The child goes through three basic growth crises, then during the third childhood, which extends from the age of seven to the age of ten, he reaches a stable and harmonious balance. Between the ages of ten and twelve, he enjoys a small personality that grows harmoniously and adapts to the natural and social environment surrounding him, to the point that this situation pleases educators and brings them comfort.
However, this apparent pause in development is only a short-term pause, as if the child’s nature is gathering and preparing for the final leap, this radical and enormous leap that surpasses in its characteristics any stage of development since birth. It is adolescence beginning, a “second birth” from which the adolescent emerges into existence.
In the following lines, we will seek to explain the distinctive characteristics of this tumultuous stage that extends between the ages of thirteen and fourteen and between eighteen and twenty, the first signs of which appear in a preparatory period, which is the period immediately preceding puberty.
Characteristics of adolescence
Adolescence is a time of confusion during which one hesitates between what was and what is to be, between the child of yesterday and the man of tomorrow. The body begins to transform and the features of the child are erased, leaving in their place the features of a man and the features of a woman. The soul also undergoes a transformation of great importance as it matures and the soul of the adult man emerges from the soul of the child.
It is no wonder that we find that this age of confusion is also an age of crises, during which we see the young man disturbed and yearning for a future balance that will not be achieved in reality until later. While waiting for this stability, the young man is shaken by great forces that work within him in spirit and body.
Under the influence of the increasing action of hormones, the boy begins to grow rapidly, first in length, then in width and depth. The reproductive function matures at the very stage of puberty, and the sex hormones begin to affect the body in general and the nervous system in particular. As for the psyche, violent impulses of recent origin and of hitherto unfamiliar intensity intend to destroy the previous balance that existed between the child and himself and between himself and his social environment.
As one would expect, this violent crisis produces great disturbances and pains. This is why the early years of adolescence are called the Age of Disgràce, a term that affects both body and soul. The body is disproportionate due to the rapid and increasing growth, while the soul is disturbed by the child's feeling that everything inside him is dissolving and disintegrating.
We can thus understand how this age is an age of anxiety, as the blessed Augustine indicates in his “Confessions” when he speaks of his “anxious adolescence.” The child has become a living secret before himself and before those around him, and he suffers because others do not understand him and because he is unable to understand himself as well. Then the adolescent feels deep within himself mysterious desires that direct strong and hidden calls to him. Farewell then, O gentle and safe childhood. Here, from now on, anxiety and anxiety will take your place as a result of the disappearance of what one was and the birth of a new being.
Adolescence is also the age when the “ego” is discovered and the personality is formed. It is noted that this personality draws its first lines during the second childhood period extending between the ages of three and seven. Adolescence comes to confirm and clarify these lines. The natural transformations occurring in the adolescent’s body direct his attention towards his body, so he pays special attention to his appearance and seeks elegance. On the other hand, a turbulent inner life awakens in him, in which he finds a pleasant pleasure mixed with anxiety. This life takes over him completely, to the point that it cuts him off to some extent from the outside world. This situation is what is called “introversion,” which means disconnection from the external environment and withdrawal into oneself.
Let us note well that if the adolescent can discover the “I” with this power and is able to isolate himself with this strong desire, then, unlike the child who is preoccupied with every moment of his successive existence, he is able to double his feeling and contemplate himself in his solitude by himself. He is thus able to move upward in the field of time towards the past and to feel the unity of his self in perpetuity.
However, this withdrawal into oneself is in fact far from the schizophrenia (Autism) that appears in some pathological cases in which the patient is cut off from the outside world and withdraws into his own thoughts, ruminating over them and contemplating them without interruption. While the adolescent takes care of his hidden life within himself with love and suffering, he is also aware of the social conditions and feels an urgent need to establish his personality in the environment in which he lives. But this establishment for a personality in the process of formation is in reality taking a negative and opposing position, and thus adolescence is also the age of opposition.
This opposition, which had previously appeared during childhood, now manifests itself with violence and breadth, and the child wishes to break away from the way of life, thinking and feeling of his surroundings. He is in open revolt against authority and family traditions; any submission to an external authority seems to him an unbearable slavery. He detests conformity to the usual rules and seeks strangeness at any cost. What is called the crisis of originality in the adolescent (crise d'originalité juvénile) may prompt him to commit strange and abnormal acts in order to strengthen himself and attract others to him.
He is amazed by the unexpected discoveries he encounters in his inner world, and easily believes himself to be a unique and unusual being. His environment’s failure to understand him creates a painful sense of isolation that he tries to savor with bitter pleasure.
