Preview

Identity Crisis in Teenagers

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
535 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Identity Crisis in Teenagers
There are many issues that face today's teenagers. Probably one of the most common is the issue of individualism or identity. The teenage years harbor some of the most confusing and impressionable years in the life of any human being. There are many expectations, both individual and societal, that play a large role in the development of each teenager. Though most teenagers find their way through these difficult years as their own person, there are some who never seem to fully understand who they are. This misunderstanding can lead to many problems in hood. When a child is born they are catered for about three or four years. Once the child embarks on their first journey away from home (school) there are some changes that occur in the child. For the most part these changes are minimal, for the child still retains the nature not to care or understand the art of conforming to those around him or her. Once a child enters the pivotal time in it's life called adolescence that confident child becomes an awkward teenager. What once never crossed the mind of that child now weighs heavily on the mind of that teenager. The most important thing for a teenager is to be liked by others. The easiest way for teenagers to be liked by others, they seem to think, is to conform to what others do. So the pattern begins. Teenagers create expectations for themselves by looking at famous people or perhaps even some of their peers. Teenagers will starve themselves to be thinner, but overpriced clothing, and even aquire the same interests as others, but to what end? The instability of caused during this time in a person's life causes them to be less sure of themselves than ever before. In an effort to be liked or popular or just simply not d, teenagers ten to give up their right to think on their own. Many just do what others say. This is a dangerous habit. There are so many unspoken expectations both that teenagers set for themselves and that society sets for them. Society has set an

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the essay, Myth of Adolescence, Alex and Brett Harris incorporate their thoughts on what they feel about what teenagers actually go through during their period of `adolescence.` They go on to compare this phase to an elephant. They say that an elephant is a powerful beast that can be restrained even by a piece of twine. According to Alex and Brett, young teens are the elephant and our twine is the concept of adolescence. Unfortunately, these low expectations end up limiting teens for no reason. Teenagers, between the ages of 13-18, are held back by society and aren't able to excel in life. The essay, Myth of Adolescence, states that the socials expectations are becoming obstacles for teens. We as teenagers, need to erase the invisible shackles…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Teenagers are insecure, judgmental creatures. Both of these characteristics feed off of each other to establish a mess of a human being. We (teenagers) will tear someone else down in hopes of building ourselves up. One thing that has remained constant over time is the way teenagers highlight each other’s physical features, as well as how insecure they are about their own.…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Teenagers struggle with maintaining their own identity in high school. The truth is many teens are forced or try to be a different person. For example peer pressure and bullying can be some of the causes of identity change in high school.…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Growing up through my teenage years has been the hardest thing I have experienced. So many things were happening at once, and there were many roles that took place. In the stage Identity verses Role Confusion teens begin to find out what roles they will play during their adulthood. In Saul McLeod article, he explains how during this stage, teens focus on their future. McLeod says, “Children are becoming more independent, and begin to look at the future in terms of career, relationships, families, housing, etc.” (McLeod). When this stage is accomplished and achieved, adolescents are able to move into adulthood being able to balance different roles and finding their identity.…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vanity vs. Honesty

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As we grow older, we begin to focus more on what the world thinks of us, and we stray away from what we were told when we were little. Teenagers begin to care what other people think of them. They want to be a part of the “in crowd” at school. Many times, teenagers will do things they do not believe in to get what they want. Girls will become anorexic to get the body like a celebrity because that’s what they are told they should look like. When we are young kids, we tell our parents the truth and what we did at a friend’s house when we spent the night. By the time kids reach middle school or high school, when asked by a parent what they did last night, teenagers usually lie…or just don’t explain everything that happened. Teenagers leave out details; They might say that they went to someone’s house and hung out. But they leave out the fact that they were drinking and smoking with many other teens, to avoid getting in trouble. Every teenager knows what is right, and what is wrong. But teenagers get that “gut feeling” when they know they’re about to do something wrong, yet they still choose to do it because all their friends are doing…

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the adolescence age, identity is very easy to change by your parents or friends. Their linguistic and mental behavior mind influences a teenager’s identity.For example, article “A Teen’s Friends Are a Powerful Influence” by Valerie Ulene, the author portrays that friends exert over one another as teenager’s influence is clearly powerful and far too often, undesirable by using an example, “more likely to indulge in these behaviors themselves. Aggressive, illegal or self-injurious behaviors also have a tendency to cluster among friend groups, as do concerns about body image and eating”(4). In this quote, the author point out that behavior is almost contagious among teenagers. Good behavior by peers can spread through the group, but bad behavior can also be modeled. Friends influence is so powerful and subtle in influence teenagers.…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    First of all, the primary source uses many words to describe adults’ actions to indicate the oppression teenagers suffered right now. Evidence like “clean up your looks,” “watch all the things you do,” “got methods of keeping you clean” and “rip up your heads” clearly show what kind of oppression teenagers have and what they need to resist. Adults are trying to make teenagers fit the “good standards” created by them. Good teenagers should be innocent, be obedient, study hard and so on. What’s more, adults are ready to find out teenagers’ mistakes at any time so that they could guide teenagers to what they thought is the correct way. They also want to make teenagers believe that the adults’ words are all right. Teenagers who live in such environment…

