Positive Adolescent Growth Reversals in Young Adulthood

It never ceases to amaze parents, who have long since given up urging adolescent reform, to see that young person go through a positive growth reversal, often in young adulthood, and suddenly give up bad habits or correct wayward ways.

“Who would have thought,” they ask, “that ‘Mr. Better Late or Never’ would become ‘Mr. Prompt?’ He’s been a dedicated procrastinator all his life! What caused him to come around? For all our nagging over the years, it sure wasn’t us.”

Consider some common growth reversals from adolescence to young adulthood reported over the years. From:

Insensitive to Considerate;

Careless to Careful;

Messy to Neat;

Resentful to Grateful;

Disorganized to Orderly;

Thoughtless to Thoughtful;

Impulsive to Deliberate;

Scattered to Focused;

Inconsistent to Disciplined;

Unmotivated to Ambitious;

Unrealistic to Practical;

Uncaring to Loving;

Negligent to Responsible;

Aimless to Directed.

From what I’ve seen, the ‘positive reversal point’ results from a variety of possible motivations – onset of maturity, loss of the need to rebel, life-course correction, and actualizing a parental imprint. Consider these one at a time.

Sometimes growth reversals can simply occur as a function of more maturity, being able to see life in larger than immediate terms, the young person able to understand and execute what he was too young to perceive before. For example, the student who barely cared enough to graduate high school, and has spent a couple years sampling entry level employment, now can see how it’s occupationally worthwhile to pursue some further education to hopefully get a better job.

Sometimes growth reversals occur when the need to rebel against parents subsides, and rather than directing herself to do the opposite of what they want, the young person focuses on what she wants for herself instead. For example, rather than living in a continual chaos of belongings to assert independence by defying parental controls, she starts living in a more orderly fashion. She does this not for them, but in order to organize and function more efficiently in life because it will work better for her.

Sometimes growth reversals occur when the existing pattern of behavior becomes too costly to deny, and a course correction is needed to proceed the way one wants. For example, the young person who, despite parental urging to the contrary, had hard partied through high school and college, barely graduated from both tours of educational duty. Then, after losing two jobs through repeatedly showing up late after partying late the night before, he comes around. He resolves to exercise more social and substance restraint so he can show up on time, hold down a job, maintain income that he needs, and maybe even work conscientiously enough to get ahead.

Sometimes growth reversals occur when a young person was unknowingly imprinted by a parental characteristic growing up that is surprisingly actualized in her young adulthood. For example, the reticent young person who found speaking up in public uncomfortable to do all through the school and college years, and avoided doing so, now finds herself in a job holding forth in social situations just like she had always seen her mother do. Apparently she learned from the parent’s example, the adult never imagining that her daughter would turn out in this expressive way.

Often, last stage adolescents (18 – 23), unhappy with themselves for not being able to get traction and fix on a direction to independence, will complain they are limited by who and how they are. “I’m just stuck with the person I am, and that’s not something I can change!” That’s when I disagree.

“It’s true that you don’t get to hold a new hand of inherited characteristics and established personal history in life. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a lot of choice for playing the hand that you’ve been dealt. People change the ways they operate within themselves, with other people, and with the world all the time. Besides, because change is the law of living things, nobody can stay exactly the same over time even if they wanted to. Life just won’t allow it. So, since you can’t help but change, you might as well help yourself to change in ways you want.”

In addition, young people are not the only ones who undergo positive growth reversals. For example, consider how adults in their 30’s or so sometimes describe growth reversals in their parents, how these older people have positively changed over the years. “They’ve really mellowed out. They don’t worry so much. They’re not so easily upset. They’re more patient and less controlling, even laid back. They don’t criticize and have to be right. They haven’t lost their temper in years. They’re really fun to be around. That’s how they are with the grandkids now and how they are with us, not like when we were growing up!” It’s amazing how the shedding of parental responsibility, with all its attendant stress and worries, can relax older folks around adult children who now have children of their own.

Adolescence Essential Reads

Effortful Helping in Teenagers at Risk for Psychopathy

Narrating Growth Predicts College Students' Well-Being

People redefine themselves and adapt themselves, even undergoing growth reversals, by creating changes and adjusting to un-chosen changes all their lives.

For more about parenting adolescents, see my book, “SURVIVING YOUR CHILD’S ADOLESCENCE” (Wiley, 2013.)

More information at: www.carlpickhardt.com

I welcome reader questions and suggestions for future blogs.

Next week’s entry: Mood Management for Adolescents