However, this personality, which is in the process of formation, is still weak and unstable, lacking balance and coherence. The adolescent quickly moves from joy to sadness, from enthusiasm to lethargy, from a strong tendency to indifference, and in short, from a state of great psychological tension to a state of deplorable decadence. All this is due to physiological conditions, which are the disorders resulting from puberty, and to the weakness of the will to control that will, which has not yet fully developed. It is also due to the fact that the adolescent soul has become aware of itself, and this discovery has intoxicated it, so it began to experiment with itself in all directions and to count its riches. This results in successive stray states that follow one another in that soul, which desires at all costs to remain always prepared without missing any of its possibilities. These possibilities are abundant in the adolescent because his inner life is in constant turmoil and abundant riches overflow from it.
Mentally, adolescence is the age of thought, as the adolescent is capable of contemplation and reflection because he knows how to separate his mind from the current situation. He therefore likes to use abstract ideas even if he does not fully understand their meaning. The mind opens up to rationality and is attracted to intellectual doctrines. The critical spirit develops in the adolescent, and you see him delight in endless discussions. However, the rigidity he shows in these discussions is not in fact an attachment to the truth as much as it is the result of a love of contradiction and a desire to strengthen and control the self.
However, there is a fact to prove, which is that the teenager is taken at this age to love the truth. For this age is in fact the conscious and exciting discovery of values. It is the period of abstract leaps towards ideals, towards truth.
The adolescent respects his “ego” and you see him aiming for complete honesty with himself and with others and he pursues the truth with passion and wishes to know everything. The feeling of beauty grows strongly in him and plays a fundamental role in his inner life. The adolescent is able to deeply appreciate nature and his feelings are shaken by the beauty of art. His love for purity in creation is admirable and compromises and vulgarities seem to him to be betrayals of the ideals and make him judge harshly adults who commit them. In his urgent and ardent quest for the ideal, he displays a noble detachment, dismissing with contempt every idea of previously hidden benefit. He is fascinated by the intensity of determination and strength of will and is captivated by the violent tension in this. The vitality that overflows from him creates in him a need to sacrifice himself, body and soul, for the sake of any cause that has any connection to the ideals. This is why Paul Claudel calls modernity the age of heroism, while François Mauriac calls it the age of sainthood, but we must acknowledge that these leaps are coupled with a tendency toward the imaginary and the fictional, which puts them in danger of being lost and dissipated. The adolescent’s imagination, which is constantly aroused, can drag him into a world of illusions, where his vital powers are thwarted and his thirst for ideals is deceived, because this world of illusions is in fact a forgery of these ideals.
The adolescent who is tormented by the mystery of his inner life becomes open to the world of secrets. At this age an intense religious life can emerge. For the adolescent, God is the greatest answer to his thirst for ideals, to his desire for purity and to his love for the absolute. It is God in whom the adolescent can find the unity of his inner being and in whom he can lose his troubled “ego” and find it at peace.
This need to get out of oneself is manifested in the tendency towards love. This tendency rises during adolescence from the depths of the being and is shared by the soul and body. As for the body, the organs that transmit life mature and new feelings arise, vague and confusing feelings that arouse curiosity to the point that one fears that this curiosity may become harmful and have dire consequences. As for the soul, the need for sympathy appears outside the family framework, and a great hunger for tenderness and giving arises. Then a great interest in everything related to the opposite sex becomes apparent, and this interest is revived in a strange way by the scenes and readings that arouse instincts that are widespread in our modern civilization. This is also contributed to by the conspiracy of the elderly to keep silent about these topics and not to broach them, considering them taboo. The danger of this bad guidance is very great because it may distort the idea of love for life and take away the freshness of young souls. In adolescents, the overflowing emotional power is poured into friendship, and adolescence is thus the age of friendship. The boy chooses a friend who bestows on him all the qualities he would like to have, and to him alone he opens himself up to provide him with its riches. Thus we see that the adolescent is not attached to his friend as much as he is to himself, and his friend is nothing but a mirror in which he contemplates himself as an image and an extension of his ego. It happens that the boy suffers a bitter disappointment when his friend's true personality becomes clear to him. Everyone knows that adolescent friendships often take the violent forms of love alone and become dangerous. These deviations can be explained by the fact that the distinction between emotional life and sexual life has not yet been completed in the adolescent.
