Through theoretical and historical perspectives in combination with contemporary study, ‘storm and stress’ is the ideology that, adolescence is the difficult segment in some ways compared to any other part of a person’s life. The period is considered difficult due to some elements like conflicts with parents. Adolescents are rebellious and resist authority; thus, at these moments, their conflicts with parents are usually high. Next is mood disruption. At this time, adolescents are emotionally volatile than adults and children. They experience more diverse mood swings and more depressed mood episodes. Another element during adolescence is risky behavior. Most of these individuals experience high rates of recklessness, anti-social behaviors, and norm breaking compared to adults and children. They, therefore, cause disruptions in social gatherings and engage in harmful activities to them or people around them.
Nonetheless, even if we accept the ideology that adolescence is a time when individuals have highlighted affinity for ‘storm and stress’, there are still possible researches on if this is true. Stress and storm are also linked to biological changes that happen during puberty. However, from evidence, biological changes contribute as well. With respect to mood swings, evidence on the influence of hormones on adolescents' moods has indicated that the dramatic changes in hormones on both genders that accompany puberty lead to emotional volatility and negative attitudes.
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The current generation often feels intense pressure from society to be perfect and expects perfection from others and themselves. The increase in perfectionism might possess links with a rise in myriad psychological obstacles. Currently, young adults and teenagers get unquestionably subjected to high demands and expectations. This reality generates enormous pressure and stress among students that get predisposed to anxiety ( Göllner et al., 2017 ). In addition, massive workloads at school interfere with essential developmental and social processes. Many adolescents might be spending a lot of time doing schoolwork than mingling and engaging in other age-appropriate deeds.
This, however, can instill poor performance among adolescent students. For instance, an adolescent might study effectively for a test, but when he or she gets to class to sit for the paper, can have trouble remembering that information during the test; this is due to anxiety. Stress can interfere with the capability to absorb and synthesize data. This makes the students frustrated, leading them to question their intelligence. Moreover, when this problem persists, it can become self-perpetuating.
Living in the information age, technology, and social media is inherently negative and complicated. Adolescents in the current times are washed in a flooded pool of information, which provides hard to assimilate data and can still encourage the ideology of stress. At present times, children are exposed to the internet at an earlier age compared to past generations. In many cases, the teens deal with hard-to-handle information, like getting hands-on adult magazines to satisfy their sexual curiosities. Teens and children are now accessing myriad genes of easily accessible pornography that covers them with unrealistic ideologies on sexuality and fills them with disturbing practices like pedophilia and bestiality. In addition, adolescents are likely to get exposed to social media platforms coverage of horrific events before they know what they are feeding themselves. Research thus shows that social media offers a positive contribution to society and gives young adults and teens a way of avoiding their problems (Meyers, 2018). The moment social platforms get in-between schoolwork this becomes a huge problem.
Most scholars see ‘storm and stress’ period as by no means inevitable and universal. In addition, an individual’s perceptions on ‘storm and stress’ indicate that it is a trait of teens taken as a team, and it is not a characteristic of all teens without exceptions. Studies also show that the belief in ‘storm and stress’ has not gotten fully supported by scholars. It would lead parents to use authoritarian parenting designs to prevent the ‘storm and stress’ stage they anticipate in their teens. In addition, if the problem gets regarded as normative, young adults with severe problems will get dismissed as a regular factor in teens. Another concern is that when teenage moments are expected to be turmoil, there might be young adults whose problems would go untreated and unrecognized. Anticipating the period would lead to positive impacts by inspiring teachers and parents to think ahead on approaching potential problems of teens if they arise. Besides, teachers, parents, and other adults expecting teens to behave might get surprised if a young adult portrays few or no difficulties.
Final Position
Therefore, from this context and other further researches, ‘storm and stress’ during adolescent is a myth that has seized the popular imagination and a real-life segment for many young adults and their parents in American society. Also, though some scholars refute the ‘storm and stress’ notion among adolescents, some aspects of this ideology still exist. Parents also experience hardships in dealing with their adolescent children; this is from increased conflicts brought about by mood disruptions and anxiety over rising in risk traits when their teens are in mid and late adolescent periods. Additionally, reviewing adolescence as a period of ‘storm and stress’ does not mean that all teens get described only by ‘storm and stress’. Even during their adolescent period, teens are still confident and hopeful about their future. From this, the adolescence period can be both a period of ‘storm and stress’ and a moment of exuberant growth.
References
Göllner, R., Roberts, B. W., Damian, R. I., Lüdtke, O., Jonkmann, K., & Trautwein, U. (2017). Whose “‘storm and stress’” is it? Parent and child reports of personality development in the transition to early adolescence. Journal of personality , 85 (3), 376-387.
Meyers, Laurie. (2018). The ‘storm and stress’ of Adolescence and Young Adulthood. A publication of the American Counseling Association. Retrieved From: https://ct.counseling.org/2018/10/the-storm-and-stress-of-adolescence-and-young-adulthood/#
