Dictionary Definition
teens
Noun
1 the time of life between the ages of 12 and
20
2 all the numbers that end in -teen
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
-
- Rhymes: -iːnz
Noun
teens pluralAnagrams
Extensive Definition
- "Teen(s)" and "teenager(s)" redirect here, for other uses see Teen (disambiguation)
The home is an important aspect of adolescent
psychology: home environment and family have a substantial impact
on the developing minds of teenagers, and these developments may
reach a climax during adolescence. For example, abusive parents may
lead a child to "poke fun" at other classmates when he/she is seven
years old or so, but during adolescence, it may become
progressively worse, for example, the child may now be using drugs
or becoming intolerably violent among other classmates. If the
concepts and theory behind of right or wrong were not established
early on in a child's life, the lack of this knowledge may impair a
teenager's ability to make beneficial decisions as well as allowing
his/her impulses to control his/her decisions.
In the search for a unique social identity
for themselves, adolescents are frequently confused about what is
'right' and what is 'wrong.' G. Stanley
Hall denoted this period as one of "Storm and Stress" and,
according to him, conflict at this developmental
stage is normal and not unusual. Margaret
Mead, on the other hand, attributed the behavior of adolescents
to their culture and upbringing. However, Piaget,
attributed this stage in development with greatly increased
cognitive abilities; at this stage of life the individual's
thoughts start taking more of an abstract form and the egocentric
thoughts decrease, hence the individual is able to think and reason
in a wider perspective.
Positive
psychology is sometimes brought up when addressing adolescent
psychology as well. This approach towards adolescents refers to
providing them with motivation to become socially acceptable and
notable individuals, since many adolescents find themselves bored,
indecisive and/or unmotivated.
Adolescents may be subject to peer pressure
within their adolescent time span, consisting of the need to have
sex, consume alcoholic beverages, use drugs, defy their parental
figures, or commit any activity in which the person who is
subjected to may not deem appropriate, among other things. Peer
pressure is a common experience between adolescents and may result
briefly or on a larger scale.
It should also be noted that adolescence is the
stage of a psychological breakthrough in a person's life when the
cognitive
development is rapid and the thoughts, ideas and concepts
developed at this period of life greatly influence the individual's
future life, playing a major role in character and personality
formation.
Struggles with adolescent identity and depression
usually set in when an adolescent experiences a loss. The most
important loss in their lives is the changing relationship between
the adolescent and their parents. Adolescents may also experience
strife in their relationships with friends. This may be because of
things their friends do, such as smoking, that they feel if they
don't do, they'll lose their friendship. Teen depression can be
extremely intense at times because of physical and hormonal changes
but emotional instability is part of being a teenager. Their
changing mind, body and relationships often present themselves as
stressful and that change, they assume, is something to be
feared.
Views of family relationships during adolescence
are changing. The old view of family relationships during
adolescence put an emphasis on conflict and disengagement and
thought storm and stress was normal and even inevitable. However,
the new view puts emphasis on transformation or relationships and
maintenance of connectedness.
Sexuality
Adolescent sexuality refers to sexual feelings,
behavior
and development in adolescents and is a stage
of human sexuality. Sexuality and sexual desire usually begins to
appear along with the onset of puberty. The expression of
sexual desire among adolescents (or anyone, for that matter), might
be influenced by family values and influences, the culture and
religion they have grown up in social
engineering, social
control, taboos, and
other kinds of social
mores. The risks of adolescent sexual activity is sometimes
associated with: emotional distress (fear of abuse or
exploitation),
sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV/AIDS) and pregnancy
through failure or non-use of contraceptives. In terms of sexual
identity, sexual
orientation among adolescents may vary greatly across the
spectrum from heterosexuality and
LGBT
orientations to pansexuality and sexual
fetishism.
According to anthropologist Margaret
Mead and psychologist Albert
Bandura, the turmoil found in adolescence in Western society
has a cultural rather than a physical cause; they reported that
societies where young women engaged in free sexual activity had no
such adolescent turmoil, (that is until more recently, when
information about the most dangerous STDs was made publicly
accessible.)
The age of
consent to sexual activity varies widely between international
jurisdictions, ranging from 12 to 21 years, although some
governments, such as Canada's, are planning to raise the age to at
least 16 in an effort to reduce the incidence of the most serious
STD's, pregnancy among teenage girls, and the sexual abuse and
exploitation of younger teens.
Culture
- Activism
- Adolescent medicine
- Education
- Fear of youth
- Images of young people
- Precocious puberty
- Delayed puberty
- Rite of passage
- Sex education
- Student voice
- Teen idol
- Teen magazine
- Youth
- Youth culture
- Youth rights
- Youth voice
- Young worker safety and health
- Ephebophilia - a sexual preference in which an adult is primarily or exclusively sexually attracted to postpubescent adolescents
Human development and psychology
- Adolescent psychology
- Educational psychology
- Developmental psychology
- Human development
- Erikson's stages of psychosocial development particularly stages 5 & 6
- Kohlberg's stages of moral development particularly stage 3
Compare with
Literature
- Tennessee Williams: a description of the emotional impact of puberty and adolescence is to be found in The Resemblance Between a Violin and a Coffin
- Jon Savage: a (pre)history of the development of the teenager is to be found in Teenage (Chatto and Windus, 2007)
References
External links
- The 6th Las Vegas Conference on Adolescents - USJT.com A maximum of 24 Contact Hours are available for the Adolescents Conference in Las Vegas. 6 Hours Pre-Conference Ethics Workshop on April 23, and 18 Hours Full Time Conference April 24-26.
- Past Notes Passed notes and other cringe-worthy high school epherma, circa mid to late 1990s
teens in Arabic: مراهقة
teens in Aymara: Yuqalla
teens in Bulgarian: Юношество
teens in Catalan: Adolescència
teens in Czech: Teenager
teens in German: Adoleszenz
teens in Spanish: Adolescencia
teens in Esperanto: Adolesko
teens in French: Adolescence
teens in Gan Chinese: 後生
teens in Galician: Adolescencia
teens in Indonesian: Remaja
teens in Italian: Adolescenza
teens in Hebrew: התבגרות
teens in Marathi: पौगंडावस्था
teens in Malay (macrolanguage): Remaja
teens in Dutch: Adolescentie
teens in Japanese: 青年期
teens in Polish: Dojrzewanie
teens in Portuguese: Adolescência
teens in Romanian: Adolescenţă
teens in Russian: Подросток
teens in Simple English: Adolescence
teens in Slovak: Adolescencia
teens in Slovenian: Mladostništvo
teens in Serbian: Адолесценција
teens in Finnish: Teini
teens in Swedish: Adolescens
teens in Tamil: விடலைப் பருவம்
teens in Thai: วัยรุ่น
teens in Turkish: Adolesan
teens in Contenese: 後生
teens in Chinese: 青少年時期
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
L, Sexagesima, awkward age,
boxcar, boxcars, dozen, duodecimo, eighty, eleven, fifteen, fifty, five and twenty, fortnight, forty, four and twenty, fourscore, fourscore and ten,
fourteen, half a
hundred, long dozen, ninety, nonagenarian, octogenarian, quindecennial, quindecim, quindecima, quindene, score, septuagenarian, seventy, sexagenarian, sexagenary,
sexagesimo-quarto, sixteen, sixteenmo, sixty, sixty-four, sixty-fourmo,
teen age, thirteen,
thirty-two, thirty-twomo, threescore, threescore and
ten, twelve, twelvemo, twenty, twenty-five, twenty-four,
twenty-fourmo, two dozen, two weeks, twoscore