Adolescences have to face many problems throughout their day. Most teenagers have troubles with being who they are. Teenagers as a whole should take responsibility for those teens that do not fit in with certain groups. From personal experience, everyday you see students being bullied. Bullying is the biggest problem though out the day in high school. There are many ways that we could fix this problem of bullying, considering many students suffer everyday just because they do not fit in.
Adolescence is all about wanting to be able to fit in with your peers. It is a hard thing to not feel accepted in high school. When someone does not feel accepted you can tell because they are always quite and shy. They will usually hang out by themselves instead of in a friend group like other teens might do. Moreover, they do not feel accepted because they are afraid to be who they are. The article “Transgender Girls Parents Lobby for Her Rights to Use the Girls Bathroom” points out, “I just didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin, especially, like, in the bathroom,” (Greenfield). This shows how someone cannot be themselves around other people. Coy just wanted to be accepted as a girl. This quote from the text shows how harsh some people can be towards others when it comes to being able to fit in.
Teenagers should take some responsibility for others that do not fit in. If everyone was willing to make new friends, be nice to everyone, and not be so judgmental toward others, more people would feel comfortable around different friend groups. In the video “People Like Us, Part 4, Most Likely to Succeed”, acknowledges all of the different cliques there are in high school. It listed them off one after another, from the jocks to the geeks, also known...
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...12 year old boy would attempt and succeed at killing someone, but when you want something bad enough you tend to do whatever it takes to get it.
To concluded, teens compromise many things to try to fit in, a lot of students see what happens everyday though out the hallways of their own school. As a whole, adolescence should find ways to stop bulling and become more responsible about it. As I proved in the paragraphs above, teenagers all want to be able to fit in but we come from a society where people are blinded and cannot see the good in people without judging them first.
Works Cited
Greenfield, Beth. “Transgender Girl’s Parents Lobby for Her Right to Use the Bathroom.” Yahoo Shine, 27 Feb 2013. Web. 11 Dec 2013.
“Girl Bullying.” Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Mar 2005. Web. 11 Dec 2013.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. Perigee Books: New York, 1954. Print.
As a teenager we are all looking to be accepted by our peers and will do whatever it is they want us to so we can be accepted. That is to say the feeling of needing to be accepted by ones peers is done consciously; the person starts to do what their friends do without thinking about it. (Teen 3) In fact, teens are more likely to be affected by peer pressure because they are trying to figure out who they are. (How 1) Therefore, they see themselves as how their peers would view them so they change to fit their peer’s expectations. (How 1) Secondly, the feeling of needing to rebel and be someone that isn’t who their parents are trying to make them be affects them. (Teen 2) Thus, parents are relied on less and teens are more likely to go to their peers about their problems and what choices to make. (How 1) Also, their brains are not fully matured and teens are less likely to think through their choices thoroughly before doing it. (Teen 6) Lastly, how a child is treated by his peers can affect how they treat others; this can lead them into bullying others who are different. (Teen 3) Consequently this can affect a teen into doing something good or bad; it depends who you surround yourself with.
Is adolescence really about fitting in or not standing out? Do you have any responsibility to those students who do not fit in? Do you hear that? Hush, and listen closely. Do you hear it now? The cries for help of the kids who don’t fit in with the crowd. The cries aren’t always loud. Sometimes they don’t make a sound. Stop and listen to them. Take responsibility for those kids and stand up for those kids who won’t stand up for themselves.
author Alexander Robbins states: “From the age of five children increasingly exclude peers who don’t conform to group norms. Children learn this quickly. A popular Indiana eighth grader told me ‘I have to be the same as everybody else, or people won’t like me anymore’” (150). The human brain is wired such that children will end friendships with kids that they find different. Robbins finds this behavior to be undesirable saying that it is not only unappealing, but it is a cop-out. In agreement with Robbins, parents across the world, organizations, and teen movies tell society that conformity is bad and that children should not conform to the group, rather they should stand alone and be individuals. However, Solomon Asch’s study may have discovered why this is. He concluded that: “The investigations described in this series are concerned with the independence and lack of independence in the face of group pressure” (1). Asch determines that in the face of pressure people are more apt to conform.
As an individual stuck amidst a foundation known for its propensity to breed social congruity, college has opened my eyes to numerous distinctive reasons why individuals decide to act in ways they wouldn't regularly act. Since they ordinarily aren't certain of their character, adolescents are more inclined to similarity than others. In the most essential structure, college is tormented with congruity through the generalizations that learners seek after and explore different avenues regarding trying to uncover their personality. There are two sorts of Conformity: the kind that makes you do your errands when your father authorizes you to, and the less than great kind in which you aimlessly take after the thoughts and tenets of an inner circle or gathering, without addressing the negative impacts it has upon yourself and the improvement of whatever remains of public opinion. Conformity is basic in that people strive for a feeling of strength and acknowledgement in their lives. As a result of this need, “we therefore figure out how to fit in with principles of other individuals. What's more the more we see others carrying on in a certain manner or settling on specific choices, the more we feel obliged to stick to this same pattern.” Despite the freedoms we are supposed to have in American society most adolescents find it difficult to have their own identity.
