculum, one in five teens has had a serious mental health disorder at some point in their life.

Not every mental health challenge will be diagnosed as a mental disorder, but every challenge should be taken seriously.

A mental health challenge left unchecked can become a more serious problem that also impacts physical health — think of how substance use, and changes in sleep patterns and eating habits affect the body as well as the mind. Signs of fatigue, withdrawing socially or changes in mood may point to an emerging mental health challenge like a depressive or substance use disorder.

As teens mature, they begin spending more time with their friends, gain a sense of identity and purpose, and become more independent. All of these experiences are crucial for their development, and a mental health challenge can disrupt or complicate that development. Depending on the severity of the mental health challenge, the effects can last long into adulthood if left unaddressed.

How do we address teens’ mental health?

Teens need tools to talk about what’s going on with them, and they need tools for when their friends reach out to them. Research shows that teens are more likely to talk to their friends than an adult about troubles they’re facing.

That’s why it’s important to talk to teens about the challenges they may deal with as they grow up and navigate young adulthood. They need to know it’s OK to sometimes feel sad, angry, alone, and frustrated. But persistent problems may be pointing to something else, and it is crucial to be able to recognize early warning signs so teens can get appropriate help in a timely manner. teen Mental Health First Aid teaches high school students in grades 10-12 how to identify, understand and respond to signs of a mental health problem or crisis among their friends — and how to bring in a trusted adult when it’s appropriate and necessary. With proper care and treatment, many teens with mental health or substance use challenges can recover. The first step is getting help.

Learn more about teen Mental Health First Aid by watching this video and checking out our blog . Your school or youth-serving organization can also apply to bring this training to your community.

teen Mental Health First Aid is run by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing and supported by Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation.

Resource Guide:

• Mental Health First Aid USA. (2020). teen Mental Health First Aid USA: A manual for young people in 10 th -12 th grade helping their friends. Washington, DC: National Council for Mental Wellbeing.

National Institute of Mental Health. (2020). The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know/index.shtml.

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Home Essay Samples Psychology Adolescence

My Adolescent Experience and Development: A Reflection

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Adolescent experience in my life, physical development, emotional development.

“Perhaps you looked in the mirror on a daily, or sometimes even hourly, basis as a young teenager to see whether you could detect anything different about your changing body. Preoccupation with one’s body image is strong through adolescence, it is especially acute during puberty, a time when adolescents are more dissatisfied with their bodies than in late adolescence.” (Santrock)

Social changes

• Arnett, J. J. (2015). Adolescence and emerging adulthood : A cultural approach. Pearson Education.
• Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. WW Norton & Company.
• Gullotta, T. P., & Adams, G. R. (Eds.). (2016). Handbook of adolescent behavioral problems: Evidence-based approaches to prevention and treatment. Springer.
• Steinberg, L. (2014). Age of opportunity: Lessons from the new science of adolescence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Steinberg, L., & Morris, A. S. (2001). Adolescent development. Annual review of psychology, 52(1), 83-110.
• Suler, J. R. (2018). Adolescent development. In Psychology of Adolescence (pp. 11-38). Springer.
• Rutter, M., & Smith, DJ (1995). Psychosocial disorders in young people: Time trends and their causes. John Wiley & Sons.
• American Psychological Association. (2019). APA handbook of the psychology of adolescence.
• Offer, D., & Schonert-Reichl, K. A. (1992). Debunking the myths of adolescence: Findings from recent research. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 31(6), 1003-1014.

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• Child Observation
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• Lev Vygotsky Theory
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135 Adolescence Essay Topics & Examples

Completing a psychology course, studying child development, or simply analyzing social influence on teenagers? You might need to write an adolescence essay, and we are ready to help with that.

✨ Top Adolescent Psychology Topics

🏆 best adolescence topic ideas & essay examples, 📑 good research topics about adolescence, 🎓 interesting adolescent research topics, 👍 good essay topics on adolescence, ❓ research questions about adolescence.

Our Ivypanda team has collected a list of great ideas for different assignments related to the subject. So, check our adolescent research topics and essay titles to nail your academic paper.