The adolescent is passionate about the absolute, he promises himself that these friendships will be eternal and he projects them into the future. He has absorbed the idea of time, and instead of always living like a child in the present moment, you see him enjoying this wonderful dimension that is time, savoring his past and looking completely to the future. In this future, which his imagination adds the most brilliant colors to, the adolescent strengthens his determination to realize his desires for victory, tenderness, ideals, and self-sacrifice.
At this age, the adolescent is inevitably asked about his future career unless others have already drawn a specific path for him. He dreams of the brightest professions and positions and surrenders to these dreams with pleasure mixed with caution, until his personality matures and, in conjunction with occasions and circumstances, he is assigned a profession to pursue.
As for adolescent girls, the desire for motherhood in particular is what imposes itself on them after they reach a certain maturity.
Our attitude towards teenagers
What then should be our position on adolescence, we who care about the events and fervently desire their human and religious development?
Above all, we must make an effort to understand them, and this is essential. This effort will be difficult because it is a succession of contradictory and stray situations that affect the adolescent personality, which is not yet sufficiently organized. Moreover, we cannot fit the adolescent into the framework of the simplified image that we are familiar with of the child and the adult, and if we try to remember our adolescence, we find that the vision we see in our view of the past will only present us with an image distorted by our present “ego.” Let us add to this that seeking authenticity in the adolescent shocks our adult mentality by describing it as a defect in the system to which we have adapted, and leads us to adopt a regrettable attitude of hatred towards that young person, even and especially if he was dear to us until then. Our understanding of events is necessary for us to gain their trust. Let us therefore adopt an open and welcoming attitude towards them, directed towards a knowledge that is deepened by empathy, this ability to participate in the life of the other and to enter into the heart of his secret. Far from us are the false complaints about the “difficult age” and let us be convinced that adolescence is also an influential age worthy of our friendly attention.
If we want to maintain contact with adolescents and to be able to influence them in a beneficial way, it is also necessary that our authority over them be flexible. The adolescent personality is suspicious, cautious, and ready to rebel against educators who do not appreciate it and who want to impose pressure on it, even if it is friendly. The adolescent wants above all to be treated as a man who cooperates with others and is not driven by them. The feeling of moral independence that excludes all external rules is very intense in him. We rarely impose our authority on him and we try as much as possible to convince him. To achieve this goal we have a method that is more effective than the most beautiful instructions: let us be models and witnesses of these virtues, of this balance that we want to win for the adolescent. This adolescent, who is so carried away by the admiration of others, will imitate us by free choice, without any feeling of coercion capable of wounding his sensitive feelings, since he has recognized in us a diagnosis, however imperfect, of the values that he loves. He feels that his independence has been satisfied because he has only listened to a call from the depths of his being and achieved the best within him. The best educational work at this age is the radiant presence.
Especially during this period, personal influence on the adolescent is necessary because the adolescent, in the development of his young personality, is reluctant to be considered as a reciprocal unit in a group. He wants, because of his acute awareness of the uniqueness of his emerging “I”, to be loved by people with special attention and to establish personal relationships with them. Let us know, then, how to be big brothers and big sisters to the adolescent, how to listen to his ramblings even when they are inexpressive, and how to understand quickly the hesitant and tactless questions expressed. Let us always be ready to give the anxious soul support and refreshment with a smile and encouragement, to tell the adolescent that we have been through his age and know his difficulties and that he can confide in us without arousing our surprise. However, to carry out this task well, we must have a lot of sincerity, a lot of dedication, a lot of cleverness, and a lot of love for the adolescent as it is. Our personal interactions should always and at all costs be a collaboration between the adolescent and us, a collaboration that concerns, as far as we are concerned, the hidden guidance and the removal of barriers, so that we may know that it is a great help to the adolescent in the midst of his struggle to know that an older brother is walking beside him, thinking of him, rejoicing in his victories and praying for him to the Lord of all ages.
What is our position on the “crisis of authenticity among adolescents”?
When this crisis occurs - and it may not be clearly visible - let us remember that it is a normal and natural stage of growth, let us follow its development with interest and seek to direct it. Let us pretend not to notice the outward abnormal behaviors designed to attract attention, let us help the adolescent to become more and more inwardly self-assertive until this leads to a truly authentic personality, let us make him realize that God has a special plan for him and that he is called to play in the Church of Christ a role that no one else can play, let us provide him with readings that will help him to know himself and develop in him the best that is in his soul, the writings from the lives of the saints and great servants of humanity can greatly guide him in the formation of his personality.
