WHY ARE PEOPLE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 13 AND 18 (or so) IN A CONSTANT STATE OF PISSED OFF??
And beyone this, why do girls hit their worst around 13 while boys tend to get to theirs around 16 or 17? is it hormones? society? Are their minds being controled by fang toothed, sex crazed, conformity obsessed beings from the planet whatEVER??
I should point out i’m using general terms here, not ALL teens are crazy, but then they’ll just have that much worse of a midlife crisis, right?
Do all cultures go through this? if not, what’s wrong with ours and what do we do about it? I know i went through it too, but why did it all make so much bloody sence at the time?
Ummm…'cause they’re not? I definitely haven’t been (I’m 18)…do you have any examples? Are you noticing this in a large group, or just one or two people?
As an 18 year old, I can think of a few reasons. Everyone is different, some people may never have bad times while for others all eighty years are crap.
My uneducated guesses:
Rapid hormonal changes can have a major effect on feelings and behavior. This would also roughly coincide with the ages you gave.
A large portion of US society seems to be biased against teens. From being hassled about music and clothes to being followed around in stores, there’s a lot of pressure and negativity from sources who may or may not have the teen’s best interests at heart.
School isn’t exactly a refuge either. Throw together people of varying wealth, different ideals, and different aspirations and see how things go. It’s like a job you can’t quit and will profoundly affect the rest of your life.
Teens aren’t children anymore, but they aren’t quite adults. You can’t play on the swings or spend your days riding bikes around the neighborhood; but you can’t make life-changing decisions, vote, or go clubbing every night either.
The belief that teens are crazy or bad mannered is almost self-fulfilling. Treat people badly and they’ll reciprocate.
As a formerly pissed off teen, I would have to say I agree with Lawmill. At that age, people start to realize that they know a lot more than people give them credit for. We start to see the world as it is, with all its bumps and imperfections, when before we were sheltered from many unpleasant aspects of the world and our society (at least in my case). We start to refute a lot of things that have been force fed to us over the years. We are pushing boundries given to us as children but aren’t expanding quickly enough to satisfy our taste for the adult world outside. We want to do a lot of adult things, as we feel we have the cognitive capacity of adults. We think we know everything. At the same time, we seem to have no rights, and most adults don’t seem to take us seriously, instead asking questions like ‘Why are all teens so pissed off? don’t they know that they are going through the greatest years of their lives?’
Like I said, I felt a little agnst at the time, and in retrospect I did not know everything, but I still say that we don’t tend to give teens credit for being, for most intents and purposes, adults (now if one should commit a crime, we definitely see the adult in them, but that is another story).
(1) The teenage years are when a person “leaves the nest”. Establishing independence from one’s parents often leads to conflict.
(2) There are studies that suggest the biochemical workings of the teen brain are different than for adults. IIRC, there was more of an emotional emphasis in thought patterns. Not sure about the scientific validity of this. Take from it what you will. I certainly feel like there was a difference between my teenage and adult years.
(3) IQ-wise and physically, teens (especially late teens) are essentially adults. But socially, there is less maturity and less acceptance (e.g., adults may not take teens seriously, teens aren’t allowed to do everything adults are, etc.). This may cause resentment.
anyway, that’s my WAG
I had a few pissed-off/crazy teenage years (17-19). Not sure why. Getting away to college (living on my own) seemed to help get over that.
It’s never been my experience that my judgment amd idea of cause & effect are deficient nor that they will get better. Rather than blame it on incomplete mental development, I’d chalk up reckless behavior to hormones, lack of prior experience, and a relatively indestructible body.
Handy’s right. A recent study revealed that the portion of the human brain responsible for judgement (among other things) is not fully formed until around age 21.