• Ethical Issues of Social Media.
• Reaction to Physical Changes.
• Depression Among Adolescents.
• Parental vs. Social Influence.
• Must-See Youth Documentaries.
• Preventing Teenage Pregnancy.
• Dating & First Relationships.
• Reproductive Health Stigma.
• Impact of Peer Pressure on Development.
• Connection Between Mental Health & Social Media.
• Vygotsky’s Approach to the Analysis of Adolescence In Vygotsky’s view, the change in the motives of adolescence come about due to the growth of sexual desires and needs which are as a result of their ability to think logically.
• Psychology of Adolescence Development The strategy allows the examination of the significance of adolescence as a standard stage of development. However, she admits that she experienced a period of anxiety and distress upon the death of her mother when […]
• Adolescence as a Social Construct As a social construct of society, adolescence is viewed as the object of fear and anxiety by the rest of society’s members.
• Adolescence as a Period of Social Development Adolescents transition from the restricted responsibilities of childhood to the more expansive roles of adulthood through the social development process, expanding their social networks and experiencing peer influence.
• Adolescence as a Stage of the Person Development Adolescents struggle with so many things, start with, because of their physical changes that occur in their bodies and their exploration of sexual identity, most of them are not able to control their bodies and […]
• Adolescence: Behavioral Issues and Communication Strategies Despite the fact that these issues occur naturally and are frequent for the majority of the representatives of this age group, the traumas and incapability to cope with the challenges might result in adverse outcomes […]
• Family Issues and Adolescence in Crazy/Beautiful The film Crazy/Beautiful is a vivid example of relationships between teenage children and their parents: The problems and situations shown in the film are typical and timeless.
• Middle Childhood and Adolescence Periods Observation The first participant is a boy of 7, and the following series of questions will be offered to him: Do you like watching the outside world and nature changes?
• Risk-Taking Behaviors and Situations During Adolescence Risk-taking behavior in adolescents is a significant bother for the US healthcare system, as it negatively affects the health and well-being of the population.
• Adolescence: Biological and Psychosocial Perspectives Adolescence as a social construction is more complex as a concept and entails definitional vagueness regarding the beginning and the ending of adolescence, for example, social-role passages into new reference groups, perceptions of the body, […]
• Influence of Heavy Metal Music on Adolescence (Behavior, Identity, Mood, Regulation, Psychology) Accepting the potent impact of music on adolescents’ behavior, identity, and psychology leads to a deeper analysis of the influences of heavy metal music on teenagers’ development.
• Childhood, Adolescence, Young Adulthood Psychology Any intervention that can be used in the prevention of child abuse should focus on the causes of the same and the needs of children who are more prone to abuse.
• Adolescence and Adulthood Developmental Stages – Psychology The onset of adolescence marks the refinement of most individuals’ thinking abilities because at this stage the majority of individuals would have attained control in their thinking process.
• The Problem of Adolescence Pressures in Society Early adolescence start at the age of 10 to 14 while the late adolescence is from 15 to 21years in boys but girls are said to attain early maturity at the age of 19 years.
• Circumstances Causing Stress in Adolescence Hold one’s breath for many seconds and gently exhale via the mouth to evacuate the lungs, hence easing the body of stress. The more one is stressed, the more difficult and nervous it is to […]
• The Impact of Technology Development on the Adolescence Psychology The stability of the psyche in teenage society is on the minimum bar, and with few exceptions, teenagers are resistant to any criticism.
• Social Development and Adolescence: Human Services Ethics and Interventions The small circle of peer friends and the loss of a close relative provoke the feeling of loneliness and further progression of depression. A wide range of human service agencies can help Susie and her […]
• The Impact of Social Issues on the Development of Adolescence For example, boys have high esteem when they experience changes in their voices, while girls may feel shy due to the growth of their chest region.
• Depression in Adolescence and Treatment Approaches The age of adolescence, commonly referred to as children aged 10-19, is characterized by a variety of changes to one’s physical and mental health, as the child undergoes several stages of adjustment to the environment […]
• Different Stages of Adolescence Due to the rapid development, the body experiences difficulties in the work of the heart, lungs, and blood supply to the brain.
• Review of “The Legal Construction of Adolescence” Article However, as explained by Scott in The Legal Construction of Adolescence, there are several complications connected to clearly defining the end of childhood and the overall period of adolescence.
• Adolescence and Emotion Relations He attributes the occurrence of emotional problems to the overwhelming nature of the changes and demands that occur during puberty. The reaction of parents to their child’s emotional outbursts correlates to the cultivation of healthy […]
• Adolescence and Young Adulthood in Educational Psychology For Freud, it is inclusion in society, the beginning of social education, communication with peers, removing barriers in interpersonal contacts, and expanding the field of fixation of the object of attraction.
• Childhood and Adolescence Psychology One of the examples given about the effects of cultural differences in the definition of intelligence is between the Taiwanese and the Americans.
• Dating, Sex, and Romance: Adolescence and Digital Media Sexual education is significant for adolescents because, for them, the topic of sexual relations, dating, and romance is one of the most attractive ones.
• Adolescence Sexuality: Breaking Down the Myths In her work, Coming of Age in Samoa, she gave a vivid description on the variations in human behavior patterns among the adolescent girls in Samoa.
• Brain Development in Adolescence and Childhood I am going to describe the relation of moral reasoning, moral evaluations and moral behaviors in terms of worldviews approach to moral development according to Jensen. The next issue I am going to discuss is […]
• HIV and AIDS in Adolescents The teenagers in America and the world are a group that is constantly at risk of infection with the Human-Immunodeficiency-Virus and developing the Acquired-Immune-Deficiency-Syndrome, the disease condition that eventually results; this is stemming mainly from […]
• Syllabus for Life Among Adolescence This is a matter of pressure to the teenagers and this creates stress in them.”Early adulthood is the settling down period and most reproductive age.
• Adolescence and Risk Taking Analysis Studies show that children and adolescents around the world spend their maximum time watching television than they do in any other activity with an exception in the time of sleeping. The objective of this paper […]
• Adolescence Psychology: Development Early Through Late This number is approximate, because a lot of people with the disease are not aware of the symptoms and do not want to be tested on chlamydia.
• Depression and Psychotherapy in Adolescence Society needs to acknowledge that depression is a major medical problem among adolescents in the United States and measures need to be taken to address it.
• Development: Infancy Through Adolescence The evaluation of physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development in different age groups of childhood can be made due to the observation of specific subjects and conversations with them.
• Middle Childhood and Adolescence Development Children and adolescents need to be accepted by the peers, and the positive relations in groups contribute to increasing the children’s self-esteem and self-confidence.
• Psychology: Adolescence as a Developmental Stage Erik Erickson is referred to as the father of an identity crisis in that he originated with the idea of child upbringing practices and their influence on the personality of the child in later life.
• Human Development Theories: Adolescence and Adulthood In the growth and development stage of a human being, the adolescent period has been considered to be a natural stage found between childhood and adulthood.
• Addiction Occurrence and Reduction in Adolescence This implies that the earlier the start of the use of drugs, the higher the chances of the risk of becoming addicted.
• Loneliness in Adolescence as a Psychological Issue In the course of this, it will outline the background, state the hypothesis, speculate on the methods, and reflect on the conclusion which the author has arrived at.
• Adolescence: Risk, Identity and Transition There is a downside to this perspective is that it ignores the diversity in culture and differences among peers. The main problem however is that most of these youth have no experience with the real […]
• The Peculiarities of Adolescence and Puberty It is necessary to pay attention to the needs of students at risk, to the peculiarities of their interactions with other people and to the features of their awareness of themselves as personalities.
• Socioemotional Development in Adolescence Adolescence is a period that begins with the puberty, approximately at the age of 12, and ends with the early adulthood, in the 18th.
• Sexuality and Masculinity in Adolescents This is the misunderstanding which makes many teenagers behave in the way they are not to behave, to act in the way they are not to act and to act as in the result the […]
• Alcohol Consumption in Adolescence The hypotheses developed in this paper are of immense importance in guiding a study aimed at identifying credible evidence on how alcohol consumption during adolescence is associated with mental health challenges and increased STI risk […]
• Relationship Between Sleep and Depression in Adolescence Using SPSS for data analysis, the results indicate the presence of a correlation between elements of depression and sleep duration and quality.
• Attachment Dimensions and Adolescence Drug Addiction in Relation to School Counseling A meta-analysis of numerous studies relating to attachment and parental rearing behaviors have revealed that the quality of rapport between children and their caregivers is of intrinsic importance to the children’s development, and some studies, […]
• Development of Ethnic Identity During Adolescence From a study of adolescents of different racial groups in the United States, it was found out that self esteem of the groups was observed to rise among the groups of early and mid adolescents.
• Inter-Psychic Theories Adlerian Theory (In Adolescence) In his theory, social interest is identified as the need for individuals to adapt to their social environment as it is expressed subjectively in an individual’s consciousness, hence, the need to be part of society […]
• The Three D’s of Adolescence Depression There are three major types depression in teenagers: bipolar depression, major depression, and chronic depression. Parents can help their depressed adolescents by identifying the type of depression and seeking proper treatment.
• Human Development: Adolescence as the Most Important Age Range The stage is therefore very important in understanding the behavior of an individual. This is a stage when the life of an individual is either made or destroyed.
• Critical Issues in Adolescence: The Problem of Psychological Disorders It is the purpose of this paper to critically analyze how psychological disorders affect the physical, cognitive and emotional development of adolescents in contemporary times.
• A Critical Evaluation of the Behavioural Outcomes of Failure of Mylination of the Prefrontal Lobe During Adolescence It is, therefore, the purpose of this paper to evaluate the behavioural outcome of failure or impairment of mylination of the prefrontal lobe during adolescence.
• Why Do So Many Guys Seem Stuck Between Adolescence And Adulthood?
• Mental Health around Pregnancy and Child Development from Early Childhood to Adolescence
• Adolescence: Developmental Psychology and Social Work Practice
• Adolescence Sexuality Defining Sexual Self The Other Issue
• The Main Problems That Comes with Adolescence
• Working and Studying in Rural Latin America: Critical Decisions of Adolescence
• The Sense of Self in Adolescence: Teenager Movies
• The Ups and Downs of Adolescence in The Perks of Being a Wallflower Directed by Stephen Chbosky
• Understanding the Adolescence and Behaviorism in Psychology
• The Influence of Parent and Peer Attachments on Life Satisfaction in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence
• What Are Some Of The Most Common Mental Disorders In Adolescence
• The Rite of Passage from Adolescence to Adulthood in Teen Films
• Gender Roles And Socialization In Adolescence
• The Middle Adolescence Stage Of Development
• Adolescence Is A Critical Time For A Human
• Adolescence In The Bell Jar And Catcher In The Rye
• The Reduction in Criminal Offences After Adolescence
• Weight and Blood Pressure Management in Adolescence Population
• The Relationship Between Divorce And Adolescence
• Relationship Between Adolescence and Horror Films
• Narratives of Adolescence Explored Through the Harry Potter
• Prenatal Adolescence And Early Adulthood Period
• The Pros and Cons of Internet as the Primary Source of Globalization of Adolescence
• Adolescence Is The Most Difficult Stage Of Our Lives
• The Theme of Adolescence in Melanie Rae Thon’s Iona Moon
• The Importance of Adolescence in Creating Successful Adults
• The Physiological Changes of Boys and Girls During Adolescence
• Sports Participation and Social Capital Formation During Adolescence
• The Physical and Psychological Changes that Occur During Adolescence
• Value Driven Attentional Capture Of Adolescence
• Treating Non-Malignant Pain in Adolescence with Medical Marijuana
• The Psychological And Physical Aspects Of Drug Abuse In Today’s Adolescence
• The Woman’s Natural Journey From Adolescence To Menopause
• Sexism and Aggression in Adolescence—How Do They Relate to Perceived Academic Achievement
• Understanding Sexuality During the Adolescence Stage of Our Lives
• Theories Of Child Development As They Pertain To Middle Childhood And Adolescence
• Peer Affiliation, Social Behavior, And Callous Unemotional Traits In Adolescence
• The Major Hormonal Changes That Occur During Adolescence
• Personality and Optimal Experience in Adolescence: Implications for Well-Being and Development
• An Analysis of the Concept of Adolescence and the Juvenile Delinquency
• Adolescence Is A Period Of Storm And Stress
• Child Sexual Development: Infancy, Early Childhood, Adolescence
• Mass Media and Adolescence: How Mass Media Influence Teens in Their Sexual Behavior
• The Role Of Nature And Nurture : Adolescence Eating Disorders
• Does Fruit and Vegetable Consumption During Adolescence Predict Adult Depression?
• How Does Frayn Show Stephen’s Mental Progression From Childhood to Adolescence?
• Does Periodontal Inflammation Affect Type 1 Diabetes in Childhood and Adolescence?
• What Leads Subjective Well-Being to Change Throughout Adolescence?
• Is Abortion Beneficial or Harmful to a Teenager?
• How to Recognize the Signs of Depression in Young People?
• Which Role Models Do Teenagers Follow Today?
• Who Is Responsible for Sexual Education: School or Family?
• What Changes Happen During Adolescence?
• How Do Teenagers Leave Their Homes and Why They Never Come Back? Which Social Groups Have Higher Rates of Such Cases?
• Appearance as a Tool of Self-Expression. Which Elements of Style Are Used by Teenagers Today?
• How Did Communication With Parents Change Over the Past Ten Years?
• Do Technological Advances Facilitate Better Studying Among Young People or Distract From It?
• Have the Youth Become More Involved Socially, or Are They Becoming More Individualist?
• What Influences the Youth of Today?
• How Does an Adolescent Develop Intellectually?
• Are Teenagers More Religious as Compared to the Recent Past?
• What Are the Major Challenges That Adolescence Facing?
• How Does Society Affect Adolescent Development?
• What Is the Most Important Thing We Need to Know During Adolescence?
• Why Adolescent Stage Is the Most Crucial Stage?
• What Are Emotional Changes in Adolescence?
• Can Adolescent Development Change According to Culture and Upbringing?
• What Social Changes Happen in Adolescence?
• Why Is Knowledge About Changes During Adolescence Important?
• How Do Physical Changes Affect Adolescents?
• Why Is Adolescent Development Especially Challenging?
• What Are the Problems With Defining the Start and End of Adolescence? Why Do These Problems Exist?
• How Does Family Affect Adolescent Development?
• Why Is Healthy Behavior During Adolescence Important?
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Essay on adolescence: top 5 essays | psychology.

