Caroline Cavanagh explains adolescence as the second major developmental stage, where teens shift from dependence to independence and begin to internalize and reclaim the values they learned from their parents.
Chapters
This phase of adolescence is the second biggest development stage that we go through in the whole of our lives. The first is from 0 to 4. This second stage is very, very formative in terms of who you end up being as an adult, both in terms of personality, skills, attitude to life. And very succinctly, you start off the adolescent phase in dependence. So you are dependent on your parents. And then you pop out the other end independently. And fundamentally what's happening is all of the values and learnings that we give our teen or preteens, the adolescent phase is then them bringing those values and making them their own. They're moving from dependence, doing it because they're told to, to independence, doing it because they choose to. And during this phase, what they often do is completely reject everything that you've told them. I know with my children, if I say left, they'll go right. And often at times it's feeling that they're just being belligerent little so-and-sos. But now I have all of those same values. I haven't rejected any of them. I've just made them mine. And that's what you will start to see, especially those of you that have the older teenagers, is starting to see those values coming back to place and wondering where on earth did they go in the meantime. They were always there. They were just going from being something they did to something that they're choosing to do.
