Considering 4 Possible Stages of Adolescent Growth

Source: Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D.

While each experience of adolescence is individually unique, I believe that many changes and challenges are much the same for them all.

Usually beginning around ages 9 to 13 years, this eight- to 10-year coming-of-age passage we call "adolescence" transforms the child into a young adult. In the process, it creates much developmental work for the young person to accomplish and, thus, many youthful changes for parents to get used to.

For example, in general, the young person must

• increasingly separate from parents,
• differentiate from childhood,
• test and contest parental rule,
• form a family of friends,
• explore more worldly experience,
• experiment with more individuality,
• gather power of personal responsibility, and
• finally declare independence from family.

Now an awkward compromise must be struck. Respecting the growing youthful desire for more privacy, time with friends, and self-determination, parents must continue to provide family structure, supervision, and support on which the young person can still securely depend. A child's adolescence is challenging for parents. They must adjust expectations to accept how, to some degree, adolescence will change the child, the parent in response, and the old relationship between them as youthful independence and individuality increasingly grow them apart.

Missing Childhood

If the girl’s or boy’s childhood was particularly magical and close, come the young person’s adolescence, parents may suffer from feelings of loss—hence, some of the grief complaints they commonly express:

“I miss my best buddy!”

“I don’t know her as well!”

“We don’t feel as close!”

“We have less in common!”

"We live in separate worlds!”

“Friends matter more than family!”

“He wants less time with me!”

“It’s harder to stay connected!”

“We see things differently!”

“I don’t count as much!”

“I’m told much less!”

“It’s harder to get ‘together time!’”

“They’re more private than they used to be!”

Just because an adolescent is no longer a child doesn’t mean parents are destined to grow through some kind of agony with their growing daughter or son. They are not. The image of the "terrible teenager" is mostly mythological. In fact, watching a teenager grow toward adulthood is exciting to see: "She is learning so much so fast!"

What might be some common growth changes in their child that to varying degrees parents can expect to see? What follows is my take on four developmental stages I commonly see.

Stage 1: The Separation From Childhood

In early adolescence (around ages 9–13 years) common changes to expect can be the following:

• Personal disorganization: The self-management system that was sufficient for the simpler, sheltered world of childhood is now insufficient to cope with the complexity of adolescence. Hence, now there can be more distractibility, impulsivity, forgetting, losing track of things, messiness, and other signs of personal disarray.
• A negative attitude: There can be increased dissatisfaction from no longer being content to be defined and be treated as a child, being less interested in traditional childhood activities, and experiencing more boredom and restlessness from not knowing what to do. Also, there can be more grievances about "unfair" demands and limits that adults in their life impose.

• Active and passive resistance: There can be more questioning of parental authority, arguing with rules, delaying compliance with parental requests, and letting fulfillment of normal home and school responsibilities go.
• Early experimentation: There can be more testing social rules and limits, seeing what one can get away with, and more curiously engaging in forbidden activities.

Stage 2: Forming a Family of Friends

In mid-adolescence (around ages 13–15) common changes to expect can be the following:

• There can be more conflict with parents over social freedom with peers. What friends are doing can encourage a teenager to try to do the same—to dare, to fit in, to keep up with, to follow along, and to belong.

Adolescence Essential Reads

What If Gen Z Was "The Happy Generation?"

Teen and Young Adult Abuse of Nitrous Oxide

• There can be more lying to escape consequences or to try what has been forbidden. As the prime informant for parents about their adolescent’s life, one must decide how fully and accurately to keep parents informed.
• There can be more self-consciousness from puberty about bodily change and body image. Morning "mirror misery" is now a part of life, reflecting on one’s image and how it may affect social treatment at school.

• There can be more peer pressure to conform to belong, and insecurity causing increased social cruelty (teasing, exclusion, bullying, rumoring, ganging up) as life with peers can feel more socially unsafe.

Stage 3: Acting More Grown Up

In late adolescence (around ages 15–18 years) common changes to expect can be the following:

• More independence from doing grown-up activities—part-time employment, driving a car, dating, and recreational substance use at social gatherings.
• More significant emotional (and often sexual) involvement in romantic relationships.
• More grief over the graduation separation from friends and soon leaving family at home.
• More worry about un-readiness to undertake increased worldly independence and responsibility.

Stage 4: Stepping Off on One’s Own

During trial independence (around ages 18–23 years) common changes to expect can be the following:

• More insecure self-esteem from not being able to adequately manage increased demands—procrastination, falling behind, and breaking commitments of adult responsibility more likely to occur.

• More anxiety from uncertainty, fear of the future, and stress from higher social demand, with no clear sense of direction in life.
• More distraction from cohort of peers who are slipping and sliding and confused about direction, too, and partying more to deny problems or escape responsibility, as the stage of highest substance use begins.
• Inability to catch hold as for a short while many young people “boomerang” home after losing independent footing, to recover and try again.

Adolescence isn’t meant to be simple or easy.

Looking back, I have always loved reading about, hearing about, and writing about the coming-of-age story in all its endless variety. In nonfiction, I have written many parenting books and blog posts about it, and in fiction, I have written several young adult novels: The Trout King—about fathers and sons, The Art Lover—about mothers and daughters, and The Helper's Apprentice—about a brother and sister. To this day, describing the challenges of the growing-up adventure calls to me still.