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Here is a compilation of essays on ‘Adolescence’ for class 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Adolescence’ especially written for school and college students.

Essay on Adolescence

Essay Contents:

• Essay on the Meaning of Adolescence
• Essay on the Historical Perspectives of Adolescence
• Essay on the Developmental Model in Adolescence
• Essay on the Factors Influencing Development During Adolescence
• Essay on Developmental Psychopathology during the Period of Adolescence

Essay # 1. Meaning of Adolescence :

Adolescence is a time of rapid physiological and psychological change of intensive readjustment to the family, school, work and social life and of preparation for adult roles.

It starts with puberty and ends with the achievement of an adult work role. It usually begins between 11 and 16 years in boys and between 9 and 16 years in girls. Websters’ dictionary (1977) defines adolescence the ‘process of growing up’ or the ‘period of life from puberty to maturity’. Adolescence has been associated with an age span, varying from 10-13 as the starting age and 19-21 as the concluding age, depending on whose definition is being applied.

Essay # 2. Historical Perspectives of Adolescence :

The concept of adolescence was formally inducted in psychology from 1880. The definitive description of adolescence was given in the two volume work of Stanley Hall in 1904. Hall described adolescence as a period both of upheaval, suffering, passion and rebellion against adult authority and of physical, intellectual and social change.

Anna Freud, Mohr and Despres and Bios have independently affirmed adolescent regression, psychological upheaval, and turbulence as intrinsic to normal adolescence development. Margaret Mead believed adolescence as a ‘cultural invention’.

Albert Bandura said that children and adolescents imitate the behaviour of others especially influential adults ‘entertainment’ heroes and peers. Erikson elaborated the classic psychoanalytic views shifting the emphasis from biological imperatives of the entry into adolescence to focus on psychological challenges in making the transition from adolescence to adulthood (developmental model discussed below).

Piaget proposed a theory of cognitive development describing four major stages in intellectual development. Puberty is a universal process involving dramatic changes in size, shape and appearance. Tanner has described bodily changes of puberty into five stages. The enumeration of Tanner stages is given in Table 28.1.

The relationships between pubertal maturation and psychological development can be considered in two broad models,

(a) The ‘Direct Effect Model’ in which certain psychological effects are directly result of physiological sources,

(b) ‘Mediated Effects Model’ which proposes that the psychological effects of puberty are mediated by complex relations of intervening variables (such as the level of ego development) or are moderated by contexual factors (such as the socio-cultural and socialization practices). In recent days, this model is more favoured.

Essay # 3. Developmental Model in Adolescence :

Developmental theories of adolescence are:

(a) Cognitive development:

Jean Piaget described four distinct stages in the cognitive development from birth to adolescence.

(i) Sensory-motor stage:

Sensory-motor stage (from birth to 18 months) wherein the child acquires numerous basic skills with limited intellectual capacity and is primitive.

(ii) Preoperational or intuitive stage:

Preoperational or intuitive stage roughly starting at about 18 months and ending at 7 years, wherein the child learns to communicate and uses reason in an efficient way. However, he is still inclined to intuition rather than thinking out systematically.

(iii) Concrete-operations stage:

Concrete-operations stage (from 7 to 12 years) where the child becomes capable of appreciating the constancies and develops the concept of volume but thinking is still limited in some respects.

(iv) Formal operations stage:

Formal operations stage, (from 12 years through adulthood) in which the child develops the ability to ponder and deliberate on various alternatives, and begins to approach the problem situation in a truly systematic manner.

(b) Psychosocial development:

‘Identity’ and its precedents in development are the backbone of Erikson’s psychological developmental theory. Erikson’s theory is basically an amplification of Freud’s classical psychoanalytic theory of human development. However, Erikson lays more stress on the social than the biological features in the process of development. This theory is more humanistic and optimistic, and emphasizes the importance of ‘ego’ rather than ‘id’.

Erikson postulated eight stages of development, placing more importance on adolescence (Table 28.2).

His concept of identity crises has been recog­nised in all the countries faced with racial, national, personal and professional problems.

Psychodynamic Model :

Recent psychodynamic model focuses on adolescent development under various dimensions

Learning Model :

Learning theory has long played an important role in understanding of human behaviour. Three major learning paradigms are: classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. The concepts of generalization and discrimination illustrate how learning theory can account for individuality of response styles and behaviour.

Phenomenological Model :

There are different schools of approach, including the phenomenological one.

Developmental Phases of Adolescence :

I. Early Adolescence :

Early adolescence is probably the most stressful of all developmental transitions. It is generally acknowledged that within the years of age from 11 to 15, a period of rapid and drastic biological change will be experienced.

The dominant themes of early adolescence are related to the endocrine changes of puberty. There are biological changes in virtually every system of the body, including height, facial contours, fat distribution, muscular development, mood changes, and energy levels.

Early adolescence is a time of sharpest possible discontinuity with the past.

There are two major psychosocial challenges that confront early adolescents:

(1) the transition from elementary to junior high school and

(2) the shift in role status from child to adolescent.

A useful distinction has been made between “hot” and “cold” cognitions. Hot cognitions are those that are highly charged with emotion and are involved in matters of perceived threat or in situations in which cherished goals or values are in conflict or jeopardy.

There is preoccupation with body image, with deep concerns about the normality, attractiveness, and vulnerability of the changing body. Superimposed are the challenges of entry into the new social world of the high school that pose new academic and personal challenges, especially regarding friendships. The early adolescents begin to search for new behaviours, values, and reference persons and to renegotiate relationships with parents. At this time they are particularly receptive to new ideas and risk taking.

II. Middle Adolescence :

It generally encompasses the ages 15 to 17.

The middle adolescents are capable of generalizations, abstract thinking and useful introspections that can be linked to experience. As a result there is less response simply to the novel, exotic, or contradictory aspects of the environment.

The anxious bodily preoccupations of early adolescence have greatly diminished. The power of peer pressure is lessened and more differentiated judgments can now be exercised in seeking and establishing close friendship ties.

The provocative rebelliousness of the early adolescent is no longer prominent. The middle adolescent is beginning to orient more to the larger society and to learn about and to question the workings of society, politics, and government.

III. Late Adolescence :

The ages represented are 17 years through the early 20s. It represents a definitive working through of the recurrent themes of body image, autonomy, achievement, intimacy, and sense of self that, when integrated, come to embody the sense of identity.

Although there may not be a work commitment, it is a time of thoughtful educational and vocational choices that will lead to eventual economic viability. The challenge of intimacy and the establishment of a stable, mature, committed intimate relationship is perceived as critical challenge.

Essay # 4. Factors Influencing Development during Adolescence:

I. Genetic Factors :

Leaving aside major diseases clearly transmitted by genes, such as Huntington’s chorea.

Genetic influences in psychiatry are characterised by:

(a) the inheritance of traits or tendencies rather than specific abnormalities,

(b) polygenic inheritance, that is to say more than one gene being influential,

(c) the concept of threshold effects (i.e., the presence of particular genes does not mean that the characteristic they represent will be exhibited).

