GENERARATION GAP, PARENTS VS CHILDREN

Adolescence is the period of transition from childhood to adult life. By childhood

we mean dependence on caregivers and a reduced need for self-assertion, while
adolescence implies autonomy and the development of a unique identity.
Representative for the period of adolescence is the juggling between childhood
and autonomy, i.e. between dependence and independence, self-affirmation. On
the other hand, adolescence is a period of multiple changes at a physical,
emotional and behavioral level, but this period of transit affects even the way of
relating to parents. Adolescence is the period of curiosity and testing of personal
limits, thus some parents become concerned about the possible risks of
adolescents and adopt limiting, surveillance and protective behaviors. In reaction
to these parental behaviors, adolescents counter-identify with caregivers, tending
toward autonomy, respect for privacy, and personal boundaries, which can cause
misunderstandings in the family. During this period of transit, the teenager wants
to assert his own personality, make his own decisions, demonstrate his abilities
and his own potential, in other words, differentiate himself and position himself
as an individual separate from the family of origin, but also from from the rest of
the individuals.

The famous psychologist Erik Erikson presents the period of adolescence (12-18
years) as the need to resolve the conflict between identity and role confusion.
The cognitive capacity of the adolescent becomes closer and closer to that of the
adult, being more and more able to understand abstract notions and
relationships. Moreover, the adolescent's social life becomes more complex,
coming into contact with a multitude of human models with which he can
identify, and this diversity of interactional models causes a sense of confusion of
his own identity. The adolescent can ask himself a multitude of questions
regarding "Who am I?", "What exactly sets me apart from others", the individual
feeling constrained by the need to make certain choices and attempts that are as
close as possible to his need.
This image is an example of that, many parents do not know how to communicate
with today's teenagers.

Parents should be their child's best friends. Because of the lack of understanding,
teenagers prefer to take refuge in phones and in the same kind of bad
surroundings.
It is not at all easy to be the parent of a teenager because adolescence is, by
definition, the period of life in which we learn to become independent. The
teenager begins to gradually detach himself from the family environment towards
the group of friends, but at the same time, he looks for that family environment,
those landmarks, which will allow him to become an adult, modeling his behavior
according to the parental models; he is a child and an adult at the same time...
and he lives this contradiction, it is not easy at all...

The teenager learns daily in certain ways from different people. He often learns
by paying attention to what his parents do and, less so, by what they say, and that
is precisely why it is important that the teenager's parents also do what they
preach.

Parent-adolescent bonding takes place only by establishing communication

between them and through interactions specific to each family.