The Challenges I faced As A Teenager

As a teen, I have faced a lot of challenges that have made me realize that life isn’t as easy as I thought it was. Starting from the age of 13-19, I actually understand the fact that the lifestyle we live as teenagers is the same as the adults. Likewise, the mentality we have as teenagers is almost the same as that of the adults. Even if there’s a difference, it’s not really much.

From my understanding of the word – ”teenager”, it means a person who is between 13 – 19 years of age. According to research, in the 1920s, the word “teenager” was never considered as something that was really important and that’s the reason why many of our teenage youths had suffered a great loss.

Teenagers are usually classified as turbulent times. The reason is that – when I started growing up as a child, I was going through so many growth changes both physically and mentally. My parents were only concerned about monetary and material things. They felt if they had provided me with enough money and material things, they have done the best as parents.

Looking at it that way, they were right. But I needed more. I wanted more than clothes and shoes. I wanted their time.

There are some challenges I faced throughout my teenage years. I needed someone to explain them to me, especially my parents.

I faced self-esteem and body image problems that resulted in me been frustrated. Actually as a teenager, I started feeling stressed when am with my peers. The peer pressure and competition at schools put me in a rat race. There was a point when I was sexually harassed in school. Who would I tell? I had to bury the thoughts in my head.

I decided to share my experience in other to open many parents’ eyes to this. We need more than clothes and shoes. We want your time. We want some explanation about our physical shape and changes that occur day-to-day.

Here are some common challenges I faced:

• Acceptance – Even as I see myself as the most self-assured person, I still struggle with acceptance from time to time. However I find it hard to feel accepted about my emotional feelings due to the lack of maturity and perspective. But my parents find it difficult to offer their paternal acceptance and advice.

• Stress – As a teenager, there are a lot of pressures from peers and society that I faced as a teen. The pressures come from peers in school, parents and family members at home, and the people in the society. It created an ongoing pattern of stress for me. The reason is that my parents didn’t help me to deal with life stresses may be either by health boundaries or by teaching me how to prioritize and to simplify my life. They themselves don’t even understand so they could not even create a safe atmosphere for me at home.

• Respect – My opinion or decision do enhance my self-confidence and  self-esteem. As a youth my abilities to develop positive self-esteem is been affected by my physical life styles and my parents criticism. My parents find it difficult to see it that – making respect mutual virtue will help in developing a stronger bond between myself and them.

I hope parents would learn from this and put things right. Most kids have gone astray because of the little things that were overlooked – ”Time”.