II. Neurological Factors :

Brain Damage:

Various degrees of injury to the brain.

Mental Retardation:

Various degrees of intellectual deficit and general mental handicap.

This may or may not be associated with brain damage, mental handicap and psychiatric problems.

Neurological disorder:

Brain disorder, including neurodegenerative disorders.

III. Constitutional and Temperamental Factors :

If by personality, it is meant that more or less characteristic, coherent and enduring set of ways of thinking and behaving that develop through childhood and adolescence, then by constitution it means those inherited (genetic) and acquired physiological qualities that underlie personality.

IV. Family and Social Influences:

(a) Attachment, separation and loss:

Early experience of disrupted or discordant family relationships, or lack of parental affection, increases the incidence of emotional and personality problems later.

(b) Parental care and control:

It is the extremes of parental behaviour, e.g. excessive permissiveness, negligence, over-protectiveness and rigid discipline which tend to be associated with many of the problems in child and adolescent development.

The parental behaviours often associated with adolescent disturbance, and which when modified can help put things right include:

1. Lack of confidence about being adult and weakness at limit-setting;

2. Parental and marital distress;

3. Inability to provide the model of a reasonably competent adult who enjoys life;

4. Difficulty in maintaining appropriate roles and boundaries;

5. Difficulty in getting the balance right between being too protective and intrusive on the one hand or negligent and uninterested on the other;

6. Giving in too readily to adolescent demands, on the one hand, or not listening to the adolescent’s point of view on the other;

7. Becoming so upset by adolescent demands that the parent becomes childishly angry and vulnerable.

(c) Parental mental disorder:

In clinical practice, parental mental illness can have impact in three main ways:

(1) When it has been a feature of family life and interacting with the child’s problems for several years past;

(2) When it interferes with the developmental tasks of adolescence, for example when a depressed parent is thereby too vulnerable to the adolescent’s challenges; and

(3) When it interferes with treatment.

(d) Parental criminal behaviour

There is a strong association between delinquency in the child and criminality in the parent, and where both parents are criminal, the association is even stronger.

Again, poor parenting skills and family discord may be important linking factors. Modelling may be another factor.

(e) Family size and structure:

Children from large families (more than 5 children) tend to show a greater incidence of conduct problems, delinquency, lower verbal intelligence and lower reading attainment.

(f) Family patterns of behaviour:

Confused or conflicting communication in families, problems in resolving arguments or making decisions, and the generation of high levels of tension do seem to be associated with child disturbance in general.

(g) Adoption, fostering and institutional care:

There is an increased rate of psychiatric disorder among adopted children, with conduct disorder among adopted boys being most prominent.

Institutional care, the placement of children and adolescents in children’s homes, is associated with a higher rate of disturbance than in the general population.

(h) The effects of schools:

Wolkind and Rutter have listed features of schools which have a positive effect on their pupils: high expectations for work and behaviour; good models of behaviour from teachers; respect for the children, with opportunities for them to take responsibilities in the school; good discipline, with appropriate praise and encouragement and sparing use of punishment; a pleasant working environment with good teacher-pupil relationships; and a good organizational structure that enables staff to work together with agreed academic and other goals.

(i) Social and transcultural influences:

Life in inner city areas seems in general to increase the rate of behaviour problems compared with small towns and rural areas. Similar influences, plus and effects on the family of immigration and unemployment and prejudice affect adolescents. Unemployment among adolescents is associated with an increase in psychiatric problems.

The effects of film and television violence have now being widely studied. There seems to be a modelling and imitative effect, particularly in younger children and among adolescents who already show conduct problems and delinquency.

Assessment:

Assessment in adolescent psychiatry requires a far wider appraisal of who is concerned about what, and who is in a position to help, than the traditional clinical diagnosis can possibly provide. See Table 28.3.

Prevalence of Disorders in the Community :

The prevalence of adolescent disorder in the community varies from place to place and with age, and depends on the criteria used. The figures given vary between around 10 and 25%. The lower end of the range is associated with younger adolescents with recognised (i.e., known to adults) psychiatric problem in more rural or sub-urban areas, and the upper figures are associated with older adolescents, with industrial and inner-city areas and with the inclusion of problems not so evident to parents and teachers.

Disorders seen in clinical practice :

Table 28.4 is a composite picture of the types of disorder likely to be seen in general psychiatric service for adolescents, and is based on data drawn from several accounts.

(a) Clinical diagnostic categories (in approximate order of frequency) :

Mood disorders:

Emotional or mixed emotional/ contact disorders, or adult-type anxiety or depressive disorders, including obsessive compulsive phobic state.

Conduct Disorders:

Hysterical disorders e.g., with paralysis and serious self-neglect.

Problems of personality development with mood and/or conduct problems, including ‘borderline’ and schizoid personality disorders, and problems of sexual identity.

Schizophrenic, Schizoaffective and affective (manic-depressive) psychoses.

Brain disorder, including epilepsy, and neurodegenerative disorder.

Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, enuresis, encopresis, and tics

(b) Changes in prevalence with age and sex:

The overall pattern seems to be a gradually increasing prevalence of psychiatric disorder from around 10% in children through 10 to 15% in mid- adolescence to around 20% in adulthood although some studies report a peak of about 20% being reached in adolescence.

In adolescence, enuresis and encopresis are less common than in earlier childhood. Hyperactivity presents less often, but children who have been hyperactive in earlier childhood sometimes present in adolescence with behavioural and other social problems.

In earlier childhood, equal numbers of girls and boys are affected by emotional disorders. In adolescence, however, as in adult life, more girls than boys are affected.

Delinquency increases markedly in adolescence and declines from early adulthood onwards.

Essay # 5. Developmental Psychopathology during the Period of Adolescence :

(a) Mood Fluctuations and Misery :

The general observation that adolescents experience a greater fluctuation of mood that adults has been demonstrated rather consistently. The feelings of transient misery and sadness reported by adolescents can be explained by several bases.

The Offer Self-image Questionnaire, administered to thousands of adolescents from 1962-1980, showed a significant upward shift of scores of depressive mood from the 1960’s to the 1970’s for both boys and girls.

Although relationships with parents may remain intact, the security experienced by identifying with the idealized parental image is sacrificed as the youth moves toward development of a separate identity.

Eventually, with the synthesis of these different value systems, the adolescent’s behaviour takes on an increasingly external and internal consistency. The wide array of conflicting societal values in regard to a youth’s engaging in sex becoming pregnant, having an abortion, bearing a child, or participating in homosexual behaviour provides numerous opportunities for remorse.

An additional factor that may draw the adolescent to a sexual relationship inspite of conflicting values is the relative emotional void produced as some distance is gained from the parent.

Among the adolescents these kinds of temporary setbacks may lead to an array of behaviours that erroneously have been termed clinical depression. These include a hypersensitivity and irritability, with a proneness to overreact to criticism. At times the adolescent may “tune out” temporarily and withdraw into a position of apathy and indifference.

At times there is a propensity to move from a passive to an active position in response to feelings of helplessness, and the adolescent may take provocative positions that elicit a punitive response from his environment. This punishment may provide a welcome relief from an immature harsh superego. For many clinicians such behaviour is summarised as adolescent turmoil.

However, the steeply rising suicide rates and the high prevalence of true adolescent depression is particularly poignant and of deep concern. It is estimated that there are 100 suicide attempts for every completed suicide. Surveys reveal that 8% to 10% of all adolescents report suicidal feelings.

(b) Sexual and Adolescent Pregnancy:

The recent significant rise in level of sexual activity among adolescents and the trend toward increasingly younger ages of initiation is well documented.

Clear documentation exists as to the biological and psychosocial risk to both mother and child in adolescent pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. The obstetrics complications, high rates of infant mortality, and perinatal morbidity have been well described. Similarly, there is excellent documen­tation for the social isolation, inadequate parenting skills, school drop-outs, repeat pregnancy, and chronic poverty that characterises these mothers.

(c) Developmental Issues in Drug Abuse:

If the drugs are used as a way to avoid tension and if this is done chronically, the youth’s capacity to tolerate tension and to gain in ego strength by working through stressful situations will be under developed. Drugs may thus have long term effects on important areas of ego functioning that are ordinarily developed during adolescence.

The problem behaviours of youth that are highly interrelated with regular drug use include delinquency, alcoholism, decreased school motivation and achievement, drug abuse and teenage pregnancy.

