Managing Expectations About Adolescent Change

Change is the law of living things, the constant process that keeps upsetting and resetting the terms of our existence all the time. Moment to moment, one day to the next, our lives are in constant flux. Thus, in response to this continual variation, we must keep adjusting to what unfolds. Setting and resetting our expectations is part of how this is done. Adolescence is about growing change – the 8 to 10 year coming-of-age passage that transforms an older child into a young adult, creating much that is new and different for parents to get used to along the way.

The Power of Expectations

Key to parental adjustment to teenage growth is maintaining realistic expectations – those mental sets they create to anticipate common changes that adolescent development can commonly bring. So, first understand the emotional power of expectations in general. Then consider some common adolescent changes that parents could anticipate seeing.

Start by considering the emotional power of three kinds of expectations that parents can choose to hold:

• Predictions (This is what I think will happen),
• Ambitions (This is what I want to have happen),
• Conditions (This is what I believe should happen.)

Maintaining realistic expectations emotionally matters because when set and met one feels prepared: “I thought this would occur.” When unmet or violated, however, unrealistic parental expectations can prove emotionally costly.

For example:

Unmet predictions can cause surprise: “I didn’t think this might happen.” Now, one can feel anxious. “I never thought my teenager would do this!”

Unmet ambitions can cause disappointment: “This isn’t what I wanted to occur.” Now, one can feel sad. “I hoped for better than how things turned out.”

Unmet conditions can cause betrayal: “This should not have been allowed to happen.” Now, one can feel angry. “This was something that I had forbidden.”

Because unrealistic parental expectations can have unhappy emotional consequences, it behooves parents to keep their expectations about adolescent growth as realistic as possible so they do not become unnecessarily upset over developmental changes that commonly unfold. So what follows is a very rough sequencing of common changes they might anticipate in their daughter’s or son’s journey through her or his 8 to 10 year coming of age passage.

Expectations of Adolescence

To ready themselves for their child’s adolescence, consider four possible stages of transformative growth.

Stage One: Separation from childhood in early adolescence (around ages 9 to 13.) Some common changes parents might expect to see are the following.

• Increased personal disorganization as older life becomes more demanding and complex, and feels confusing on that account. ”I can’t keep up with everything!”
• More negative attitude as dissatisfaction with old child definition and treatment grows, and feels discouraging on that account. “I want to be treated as more grown up!”
• More impatience with parental authority as questioning and argument increases, and feels angering on that account. “I don’t like how my parents keep controlling my life!”
• Early experimentation to satisfy curiosity, testing existing rules and demands and feels frustrating on that account. “I need more freedom for acting older, to discover what’s ahead.”

Stage two: Forming a family of friends in mid-adolescence (around ages 13 to 15.) Some common changes parents might expect to see are the following.

• More frequent conflict with parents over social freedom to try new and different worldly experiences that are favored by peers. “If my friends can; why can’t I?”
• More evasion and lying to protect more of a double life, to cover up when risking what parents might disapprove. “I didn’t think I needed to ask permission.”
• More self-consciousness about changing physical appearance and need for privacy, confiding now more in peers than in parents. “At home I need to be left more alone.”
• More peer pressure to conform to belong, and insecurity causing increased social cruelty – teasing, exclusion, bullying, rumoring, and ganging up. “Friends can act less friendly.”

Stage Three: Acting more grown up in late adolescence (around ages 15 to 18.) Some common changes parents might expect to see are the following.

• More interest in doing older activities like part-time employment, driving a car, dating, and recreational substance use at social gatherings.
• More significant emotional (and often sexual) involvement in dating relationships in which youthful caring is more attractively and romantically felt.
• More youthful assertiveness about privacy, social freedom, and running one’s own life as family home becomes increasingly a place to leave than to forever stay.
• More excitement and insecurity over high school graduation, next step worries about readiness for more independence, confronting and creating plans for leaving home.

Stage four: Stepping off on one’s own in trial independence (around ages 18 to 23.) Some common changes parents might expect to see are the following.

• Lowered esteem from not being able to adequately manage increasing demands, procrastination, falling behind, breaking commitments of adult responsibility.
• Increasing anxiety from uncertainty about the future, meeting increased self-management demands, and a lack of confidence in functioning on one’s own.
• High distraction from a cohort of peers who are slipping and sliding and confused about direction too, escaping more to deny problems, and the stage of highest substance use begins.
• Inability to catch hold as many young people “boomerang” home for a while after losing independent footing, to recover and try again.

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