When life becomes overwhelming during adolescence, a child’s first response is to withdraw from the confinement of what is considered socially correct. Individuality then replaces the desire to meet social expectations, and thus the spiral into social non-conformity begins. During the course of Susanna’s high school career, she is different from the other kids. Susanna:
Bullying, often dismissed as a normal part of growing up, is a real problem in our nation's schools, according to the National School Safety Center. One out of every four schoolchildren endures taunting, teasing, pushing, and shoving daily from schoolyard bullies. More than 43 percent of middle- and high-school students avoid using school bathrooms for fear of being harassed or assaulted. Old-fashioned schoolyard hazing has escalated to instances of extortion, emotional terrorism, and kids toting guns to school. It is estimated that more than 90 percent of all incidents of school violence begin with verbal conflicts, w...
In the movie, 16 year old Cady Heron was the daughter of zoologist parents. They had been on a 12 year research trip in Africa before returning to the states so Cady was homeschooled most of all her life. While attending public school for the first time, Cady is swept away by who she thought she was to the new person she had become. A “plastic” is what she had become. The Plastics were the most popular girls in school, but also the messiest and most insecure. Downing others to make themselves feel better was what The Plastics lived for. It took for chaos, confusion, and betrayal for them to get to the gist of who they really are as individuals. The adolescence period in one’s life is a very tough and exciting time. A teen is constantly going through changes daily; physically, mentally and emotionally. Those with a strong sense of self make a smooth transition during this period, while others still looking for a sense of belonging seem to struggle. During the middle school years, they begin to develop more interpersonal relationships and peer acceptance be...
The first reason anti-bullying laws in school are necessary is they help prevent suicide. Studies show that in America today, “suicide is the third leading cause of death among youth ages twelve to nine-teen”(Leavasseur 3). These are the ages that school aged children are most easily influenced. “Suicide rates have quadrupled the rate at which they were in 1950” (Stacy Teicher Khadaroo 1) as education has become more necessary. “For every death recorded, research suggests that many more teens think about or attempt suicide” (Stacy Teicher Khadaroo 1). Because it is a place students are forced to spend the majority of their young lives, the responsibility to prevent their students from becoming another statistic has fallen upon the shoulders of the schools today. When schools fail to accept these responsibilities to enforce rules against bullying things such as what happened to Rebecca Ann Sedwick take place.
This becomes particularly obvious in senior years of schooling when students show a lack of respect for peers, teachers, and property. Due to a lack of self-esteem in youth raised through child care, bullying is becoming more common in schools, whether it's face-to-face, or through social media. We obviously need to act now and change the way we are raising our children so that they can have self-esteem and respect in order to have meaningful relationships with their peers and family.
Adolescence is a transformative and sometimes tumultuous time in one's life, filled with conflicting beliefs, morals, values and identities. Relationships between friends, family, romantic partners, and peers all begin to shift and morph throughout the span of puberty, and often remain in flux for a significant period of time afterwards. into emerging adulthood and beyond.
While I was a teenager, I attended three different high schools. I hated it at the time and constantly harassed my mother for ruining my life (sorry mom!). Now as a young adult, I am thankful for the experience and enjoy reflecting on what I learned as an outcast. The anti-bullying campaign is more popular than ever, and for good reason. Bullying ruins the self-esteem of the victim and can lead to depression, anxiety, drug abuse, ect. However, at all three schools that I attended, there was a bigger monster fueling the low self-esteem of students: the hierarchy system reinforced by the school’s faculty and programs…
... instead of following the majority. The issue of peer pressure can relate to teens, as they are in constant pressure to be ‘cool’ or to be in the ‘in’ group. It does not really promote individualism, so people cannot develop their own ideas but rather follow the leader of their group.
In today’s 21st century, the term adolescence is defined as a developmental transition among childhood and adulthood, these changes include physical changes, as well as changes towards their way of thinking, emotions, sense of identity and values, relationships, and realistic aspirations for the future. Through various modern changes over time, the concept of adolescence as a social construct has been influenced by the concepts of time, society, culture, persons and the environment. Through the understanding of Erikson’s theory of personal and social development, the social construct of adolescence is valid and a significant aspect in the unique cultures of the Afghanistan culture, the Jewish culture and the Australian culture.
...drama going on in their lives. With the help of the teachers and the bullying awareness program after school, the adolescents will become comfortable in a school environment.
My physical development was not so difficult for me. I experienced the growth spurt when I was10 to 15-years old. I didn’t think it was difficult time for me because my range of growth spurt was not so large. Additionally, I did not belong to sports club, so I did not feel uncomfortable when I move my body. I think I am a late bloomer because I have never had boyfriend. But I think it is advantage for me because I am not a “boy-crazy”. I know some friends who are early bloomer and being “boy-crazy”, I do not want to be like them. I have my own interest and I have something what I want to do besides dating with boys. My physical developments have some effects on my character of today. I think it is because I was taller than others since very young, my friends often said to me “you are like my elder sister.” This phrase makes me think that I need to be like elder sister when I was child. It is related to more about psychological development, but this way of thinking came from my height. One of other physical development related issue that makes me struggle is my period. Every time I am in period, I have pain in stomach and back; I feel sleepy, hungry, and irritating; and I have skin problems. I think there are more people who have more heavy symptoms of period, however, sometimes I cannot endure these. My physical developments have some effects on me, but it was not so difficult for me to pass through.