The factors associated with drug abuse can be divided into three categories:

(1) Personality factors;

(2) Social or interpersonal factors; and

(3) Sociocultural or Environmental factors.

Personal factors include an emphasis on unconventionality, rebelliousness, high risk taking, low value on achievement, and high value on autonomy. Social or interpersonal factors include alienation from parents, high influence from peers involved in problem behaviours, and little involvement in religious activities. Sociocultural factors include low social controls, disorganized environment and permissive values.

(d) Impact of Chronic Illness on Development:

During puberty, chronic illness of childhood is re-experienced as a distinct and significant adolescent phenomenon. With the major bodily changes of early adolescence and the concomitant free occupation with body image a long term illness is repraised and becomes a threat to body integrity and self-concept.

During a period typically characterized by developmental urges toward independence, the stress of illness can led to exaggerated wishes for dependence, security and nurturance on the one hand or led to denial and hyper independent, rebellious and non-compliant risk taking behaviour on the other hand. Overprotectiveness of concerned parents can aggravate any or all of these conflicts. Chronic illness may actually delay the onset of puberty.

(e) Parent-adolescent estrangement and social alienation:

Hostility and conflict with parents or substitute caregivers is a frequent presenting feature of adolescent disturbance. Parents may complain about the adolescent’s expressions of anger and defiance of unmanageable behaviour. Angry outbursts and temper tantrums occur frequently in young adolescents coping for the first time with biological changes and increasing academic and family responsibilities.

Psychiatrically disturbed adolescents, however, are likely to be involved in chronic conflict with parents who, in turn, may display psychopathology in relationships with their children, marital discord or personal psychiatric disorder.

Conflict and defiance may extend to such a serious level that there is a complete breakdown of trust and communication with parents.

(f) Anti-authority and antisocial behaviour:

Antisocial behaviour in adolescents may have arisen initially in this age-period or have continued from childhood.

Shoplifting, vandalizing public property, or spraying graffiti may occur transiently in groups of discontended teenagers who are not established delinquents.

(g) Problems in School:

The most common manifestations of adolescent disturbance in school are: disenchantment with conventional education often leading to truancy and showing other evidence of antisocial activity and conduct disorder. School refusal, usually associated with other signs of emotional disorder. Academic problems including examination anxiety, difficulties with study and academic under achievement; and disruptive behaviour, with negative attitudes towards the staff, conformity problems, bullying and association with delinquent peers.

Therapeutic Approach to Adolescent Disturbance:

Although there may be little scope or necessity for active psychiatric treatment, systematic management of interpersonal, social, educational, legal and ethical problems may be necessary and can be challenging and time consuming. These aspects of management call for full multi-disciplinary teamwork, consultation with other professionals and carefully integrated planning.

Hospitalisation and Residential Care:

Great care needs to be exercised in using residential resources, in view of the implications for adolescents of separation from home and the limited nature of residential provisions.

Psychiatric in-patient hospital treatment:

Steinberg et al have distinguished six needs to related to requests for admission, comprising the need for further work to be done with adults already involved for detailed educational reappraisal, for proper care and control, for physical containment, for an emergency safe place, for psychiatric assessment and treatment.

The role of the multidisciplinary staff and their deployment in treatment should be directed towards vigorous, short-term intervention minimizing the problems of institutionalization.

Non-psychiatric residential care of adolescents:

Disturbed adolescents may be placed in a miscellany of settings in addition to facilities administered by the National Health Service, including: schools and units for maladjusted children; independent boarding schools; children’s homes run by social service and voluntary agencies; observation and assessment centers; community homes with education, remand homes, detention centers, and borstals.

Therapeutic Work with Adolescents:

Apart from the use of antidepressant drugs in carefully selected cases of depressive disorder, the occasional use of lithium in affective psychoses and major tranquillizers in psychotic states, most adolescent disturbances can be managed without psychotropic medication.

Acute disturbance as part of personality disorder or other nonpsychotic states may warrant the use of major tranquillizers at the time of crisis, but they should not be relied upon for long term behavioural control. Hypnotics and minor tranquillizers of the Benzodiazepine group are rarely indicated and particular caution should be exercised in their prescription, in view of the scale of self- poisoning in adolescents.

The most frequent forms of individual interven­tion are psychotherapeutic, including behavioural techniques.

Supportive counselling, with an explicit educa­tional component, may be indicated in the treatment.

Parental and family work:

Some form of specific work with the parents or families of disturbed adolescents is usually required and it may be an advantage to allocate a therapist to work chiefly with them.

Most adolescents are likely to accept that family sessions are an appropriate medium for dealing with issues that are public in the sense, that they impinge on all family members.

School liaison:

Information from the school or school psycholo­gical service may be essential in assessment and planned liaison about aspects of management may be useful therapeutically, as well as providing a way of monitoring progress.

Legal Aspects of Care and Community Services :

The adolescent psychiatrist needs to be familiar with all the legislation that affects adolescent patient care. In particular, it is important to be aware of the various forms of disposal for young offenders.

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Home • Teen • Development

11 Common Problems Of Adolescence, And Their Solutions

Their issues are real. Do lend an ear and hold their hands.

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Adolescence is a phase when children go through several changes as they journey from childhood to maturity. It is also a vulnerable time for children since they may experience several problems of adolescence, such as unhealthy behaviors, which may lead to significant problems later in life. Concerns about adolescent behavior are also common during this time, making it difficult for parents to connect with their children.

Continue reading to learn about common adolescent issues and how you can help your children avoid or overcome them.

How To Deal With Common Problems Of Adolescence

Dr. Theodore Kremer, a board-certified pediatrician from St Louis, Missouri, says, “ There are many factors that affect adolescents, including physical, emotional, cognitive, and social changes that occur during puberty. The physical changes often cause curiosity and anxiety, and affect self-esteem. The social factors increase their quest for independence. Changes in the brain’s frontal lobe cause adolescents to think more abstractly and make complex decisions. Adolescents are often emotional due to hormonal changes during puberty. ”

Adolescence is not an easy time for children or parents. The only way to deal with needs and problems at this age is to know about them and be ready to face them. Parent-adolescent conflicts that cause insecure and unstable feelings have a linear association with pubertal maturity. Understanding and dealing with these conflicts positively could help your child be more responsible and social (1) . Here is our list of the most common problems, and their solutions that adolescents have to deal with.

1. Physical changes

Physical changes happen due to changes in the teenager’s hormone levels.

• Development of full breasts in girls can be awkward in the beginning. Girls may start to feel conscious about their figure.
• Change of voice and appearance of facial hair in boys is perhaps the most prominent change that takes place during adolescence.
• Acne is one of the major problems.
• Muscle gain sometimes leads to excessive body weight in teens.
• The growth of pubic hair in girls and boys.
• Body odor becomes evident.
• Girls start their periods.

The best way you can help your teenager get through the stage is to make them aware of these changes.

• Explain that it is normal for the body to change as every teenager goes through it!
• Help them adapt to these changes – acknowledge the change and help them accept it.
• Enable them to stay healthy and fit through a nutritious diet and exercise.

2. Emotional changes and problems

Hormones affect your teenager not only physically but also emotionally.

• Adolescence is the age between adulthood and childhood. Teenagers are often confused about their role and are torn between their responsibilities as growing adults and their desires as children . It is a time when young people may experience an identity crisis as they grapple with questions about who they are, who they want to be, and how they fit into the world around them.
• They tend to feel overly emotional (blame it on the hormones). Just about anything and everything can make them happy, excited, mad or angry.
• Adolescent girls are vulnerable to crying.
• Mood swings are common among teenage boys and girls.
• Bodily changes result in self-consciousness.
• Children who hit puberty early may even feel weird.
• Feelings of inferiority or superiority may arise at this time.
• Adolescence is the age when sexual feelings arise in youngsters. Feelings and thoughts about sex can trigger a sense of guilt.

Puberty can be an emotional roller-coaster ride. And it is normal. Here is how you can help your kid deal with these emotional problems of adolescence.

• Assist them to take care of themselves. Tell your teenagers that it is okay to feel the way they are feeling.
• Encourage them to exercise as physical activity helps keep the serotonin i A chemical that conveys messages throughout the body and influences bodily processes, including nausea, digestion, mood, and sleep (creates good feelings and happiness) levels up.
• Let them talk. Listen to them without judging and avoid giving them advice when they are not ready for it.
• Share your experiences of puberty or let them talk to an older sibling who has gone through the same. It will emphasize that it is okay to feel the way they do.
• Indulging in a creative activity can help them channelize their emotions.