    • 862 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    What is Conformity? Conformity is the when you exchange your individuality, your uniqueness, and your well being for the ways of society. We as teenagers today part take in this ridiculousness; even though, we say do not. Conformity has officially brainwashed today’s youth, and we no longer have the strength to think for ourselves anymore. Teenagers for some reason feel like they have the need to follow in their peers footsteps, when in reality…. we just need to be individuals! In my opinion, teenagers need to take back their uniqueness, individuality, and be themselves for a change.…

    • 104 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Can you truly judged someone's identity if you don’t even know your own? Teens will always judged someone because they don’t have an identity. In reality they are in the same boat because they know their own either, maybe they pick on the others because someone else is judging them and they can’t help the urge to discriminate someone else. Teens try to find a clique to fit into, sometimes they try to fit into the wrong clique and get shut down and as a result they get messed up in the head and commit serious and even fatal decisions. All over the web there are sites that help teens find their identity. There are ways one can find their identity such as: encouraging self discovery, acknowledge natural abilities, value uniqueness, or highlight…

    • 135 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Adolescence is a developmental stage that occurs through childhood to adulthood. Adolescence is a critical time in one’s life in which changes are taking place through major factors of physiological, cognitive, and behavioural aspects. As for this period in life it comes with puberty that is referred to as a change and development in the body as a child moves from kid to adult. Also, it is a time where they begin to explore who they are as individuals and develop their own identities as they get more into adulthood. This stage is known as “identity versus role confusion”. The stage comes from Erik Erikson's model from the identified eight stages in the developmental process from birth to old age. In Erikson’s life-span stage theory, identity…

    • 1093 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Adolescent Interview Essay

    • 1284 Words
    • 6 Pages

    According to Erik Erikson, adolescence is marked by the child’s questioning his or her identity during what he refers to as the identity versus identity confusion developmental stage. During this phase, the adolescent becomes mindful of his or her identity and seeks his or her purpose in life, as well as the answer to the eternal question, “who am I?” In their quest to find their sense of self, adolescents experiment with different personalities and roles. Some teenagers display rebellious behavior, which is normal, as they experience a flood of countless emotions. The teens that are able to cope with the differing identities are able to form a new identity that they can accept. On the other hand, those who cannot cope during this experimental period suffer what Erikson calls identity confusion, where they either withdraw themselves from everyone else, or they lose themselves in their peers.…

    • 1284 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Divers Culture

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages

    All of these expectations are held to teenagers, and if its not hard enough dealing with school work and family conflicts. Nowadays, children are growing up fast and faster then the previous years. You just might think that I'm blaming this generation, however I'm not saying everyone lives by these guidelines, not everybody decides to follow the dress code of a perfect person with the perfect life; but more then likely the people who do not decide to follow these rules are considered cast aways and bullied for it. I'm just speaking out about the situations that I have personally observed. I have been looked down on and casted aside for not being ‘perfect'. I realized that no one is superb and neither am I. Many teens kill themselves due to the stress to follow the idea of ‘perfect’ established by this society. Everyday more and more teens are being embolden to fall into this way of life. The ages are just going to keep reducing until our society reaches a point of no return, a point where harmful things and practices are what you are expected to do and we all just crash and burn…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Teen Stereotypes

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Teens are stereotyped as to be what the world wants to portray them to be rather than what they want to become. Now days you see more teenagers at the age of twelve, looking and acting as if they were twenty one years old. Society has seemed to find a way to attract teenagers and younger kids to do what they should do, wear, and act as if they are puppets on strings . Many effects come from stereotypes such as suicide and bullying . magazines portray women to become thin hot and sexy causing children to drastically lose weight in a very unhealthy ways I.e Anorexia. The images that children see powerfully inform their sense of…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Identity Crisis Theory

    • 833 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Erik Erikson’s Identity Crisis Theory describes the key part of teens in their adolescence age. In his theory of psychological development, it is called Identity versus confusion.…

    • 833 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Self-structure is what defines the term, identity. Identity is made of what drives an individual, the abilities they have, what they believe, and their personal history (Marcia, 1980). Identity is one of the main struggles in an adolescents’ life. It is very important that children receive the proper guidance while entering their adolescence from their parents and peers. Although they like to believe that they are capable of developing on their own, adolescents need parental guidance to develop their path of identity development.…

    • 1145 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays