Transition Adolescence

Adolescence describes the teenage years between 13 and 19 and can be considered the transitional stage from childhood to adulthood. Adolescence can be a time of both disorientation and discovery. The transitional period can bring up issues of independence and self-identity; many adolescents and their peers face tough choices regarding schoolwork, sexuality, drugs, alcohol, and social life. Peer groups, romantic interests and external appearance tend to naturally increase in importance for some time during a teen's journey toward adulthood. If teenagers can be said to have a reason for being it would have to be asserting their independence. This demands that they distance themselves from Mom and Dad. Not all teenagers enter and exit adolescence
Moments where adolescents feel like they do not belong socially change their identities because they feel like they cannot trust most people or belong in a group and feel normal. Belonging and feeling normal is a crucial part of adolescence: “Unless the child has this sense of normality – of belonging, of being part of things – the child will not feel good” (Barrett 334). If an adolescent is being excluded from society or a group of people, this will make the adolescent feel inferior and abnormal. Being alienated by peers makes the adolescent feel left out and alienated: “It did not work. What I had been afraid of was true. I was going to be left. There was something seriously the matter with me” (Munro 5). The girl in “A Red Dress”, in the beginning of the story does not get asked to dance by one of the boys and this makes her feel like an unacknowledged stranger because most of the girls are dancing with boys. Her identity changes because she feels like she cannot trust most of her peers and she feels like an outsider because most of her peers are dancing with boys and having fun while she is not. As a result of this, the girl from “A Red Dress” might reach adulthood later in life if she continues to feel like an outsider. Moments where adolescents feel like they do
If adolescents feel that their parents cannot trust them, adolescents will feel let down and will not be able to trust themselves. There are consequences to parental conflict with adolescents: “Severity and duration of consequences for children are effected by the degree of social support they receive, parental conflict and adjustment” (Johnson and Mollborn 43). If an adolescent does not receive parental support or there are problems with the adolescent and parents, there will be consequences to the adolescent’s adulthood and identity. Calvin, Donny’s mentor explains the importance of parents trusting their children: “Here’s a serious, sensitive kid, telling you he’d like to take on some grown up challenges, and your giving him the message that he can’t be trusted. Don’t you understand how that hurts?” (Tyler 289 – 290). Donny wants to do certain things on his own and wants to be trusted by his parents to do those certain things but his parents limit what he does and refuse to let him be responsible. This changes his identity because if his parents do not let him be responsible, he will become irresponsible and he will not be able to think or decide for himself. If adolescents feel alienated in certain events because of their parents, they will lose