Sharing his thoughts on bonding with his teenagers, Tim Dahi, a father, remarks, “I have set some technology boundaries like device-free meal times, which they, of course, resisted, but the tradition gradually took hold. I did other things, too, like familiarizing myself with some of their interests to get a better understanding of their lives. I’ve found new conversation starters, but some discussions remain strained due to the generation gap ( ⅰ ).’’

3. Behavioral changes

Overwhelming emotions can lead to impulsive behavior, which can be harmful to your child as well as others. Mostly, it is just teen behavior that will last as long as their adolescence.

• Adolescence is the time when children develop and exercise their independence, which can sometimes lead to rebellion. This can give rise to questioning the parents’ rules (seen as argumentative) and standing up for what they believe is right (seen as stubbornness).
• Significant developmental change in the brain makes teens moody, tired and difficult to deal with.
• The raging hormones in teenage boys can even push them to get into physical confrontations. They would also want to listen to loud music.
• As a part of their new-found independence, adolescents may also want to try new things and take risks, resulting in careless behavior.
• Sometimes, peer pressure and the need to ‘fit in’ can make them behave in a certain way or develop certain habits that are hard to break.
• Your teen’s dressing, hairstyle, and sense of fashion also change, mostly to something that you may not approve of.
• The most troubling behavior is perhaps your teen hanging out with problem children and adapting to a dangerous lifestyle.
• Lying is one of the common teen behavioral issues. Teens may lie to avoid confrontation with parents or out of fear.
• Behavioral problems in adolescence can make life difficult for parents. But remember that it is a passing phase, and is entirely normal.
• Gaining your child’s trust is important if you want to help them with behavioral issues. Talk to them and listen to what they have to say. Do not judge or criticize them, as it could worsen their behavior.
• Let them know that you love them just as they are. Encourage them to be true to themselves and not take on a personality just to please others.
• Remember that your adolescent child is not completely independent in dealing with their emotions and needs your support. Help them by telling them what you do when you feel sad, angry, jealous, etc. They can try those solutions to come out of their own emotional issues.
• You will have to intervene if you see them falling into bad company. Remember that adolescents are sensitive and may not take criticism well.

4. Substance Use and Abuse

Teenagers are vulnerable and can be easily swayed to the wrong side. Substance abuse is one of the biggest problems that parents of adolescents around the world have to deal with.

• Peer influence is one of the significant factors that drive adolescents to take up smoking and drinking or to do drugs.
• The tendency to take risk encourages most teens to try smoking or drinking even before they are of legal age.
• What may start as a ‘thrill’, can become a habit if it remains unchecked.
• If there is somebody who smokes or drinks at home, they can become your teen’s role models.
• Poor self-esteem and the need to be ‘cool’ can push adolescents to smoke or drink.
• Easy access to substances like cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and anabolic steroids i Synthetic forms of the male sex hormone testosterone used to treat hormonal issues and delayed puberty may increase the temptation to try illicit substances.

The 2019 statistics, as per The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , report 29.2% alcohol use, 21.7% marijuana use, 13.7% binge drinking, and 7.2% prescription opioid misuse. These figures highlight the need for expansion of prevention programs and practices to effectively address teenage substance abuse.

• Keep an eye on your child’s behavior. Look for erratic behavior and change in their appetite, sleep patterns, and moods.
• Do not spy on them or accuse them of any wrongdoing. Encourage them to talk and be honest. Tell them what your concerns are and discuss the problem with them.
• If your child is not willing to talk to you, the doctors can ask confidential questions to know if they are abusing any substances. Avoid going as far as a drug test, as that may come across as confrontational and threaten the child.
• If necessary, get your adolescent the appropriate treatment.

5. Educational challenges

High school is not all about fashion, friends, and parties. Children also have a lot of educational activities on their plate. Dr. Kremer opines, “ Adolescents often find academics challenging due to their struggle for independence during a critical time of brain development. Adolescents often want to be independent and do not want parents to remind them about completing their assignments. Their brain is changing in a way that allows them to go from concrete to abstract thinking, which can often cause them to make poor academic choices. Adolescents often develop their set of values and unfortunately, some adolescents don’t make academics a priority. ”

• Academic pressure to excel in their studies and secure a spot in college can be a significant source of stress for teenagers, often leading to moodiness.
• Juggling school work, extra-curricular activities (must for college admissions) and chores at home can be tiring.
• Distractions at school can result in poor academic performance, which will add to the pressure.
• Support your child’s aspirations for college education as what they need is the encouragement to do well.
• You could cut down their household chores to enable them to focus on their school projects when needed.
• Nutrition and exercise can help them get the strength and endurance they need to get through the hectic high school period.
• If you notice that your child is experiencing academic stress and feeling overwhelmed with their daily activities, it may be helpful to reduce the number of tasks they are expected to complete. Adolescents have not yet fully developed their lung capacity, and therefore may tire more quickly than adults.

6. Health problems

Adolescents are vulnerable emotionally and physically. Without proper nutrition and healthcare, they are susceptible to illnesses. According to a 2015 WHO report, 1.3 million adolescents died in 2015, a majority of them had preventable diseases.

• Teenagers have a hectic schedule as they hop from one activity to another with little time to eat or rest properly. Unhealthy eating habits prevent them from getting the nutrition they need.
• Consciousness about their body can lead to eating disorders, especially in girls. Adolescent girls who worry about their weight and appearance can develop disorders like anorexia i An eating disorder characterized by severe food restriction and an intense fear of putting on weight or bulimia i An eating disorder that allows you to quickly overeat and purge the food by vomiting or using laxatives .
• Stress can also lead to loss of appetite and sleeplessness in young children.
• Unhealthy eating habits and a less active lifestyle could also lead to obesity – this is often the case when your child consumes a lot of empty calories through fast food and sodas.

Parental guidance can help abate health problems in adolescence to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Lead by example and encourage your children to eat healthy food, exercise right and sleep on time.

• Ensure they get nutrition through their meals. Give them a balanced diet.
• Be there for them emotionally and physically as this will help them deal with any possible disorders.

7. Psychological problems

Research has revealed that around 50% of mental health disorders that adults have, begin at the age of 14. In fact, one-third of adolescent deaths are suicides triggered by depression (4) . If your child is overly moody and is not eating or sleeping at all, it is imperative you get professional help for them.

Anxiety and depression are prevalent among youth. Many children exhibit signs and symptoms of depression early on, and their friends and peers may be the first to notice it. A study suggests that 70% of teens reported that their peers suffer from psychological problems such as anxiety and depression (8)

US teenagers report anxiety and depression as major problems in their peers

The most common mental health disorders observed during adolescence are anxiety and mood disorders. Social phobias and panic disorders are common among this age group. Girls may tend to have more vulnerability to develop depressive disorders than boys (5) .

• Teenagers may have self-esteem or confidence issues. The feelings of inferiority or superiority often arise from their appearance, and acceptance of their body – skin color, beauty, and figure.
• Poor performance in academics and low IQ can also demotivate them. They develop the ‘I’m not good enough’ attitude towards life.
• Depression is one of the common psychological problems associated with adolescence.
• The stress and pressure of adolescence can create anxiety related issues, while mood swings can lead to conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder.
• Eating disorders are also psychosomatic i The onset of physical symptoms without a known medical reason or influenced by psychological factors as they start with the adolescent having a poor self-image and the need to change the way they look by any means.

While moodiness and temper tantrums are normal in teenage girls and boys, they may not always be what they seem. Identifying symptoms of psychological problems in adolescence is not easy and needs the eye of an expert.

• Most of the time, talking about the problems and maintaining a healthy lifestyle can prevent the onset of depression.
• If your child is overly moody and cynical, it is time to intervene and seek professional help if necessary.
• Sometimes, your teenage girl or boy may be unhappy only at home, and doing fine outside. Talk to the child’s teachers and friends to know if they are moody and disoriented at school as well. If they are, then it is a cause for concern.
• Do not brush away their feelings, as that can make things worse.
• Encourage them to communicate with you. For this, you need to talk to them. If you think your child would not take it easy, talk to them in the car where the chances of confrontation are fewer as you are not face-to-face.

8. Social problems – dating and relationships

Attraction to the opposite sex begins during puberty, and for some teens, this can trigger feelings of social anxiety. Adolescence is the time when their sexual or reproductive organs start developing. At such a vulnerable time, it is but natural for teens to feel awkward in social situations.

