1.1. The incompatibility between adolescents' need for independence and the fact that parents still think of their offspring as mere children
1.2. The conflicts tend to be over apparently mundane issues such as personal appearance, dating, curfews. Even if they disagree on these issues, they tend to agree on more serious issues such as the value of honesty and the importance of education.
1.3. The conflict between adolescents and their parents is actually beneficial to adolescents' development, because it promotes the development of individuation and autonomy within the context of a warm relationship (Clark, 2011).
1.4. As adolescents seek independence, they rebel against authority figures, and strong associations with peer groups develop. Attention-seeking and risk-seeking behaviours also increase during adolescence. These characteristics contribute to increased levels of conflict in the adolescent period.
2. Mood disruptions
2.1. Larson and Richards emphasized that it is not just that adolescents (Goodfriend, 2020) experience potentially stressful events, but how they experience and interpret them, that underlies their mood disruptions. Even in response to the same or similar events, adolescents report more extreme and negative moods than preadolescents or adults.
2.2. A variety of factors have been found to make mood disruptions in adolescence more likely, including low popularity with peers, poor school performance, and family problems such as marital discord and parental divorce.
2.3. Hormone changes can account for many of the mood swings that occur.
2.4. A person is also more likely to experience feelings of depression, self-consciousness, embarrassment, loneliness, and nervousness at this time more than any other time in their lives.
3. Biological changes of puberty:
3.1. Boys: • The maturation of the testes, which leads to sperm production and to menarche, the first ejaculation stimulation (McNeely, 2010). • Voice begins to change or “crack”; muscles get larger, • Facial hair comes in (McNeely, 2010).
3.2. Girls: • The development of primary sex characteristics, or reproductive organs, includes the maturation of the ovaries, which leads to ovulation, typically beginning after menarche, the first menstrual period. • Physical growth at this time can make adolescents feel uncomfortable or awkward. Neurological connections are also rapidly coming together and causing adolescents to seek stimulation (McNeely, 2010).
4. Striking similarity between Hall’s and the modern psychology of adolescence is in the area of crime. The age-crime relationship described by today’s criminologists was already well-known to Hall. Hall presented a graph of age and crime that looks very similar to the pattern today (Gottfredson, 1990), with a steep increase in the teens, peaking at age 18, followed by an equally steep decline.
5. 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. That occurs between ages 13 and 19. 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 (WHO definition, 1965).
6. Storm and Stress was a phrase coined by psychologist G. Stanley Hall in 1904 describes in most adolescents (Milevsky, 2014). His storm and stress hypothesis refers to:
6.1. • Storm - the decreased self-control seen in adolescents
6.2. • Stress - the increased sensitivity in adolescents to various arousing stimuli around them
6.3. The concept of Storm and Stress is comprised of three key elements: conflict with parents, mood disruptions, and risky behaviours.
7. Risk behaviour
7.1. This pattern exists for crime as well as for behaviour such as substance use, risky automobile driving, and risky sexual behaviour. Unlike conflict with parents or mood disruptions, rates of risk behaviour peak in late adolescence - emerging adulthood rather than early or middle adolescence (Arnett, 2013).
7.2. Persons who exhibit behaviour problems in childhood are especially likely to engage in risk behaviour as adolescents. Individual differences in characteristics such as sensation seeking, and impulsivity also contribute to individual differences in risk behaviour during adolescence.
8. However, theory does not apply to all teenagers. Research shows that storm and stress is milder in traditional cultures and more extreme in Western culture, but that, as the world becomes a global village, the prevalence of storm and stress is likely to increase (Smith, 2016).
