Being a teenager is often a period of great frustration. You want to be taken seriously, but most of the time you’re not. This is a relatively new phenomenon, probably a mid twentieth century evolution, because before that time the term didn’t exist. When there was child labor everywhere, if you were tall enough to work, you did, and girls were often married early in their lives or sent out to service, or they helped out with the younger children and were saddled with parental responsibilities early on through their siblings.
This has largely changed in our western industrialized countries and along with the mandate of secondary education, a new stage of life was given a new moniker, Teens. A highly sought after market of consumers and trend setters, since after the 2nd World War, the influence of this age group has only grown larger and there is a mad dash in the marketing world to find the secrets to getting the attention of their buying habits. Everyone wants to reach this demographic, and along with their importance have come issues that have become more extreme as the years pass.
Eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and obesity are prevalent and who ever heard of them in previous generations? Pharmaceutical drugs have brought miraculous cures of formerly pervasive illnesses and diseases, but they have also brought about easy access and the misuse of these same drugs by pre-teens and teens using them for purposes other than cures.
There has never been a time when “image” has been more important or more pressuring than in today’s multi-media world where everything is instant and celebrity is both glamorized and abused. Trends abound and it seems a whole generation has not only been pierced but now tattooed and the growing influence of the teen/adolescent market is indeed growing.
This issue is largely devoted to teen stuff and our writers have attempted to address some of these topics that all parents of this age group are struggling with and hope to manage. As in every issue, our regular teen columns are here and also some additional provocative focus on behavior we need to be aware of. As parents of teens, our responsibility is enormous and growing with each new fad, each new trend, and each new marketing campaign that seeks our youngster’s attention and dollars. It is both daunting and manageable, if we do our best to “keep up” and not “turn off” the important lines of communication with our kids.
We hope these articles bring some new information. We all must fully recognize the huge job that parenting kids in this 21st Century world brings, particularly as the ticking seconds produce newer technologies and distance our kids further from the way things used to be yesterday.
A big subject and one we can’t hope to cover in just one issue. Thanks for reading!