• Teenagers want to have an identity of their own. They tend to look up to role models at home or outside.
• Adolescents also start thinking about what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and question your take on certain things.
• They need time to understand and get comfortable with their sexuality. Girls and boys start experiencing ‘weird’ feelings towards the other sex and may not know what to do about it.
• For certain adolescents, their sexual identity can cause confusion, anxiety, and discrimination. Due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, they may face harassment or ostracism, which can be incredibly challenging to navigate.
• This is the time they start dating. Your adolescent may not be comfortable talking to you about it and may go with little information or misinformation they have about it.
• Competition is another important aspect of a teenager’s social life. Your child may compete with her peers in anything and everything. Their spirit of competition speaks a lot about their perception of self – whether they have a positive self-esteem or a negative one.
• Sexual feelings and thoughts of sex may seem wrong to an adolescent, because of which they may feel guilty.
• Their social circle expands during this time as they seem occupied interacting with friends on social media sites, through their phone and outside.

Here is how you can deal with social problems of adolescence –

• Dating, romance, and sex are delicate issues that your teenager may not be comfortable talking about. Don’t make it more awkward for your child. Be confident and rational when discussing the subject.
• Your child may seem to spend more time outside than with you. Accept that your adolescents are discovering a whole new world. Just let them know you are there when they need you.
• Sharing your dating and social life experiences in school can put them at ease sometimes.

9. Sexual health – unplanned pregnancy and STIs

The development of secondary sexual characteristics during adolescence gives rise to new feelings in teenagers and pushes them to experiment with their bodies.

• Adolescence is the time when teens experience their first kiss, the intimate dance with their ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ and secret make out sessions.
• Without proper guidance, teenagers may become sexually active before they are ready. This could result in unwanted pregnancies. Unwanted pregnancy is the biggest risk that adolescent girls face.
• Unprotected sex can also lead to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV.
• Have ‘the talk’ with your child as they may already be learning about sexual health and reproduction at school. Your duty as a parent is to ensure that they understand the importance of safe sex.
• The hormonal changes in teenagers may make them act impulsively. Your teen may not like it but it is important that you talk to them about the consequences of unprotected sex and how it can change their life.
• Awareness is the only way to prevent early pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in adolescents.

10. Addiction to cyberspace

The advent of social media has changed the way we interact with each other. It has affected teenage lifestyles the most.

• Your teen may seem to spend hours on phone, texting, talking or simply playing.
• Adolescents addicted to the internet tend to have fewer friends and a less active social life. They lead solitary lives and are happy browsing the internet for hours. (6)
• Addiction to cyberspace also cuts short their physical activities, resulting in an unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle.
• Internet addiction adversely impacts academic performance.
• Do not assume that your child is addicted to the internet just because he or she spends a lot of time in front of the computer. They could be doing more productive things on the system other than surfing the net.
• Do not say ‘no’ to the Internet. That will only make them adamant. Instead, talk about your concerns and help them work on other things that do not require a computer.
• You could use parental controls , but that may not be taken well by your teen – remember that they are not kids anymore. At the same time, they may also not have the judgment to make the right choices. So guide them as a parent, but never decide for them.
• Enroll them in activities that encourage them to interact with others. Have family activities that will make them want to spend less time at the computer.
• Have some cyber rules and boundaries for everybody at home. Limit the use of the mobile phone to a few hours in a day, and avoid bringing the phone to the bedroom as it is likely to affect a person’s sleep.

11. Aggression and violence

Aggression is especially a concern with adolescent boys. Young boys start to develop muscles, grow tall and have a coarser, manly voice. In addition to that, they are moody and vulnerable and can let others get under their skin.

• Adolescent boys can get into fights at school.
• Worse, they could start bullying others, which is a major problem that adolescent boys and girls have to deal with.
• Boys may fall into bad company and be drawn to acts of violence, vandalism, and aggression. They could be easily swayed to own or use a firearm or a weapon too.
• Impulse acts of violence can lead to serious consequences, including death. According to the WHO report, interpersonal violence causes around 180 adolescent deaths around the world.
• Teenage girls are likely to suffer violence or aggression by a partner.

Children tend to imitate what they see at home. The following remedies for problems of adolescence will help abate aggression, violence and related issues.

• Teach your children to be kind and considerate. Nurturing relationships at home can help them become less aggressive.
• Prevent access to firearms and alcohol early to prevent violence.
• Teach them life skills and the importance of compassion. Lead them by being their model.
• Avoid exposing them to violent stories, games or movies at an age when they cannot differentiate between what is right and wrong.
• Make them try alternative ways, such as going for a run, doing yoga or using a punch bag, for venting out their anger. This way, they understand that it is alright to be angry but how they deal with it makes all the difference.

When You Know, You Can Help

Parents play an important role in adolescents’ behavior development (7) . Educating your teen about possible problems and their solutions can have a positive impact. Understanding their feelings and giving suggestions could reduce family conflicts than being judgmental or rude to them.

Setting up clear rules on bad behaviors and drug use may help your teen stay away from it. Establishing good and friendly communication with your child can encourage them to speak up about their issues to you and seek your help.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can parents help their adolescent children deal with identity issues?

Parents may help adolescents improve their self-awareness by identifying their likes, dislikes, negative past experiences, feelings about themselves, and strengths. They may also help children identify their emotions (sadness, frustration, confusion, or anger) and let them know that venting their feelings is okay (8) .

2. What are some common communication problems between parents and adolescents?

Parental criticism worsens communication, and it is advisable to reach conclusions together after a thorough discussion with children. Another communication problem is that adolescents may find it difficult to freely express feelings and perspectives, causing them to engage in autonomous behaviors without their parent’s approval (9) . In such cases, it is essential to interact with the adolescent calmly without being judgemental.

Infographic: How To Deal With Common Problems Of Adolescence

Illustration: Momjunction Design Team

Key Pointers

• The course of change during adolescence can have negative impacts on mental health, leading to anxiety, depression, and self-harm.
• Do not brush away their problems but talk to them.
• Puberty can lead to physical complexities and low self-esteem for adolescents.
• Explain about the physical changes and tell them how natural they are.
• Adolescents also face new social challenges, such as making friends, fitting in, and forming romantic relationships.
• Address the delicate subject of relationships and dating at the appropriate time with the right examples from your own life.

You may have been a teenager yourself. But once you become a parent to a teen, you seem clueless. Think about it – your adolescent is at an age that you have already been through. Be empathetic and try to understand what your child is going through. That makes dealing with their problems easier.

Personal Experience: Source

MomJunction articles include first-hand experiences to provide you with better insights through real-life narratives. Here are the sources of personal accounts referenced in this article.

1. Brett Laursen, et al.; Reconsidering Changes in Parent-Child Conflict across Adolescence: A Meta-Analysis ; The United States National Library of Medicine 2. 13.3: Physical Changes in Adolescence 3. Use of Tobacco Products, Alcohol, and Other Substances Among High School Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic — Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey, United States, January–June 2021 4. Adolescents: health risks and solutions ; The World Health Organization 5. Susan J Bradley; Anxiety and mood disorders in children and adolescents : A practice update; The United States National Library of Medicine 6. Hing Keung Ma; Internet Addiction and Antisocial Internet Behavior of Adolescents ; The United States National Library of Medicine 7. Parents play an important role in shaping adolescent’s behavior ; Kansas State University 8. Identity Issues ; AppState 7. Teenagers and Communication ; Better Health Channel 8. Most U.S. Teens See Anxiety and Depression as a Major Problem Among Their Peers ; Pew Research Center

• Fact-checker

Michelle Bowyer MSWQ

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Genetics, environment and health disparities linked to increased stress and mental health challenges during adolescence

by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

A new study from researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) reveals that the cumulative "wear and tear" on the body known as allostatic load (AL) can be measured in early adolescence and that childhood adversity correlates with increased stress and mental health challenges during adolescence. The findings were published today in the journal Nature Mental Health .

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, children and teens have experienced an influx of behavioral health challenges. Driven by CHOP's strong commitment to addressing the pediatric mental health crisis, researchers aimed to quantify how the exposome, environmental exposure , "gets under the skin" and affects physiological systems and mental health, further testing how differences in exposome can explain health disparities. The authors further tested gene-environment mechanisms that lead to AL, with the idea that better understanding how stress influences physical and mental health could potentially improve prevention and intervention strategies.

"The collective wisdom has been that if you are chronically exposed to stress, your body pays a price, but that it happens over time," said Ran Barzilay, MD, Ph.D., psychiatrist with the Youth Suicide Prevention, Intervention and Research Center at CHOP and the study's lead author. "Our data shows that while less developed, we can quantify AL in adolescents as young as 12 years old and link it to childhood adversity and inequity."

