How Teenagers Think: We Explain These Mysterious Beings
Adolescence is a complex phase, characterized by great changes. During this phase, the person’s physical, intellectual, social and emotional development reaches some important milestones. However, teenagers can appear to parents as incomprehensible beings. So that this doesn’t happen, today we will talk about how teenagers think.
After reaching puberty, boys begin to think, feel, and behave in a very different way than they were doing up to that point. Many parents watch in amazement as their loving and obedient son suddenly turns into a stubborn and insolent person.
This is a normal transition, which if we manage to deal with it in the right way, will allow us to accompany them without fear during this phase. Let’s see together how teenagers think, to help parents understand these strange creatures.
How teenagers think: adolescent self-centeredness
With the arrival of adolescence, the boys reach the so-called “operative-formal stage” theorized by Piaget. This implies greater cognitive development, being adolescents able to use abstract reasoning. In addition to constructing hypotheses and deducing the consequences.
However, this phase is also accompanied by the so-called adolescent self-centeredness. This attitude can be counted among the cognitive distortions typical of adolescence and is typical of the way of thinking of boys.
Adolescent self-centeredness is based on the confusion between inner thinking and external reality. Therefore, young people can show excessive confidence in their ideas, without there being concrete facts to support them. This intellectual egocentrism gives rise to several cognitive biases, which lead to distorted beliefs.
How Teens Think: A Guide
In the spotlight of an imaginary audience
Teenagers have an exaggerated self-awareness : they spend most of their time thinking about themselves and expect others to do the same. That’s why they usually feel like they’re the center of attention all the time and think that at all times others are watching and judging them.
An example of this phenomenon could be a teenager who returns upset from a meeting with her friends because she could not hide a pimple with makeup. Her great discomfort comes from the idea that everyone will notice that imperfection, as much as she does.
This attitude is called an imaginary audience because all that external attention exists only in the teen’s mind. In reality, everyone has their own concerns and will not even notice the pimple that worries our protagonist so much.
However, this feeling of being constantly judged creates a lot of pressure on children and leads them to act inappropriately, with the aim of gaining social acceptance and recognition.
Teenagers and the personal tale
It is very common to hear teenagers say that no one understands them, that they feel misunderstood: this comes from the personal story. Because of this propensity, the young man considers himself unique, as well as the things that happen to him. He has the feeling that his personal experiences are truly special, so that no one has ever been in the same situation before.
For this reason, for example, faced with a romantic breakup, the adolescent could say that no one understands the pain he feels, because no one has loved as much as he has and lived a love like his before. So much so that he was convinced that his relationship was special and unique and so was his suffering.
The fable of invincibility
Because they feel special and unique, teens also feel that nothing bad can happen to them. Consequently, the rules and dangers do not concern them. Therefore, they venture out in search of risks and dangers with the firm belief that they will never get pregnant, never have a car accident or develop drug addiction.
Cognitive distortions are temporary
All of these distorted beliefs are typical of the stage that adolescents go through. Fortunately, as they develop their identity and accumulate experiences, these prejudices cease to exist and their thinking adjusts to reality. However, it is important that adults close to them, especially parents, know about the existence of these thought phenomena.
In this way, it will be easier to understand young people without judging or blaming them. On the contrary, we can understand and guide them in a more loving and respectful way. After all, they are part of an inevitable process they are going through.
