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Week 6

Features of adolescents aged between eleven and nineteen

A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you.

—Bob Proctor

Day 1: Features of adolescents aged between eleven and nineteen (1)

At the beginning of the mentoring journey we remember our teenage experiences, for those experiences help us determine the shape of our mentoring journey with youth.

Here are some key features of adolescents between the ages of eleven and nineteen years.

•It is a precocious, unstable time.

•It is a time of rapid physical growth and human development changes:

•Physical changes, triggered by rapid alterations in hormone production, are accompanied by growth changes.

•The level of physical strength in boys effectively doubles between the ages of twelve and seventeen years.

•Height increases dramatically in both boys and girls. Often the initial result is a slender look but, when growth slows, body weight tends to increase, which can lead to eating disorders.

•Emotional maturity tends to lag behind physical development, which is why some adolescents seem very childish at times.

•It is a time of excitement, often associated with the pleasure of developing new abilities and talents. Physical changes can lead to storm and stress, an identity crisis, expanded cognition and moral reasoning, and belief in their own indestructibility. It can also cause inexplicable mood swings—one or more mood swing cycles per day, for example, anger, apathy, boredom, sadness, guilt, fear and anxiety, stress, joy and elation, love, experimentation with new behaviors, egocentric self-focus, idealism, movement away from parents, or movement towards peers.

•It is a time when the brain continues to develop, a process that is only completed when the young person is in their mid-twenties.

Mentoring tip: Expect your mentee to change in positive ways, and the change occurs as the right strategies are found.

Day 2: Features of adolescents aged between eleven and nineteen (2)

Here are more key features of adolescents between the ages of eleven and nineteen years to help us better understand the youth we mentor.

•Adolescents have a developing interest—often secretive—in the opposite sex and in sexuality in general. Their interest in same-sex peer groups decreases, while their focus on building friendships and dating relationships with members of the opposite sex increases.

•Some major social shifts take place as friends and peers become more important than family or extended family. Parental influences are temporarily abandoned as youth seek affiliations with their peer groups. (The first five years of life are crucial, particularly in regard to our relationships with the significant adults in our lives. All conclusions about our world and how we see ourselves in relationship to it are built on our earlier experiences and the decisions we made then. Did I receive positive or negative messages? Who am I? What is my world like? Have I experienced an interrupted love process? Do I fear abandonment?) Adolescents move from a state of dependence on the home to a state of interdependence. They keep the home contact as they develop other peer relationships. Attention-getting behavior creates feelings of significance and importance. Their quest for a personal identity might propel them towards identification with hero images, which can have both positive and negative repercussions.

•If youth conform to the demands of peers, they are less likely to be the target of unwelcome attention. Never underestimate the audience factor, as youth ask themselves: What do others think of me?

Mentoring tip: Effective mentors help their mentees to appreciate that every young person is responsible for the choices they make during their life journey.

Day 3: Features of adolescents aged between eleven and nineteen (3)

Here are more important features of youth aged between eleven and nineteen years.

•Peers are seen as more legitimate sources of authority than parents on matters of dress, hairstyle, smoking or vaping, alcohol, sex, drug-taking, driving, money, fringe petty crime, music, films, use of technology, and decisions concerning how late to stay out, or what to do at the weekend.

•In later adolescence, individuals formulate their own value system. Strands of parental values are combined with values gained personally through boundary testing and experimentation across a variety of areas. They become more comfortable with their “new” body, and focus their energies on future issues such as vocational education or relationship commitments.

•Early teenage years are a mixture of a desire for freedom and wanting structure and protection. Youth often find adult activities and interests boring, as they develop into independent young adults.

•88 per cent of youth say they like their parents and expect them to nag at times, as nagging shows an expression of love and care.

•Two parents whose value systems differ sow more confusion in an adolescent’s life.

Mentoring tip: If you want to watch your mentee grow several meters before your eyes, offer authentic, and positive feedback.

Day 4: Features of adolescents aged between eleven and nineteen (4)

Adolescents aged between the ages of eleven and nineteen tend to respond in the following ways to the variety of issues in their lives.

•Schools with benevolent dictatorships are effective!

•Young people want adults to

•listen—provide individual attention to youth, and take them seriously;

•be available;

•be non-judgmental, and have non-directive attitudes; consult more;

•retain a sense of humor;

•be a straight talker so that youth know where they stand;

•be trustworthy, and observe confidentiality.

•The higher the parents’ socioeconomic status, the higher the average levels of literacy and home language performance of their children (boys and girls).

•The family or extended family environment has a stronger influence on education achievement than socioeconomic status. Reflect on these points.

•Where a family income declines, the child’s overall academic competence also declines.

•Divorce can lead to a fall in socio-economic status, which, in turn, might affect a child’s outcomes.

•Australian research stated that the proportion of children in sole parent families with low academic competence is almost twice as high as the proportion of those in couple families.

•Children in stepfamilies tend to perform less well academically.

•Divorce (as shown in Australian research) has more enduring negative consequences for boys than for girls possibly due to the absence of a male role model. This suggests a lack of consistent discipline.

•Sole parent families, despite the inherent difficulties they face, may also raise their children well and successfully, though on average the risks are greater.

Mentoring tip: Great mentors “always” celebrate their mentees’ growth and achievements.

Mentoring moments

Fourteen-year-old Jacob was struggling to find his way. His parents had divorced and both had married new partners. Jacob was lost and lonely in a boarding house.

Twenty years later he contacted me to thank me for moving alongside him. This is Jacob’s story:

Thought I would drop you a line and hear how you are. I often think of you and how you voluntarily took me under your wing, so to speak during my time at [the school], encouraging and guiding me through the often irrational and rudderless years of one’s teens! One incident sprang to mind. During my grade seven year, when I was opening and locking the club room, for which you awarded me a generous portion of service points (many thanks!!), you recommended I read Eric Liddle’s biography [the story on which the film, Chariots of Fire was based]. In retrospect the story had a profound effect on my psyche . . . I am extremely grateful for all you did for me: all those hours when you threw to me in the cricket nets, and I would sometimes manage to straight bat a ball out of the front, and off you would jog to fetch it. I would like you to know that your actions have had a positive, material effect on my life, both in a faith and sporting sense. Although I only played a handful of games for the university first cricket team, I think I achieved my potential on the [other sport] field, and you were a big motivation behind that.

Jacob’s story reminds mentors that the true impact of many mentoring relationships might only be known many years later, and after the mentee pauses to reflect on their life journey. This is a critical point many sponsors of youth mentoring programs fail to understand, as they expect a “quick-fix” solution to the challenges which youth face.

Mentoring tip: You are a courageous pioneer as you venture into the unexplored territory of a youth’s life. What an exciting challenge!