It's Normal for Teens to . . .

Recently I’ve been hearing some friends complain about their teenagers being teenagers. I empathize, of course, now that our kids are adults. Here is some advice from the American Psychological Association that I wish we had known when our kids were teenagers. My friends found it helpful.

It’s Normal for Adolescents to...

•  Argue for the sake of arguing. Adolescents often go off on tangents, seeming to argue side issues for no apparent reason; this can be highly frustrating to many adults. Keep in mind that, for adolescents, exercising their new reasoning capabilities can be exhilarating, and they need the opportunity to experiment with these new skills.
• Be self-centered. Adolescents can be very “me-centered.” It takes time to learn to take others’ perspectives into account; in fact, this is a skill that can be learned.
• Constantly find fault in the adult’s position. Adolescents’ newfound ability to think critically encourages them to look for discrepancies, contradictions, or exceptions in what adults (in particular) say. Sometimes they will be most openly questioning or critical of adults with whom they feel especially safe. This can be quite a change to adjust to, particularly if you take it personally or the youth idealized you in the past.

• Be overly dramatic. Everything seems to be a “big deal” to teens. For some adolescents, being overly dramatic or exaggerating their opinions and behaviors simply comes with the territory. Dramatic talk is usually best seen as a style of oration rather than an indicator of possible extreme action, unless an adolescent’s history indicates otherwise.

Source: APA's Developing Adolescents page 11

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