In the study, conducted by Kevin Hoffman, MD, Ph.D., a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at CHOP, the research team analyzed data of more than 5,000 diverse youth, averaging 12 years old, from the longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. They calculated a latent AL score using body mass index , waist circumference , blood pressure , blood hemoglobin-A1C, blood cholesterol, and salivary dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) hormonal levels.

Childhood exposomic risk was determined by reviewing their environment before age 11 through lifestyle factors like diet, exposure to abuse, poverty, and pollutants. Genetic risk was quantified by using polygenic risk scores for metabolic issues, such as type 2 diabetes (T2D), and psychiatric conditions such as major depressive disorder (MDD).

Using linear mixed-effects models, researchers evaluated the interplay between exposomic and polygenic risks and their impact on AL. Overall, they found that an association between childhood environmental exposures and adolescent AL was stronger in individuals with higher genetic risk of T2D and MDD. The study also showed that environmental factors like childhood adversity, such as abuse, family dysfunction and poverty increased AL, which in turn influenced mental health outcomes in teens.

"The findings expand existing literature suggesting a mediating role of AL from childhood adversity to adult mental health and support the hypothesis that AL could be a mechanism that contributes to health disparities," Barzilay added. "Critically, we show evidence of disparities in AL at an early age, well before expected onset of many chronic medical illnesses."

For example, non-Hispanic white youth had significantly lower AL compared to Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black youth. Childhood environmental burdens, such as day-to-day challenges in the home and community were linked to higher AL in adolescence.

Given the severe health disparities in America, researchers hope the findings propel more studies in diverse populations, where AL measurements can improve their understanding of differences in pediatric health outcomes and related inequities.

"The future of mental health is precision medicine, which allows holistic understanding of how the individual and structural environment, and genes, contribute to health outcomes in early age, both from a physical and mental health perspective," said Barzilay.

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TikTok challenges U.S. ban in court, calling it unconstitutional

Bobby Allyn

TikTok's suit is in response to a law passed by Congress giving ByteDance up to a year to divest from TikTok and find a new buyer, or face a nationwide ban. Kiichiro Sato/AP hide caption

TikTok's suit is in response to a law passed by Congress giving ByteDance up to a year to divest from TikTok and find a new buyer, or face a nationwide ban.

TikTok and its parent company on Tuesday filed a legal challenge against the United States over a law that President Biden signed last month outlawing the app nationwide unless it finds a buyer within a year.

In the petition filed in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the company said the legislation exceeds the bounds of the constitution and suppresses the speech of millions of Americans.

"Banning TikTok is so obviously unconstitutional, in fact, that even the Act's sponsors recognized that reality, and therefore have tried mightily to depict the law not as a ban at all, but merely a regulation of TikTok's ownership," according to the filing.

The law, passed through Congress at lightning speed, which caught many inside TikTok off guard, is intended to force TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese company in nine months, with the possibility of a three month extension if a possible sale is in play.

Yet lawyers for TikTok say the law offers the company a false choice, since fully divesting from its parent company, ByteDance, is "simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally," the challenge states. "And certainly not on the 270-day timeline required by the Act."

Anupam Chander, a law professor at Georgetown University who specializes in technology regulations, said if TikTok loses this legal fight, it will likely shut down in the U.S.

"The problem for TikTok is that they have a parent company that has these obligation in China, but they're trying to live by free speech rules by the United States," Chander said in an interview. "The question is whether American courts will believe that that's even possible."

TikTok says law based on "speculative and analytically flawed concerns"

Lawmakers in Washington have long been suspicious of TikTok, fearing its Chinese owner could use the popular app to spy on Americans or spread dangerous disinformation.

But in the company's legal petition, lawyers for TikTok say invoking "national security" does not give the government a free pass to violate the First Amendment, especially, TikTok, argues, when no public evidence has been presented of the Chinese government using the app as a weapon against Americans.

Possible TikTok ban could be 'an extinction-level event' for the creator economy

According to the filing, the law is based on "speculative and analytically flawed concerns about data security and content manipulation — concerns that, even if grounded in fact, could be addressed through far less restrictive and more narrowly tailored means."

New DOJ Filing: TikTok's Owner Is 'A Mouthpiece' Of Chinese Communist Party

Constitutional scholars say there are few ways for the government to restrict speech in a way that would survive a legal challenge. One of those ways is if the government can demonstrate a national security risk. Also key, legal experts say, is the government showing the speech suppression was the least restrictive option on the table.

TikTok said Congress ignored less restrictive ways of addressing the government's national security concerns.

"If Congress can do this, it can circumvent the First Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down," the filing states. "And for TikTok, any such divestiture would disconnect Americans from the rest of the global community."

Since more than 90% of TikTok's users are outside of America, Georgetown's Chander said selling the U.S.-based app to a different owner would cannibalize its own business.

"You can't really create a TikTok U.S., while having a different company manage TikTok Canada," Chander said in an interview. "What you're doing essentially is creating a rival between two TikToks," he said. " It may be better to take your marbles out of the United States and hope to make money outside of the U.S., rather than sell it at a fire-sale price."

TikTok critics call app a 'spy balloon on your phone'

The filing sets off what could be the most important battle for TikTok. It has been fending off legal challenges to its existence since former President Trump first sought to ban the app through an executive order in the summer of 2020. That effort was blocked by federal courts.

Since then, Democrats and Republicans have shown a rare moment of unity around calls to pressure TikTok to sever its ties with ByteDance, the Beijing-based tech giant that owns the video-streaming app.

Trump's Ban On TikTok Suffers Another Legal Setback

Congress has never before passed legislation that could outright ban a wildly popular social media app, a gesture the U.S. government has criticized authoritarian nations for doing.

In the case of TikTok, however, lawmakers have called the app a "spy balloon on your phone," emphasizing how the Chinese government could gain access to the personal data of U.S. citizens.

Worries also persist in Washington that Beijing could influence the views of Americans by dictating what videos are boosted on the platform. That concern has only become heightened seven months before a presidential election.

Yet the fears so far indeed remain hypothetical.

There is no publicly available example of the Chinese government attempting to use TikTok as an espionage or data collection tool. And no proof that the Chinese government has ever had a hand over what TikTok's 170 million American users see every day on the app.

TikTok says it offers U.S. a plan that would shut app down if it violated agreement

TikTok, for its part, says it has invested $2 billion on a plan, dubbed Project Texas, to separate its U.S. operation from its Chinese parent company. It deleted all of Americans' data from foreign servers and relocated all of the data to servers on U.S. soil overseen by the Austin-based tech company Oracle.

While the plan was intended to build trust with U.S. lawmakers and users, reports surfaced showing that data was still moving between staff in California and Beijing.

In the filing on Tuesday, TikTok said it submitted an agreement to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which has been probing the app for five years, that would allow the U.S. to suspend TikTok if it violated terms set forth in a national security plan.

But, lawyers for TikTok say, the deal was swept aside, "in favor of the politically expedient and punitive approach," the petition states.

Mnuchin claims he will place a bid to buy TikTok, even though app is not for sale

Despite the new law giving TikTok the ultimatum of selling or being shut down, there are many questions around how the app could even be bought by another company or group of investors.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told NPR on Monday, he is planning to assemble a group of investors to try to purchase TikTok without the app's algorithm.

Mnuchin, who declined to answer additional questions, said in between sessions at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles that the proposal to buy the app is still in the works, but he would not say when it would be formally submitted.

One major obstacle in any possible sale of TikTok is a glaring problem: The app is not for sale.

TikTok Ban Averted: Trump Gives Oracle-Walmart Deal His 'Blessing'

Despite the new law in the U.S., ByteDance says it does not intend to let go of the service. Furthermore, winning the support of China would be necessary, and officials in Beijing are adamantly against any forced sale.

In 2020, amid the Trump administration's clamp down on the app, China added "content-recommendation algorithms" to its export-control list, effectively adding new regulations over how TikTok's all-powerful algorithm could ever be sold.

ByteDance, not TikTok, developed and controls the algorithm that determines what millions see on the app every day. The technology has become the envy of Silicon Valley, and no U.S. tech company has been able dislodge TikTok's firm hold on the short-form video market. Experts say key to its success is its highly engaging and hyper-personalized video-ranking algorithm.

The algorithm, which involves millions of lines of software code developed by thousands of engineers over many years, cannot be easily transferred to the U.S., even if China did allow it, TikTok's challenge states.

Lawyers for TikTok argue that "any severance [of the algorithm] would leave TikTok without access to the recommendation engine that has created a unique style and community that cannot be replicated on any other platform today."