It is worth remembering, however, that the adolescent must develop his personality, adapting it more and more to the demands of social life; he must gradually pass from youthful selfishness to altruism, from the taking to the giving position, as the psychoanalysts say. There must be a balance in the human being between the "instinct of domination" and the "need for human communion," as Dr. Adler says. In order to achieve this double goal, namely, the development of the personality and the avoidance of individualism, the dangerous pitfall of adolescence, we must develop the group life that the adolescent spontaneously loves. The period between the ages of eleven and seventeen has been rightly called the "age of the band." Each member works in the group and participates in creation, but this is done according to common rules and for a common purpose. Let adolescent groups be formed spontaneously according to natural approaches. Let them be given a wide, special autonomy in their internal organization and in their methods of activity. Let us entrust to each adolescent a part of the apostolic responsibility, and let him take the initiative in the field of Christian conquest and witness. But let us be careful that this activity, which helps him to develop his personality better and better, results from the Christian ideal of service: “I came not to be served but to serve.” This creative activity, which he exercises, has the effect of freeing the adolescent from the feeling of inadequacy, which finds in adolescence a suitable ground and which is a source of withdrawal into oneself, shyness, aggression and unfamiliarity.
We are faced with an adolescent who is faced with a sharp, turbid vitality. Let us help him to escalate it by directing it towards the noble leaps that are strongly drawn within him. Let us nourish his longing for truth, goodness and beauty. Let us open for him, for this purpose, the horizons of human knowledge, watching over his personal interest in them. Let us provide him with trips, stays in villages and ways to immerse himself in the nature he loves, to absorb it in rapture towards light and beauty. Let us train him to be open to the arts, to beautiful poetry for example, and especially to that music which seeps into the depths of the soul and brings to it its purifying breaths. Let us transform his desire for domination into self-control and the conquest of the highest peaks of virtue.
Since aesthetic interests occupy a very important place at this age and have value even in the adolescent's idea of virtue, we should not neglect to return to them often and to nourish them. Let us urge the adolescent to make his life something beautiful. We can also appeal to the feeling of honor that is born in this period as a result of the adolescent's discovery of his youthful personality and the respect he has for it. This feeling can be a great incentive to personal fulfillment.
But above all, let us be vigilant that the adolescent may perceive God as the first source and supreme goal of all that he longs for in terms of truth, goodness and beauty, and that he may feel God as “more intimate with himself than himself” (Plus intime à lui que lui-même), in the words of the blessed Augustine. Let us help him to go deeper and mature in his spiritual leap, which is natural at this age, by giving him positive goals to achieve for the love of God, and by reminding him of the need to embody this leap in the simplest realities of his daily life. Let us help him to acquire a profound religious life by reading the Gospel regularly and by frequently participating in the Holy Mass and the sacraments. This life must be pure of any element of licentiousness, and must help to uproot the adolescent from his narrow individualism, making him a partner in the Holy Spirit in the life of the mystical Body of Christ.
As for the adolescent's religious information, it is necessary that it have a solid intellectual structure that is appropriate to the critical spirit and the love of abstraction and doctrines that are developing at that time in the adolescent. A discrepancy between a solid worldly education and superficial religious knowledge is dangerous for the adolescent. The issue, as François Mauriac strongly felt, is to form Christian minds (Intelligences chrétiennes).
Let us facilitate friendships of youth, provided that they help the adolescent to emerge from himself, according to this beautiful constitution of Saint-Exupéry: “Friendship is not to look at one another, but to look together in the same direction.” Let us enlighten him with wisdom in choosing a friend, because friendships can leave deep marks on the soft mind of this age. Let us know how to show him in Christ the God, who in his incarnation wanted to be like his brothers in all things, the highest model of a friend, this most understanding and most loving model. And let us also show him in him the leader whom one follows, led by an exciting enthusiasm, in the great adventure that one undertakes with one’s whole being, taking on, as François Mauriac said, “the greatest risk, the risk of total self-giving.” Spiritual adventure is perfectly capable of exploiting the need for mischief in adolescents, the vitality with which they feel so full, and their strong need for affection, since it can take all these feelings and heighten them. In this adventure the teenager must lead the friend he has chosen and let himself be led by him, following the example of that wonderful pair of students who later became Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory of Nazianzus.
As for that call to love that the adolescent feels rising from the depths of his being, let us help him to form for himself a clear and straight awareness of it in the divine radiant purity. Let the adolescent know that God is love and that there is no true love except in Him. Thus this word loses its ambiguous echoes and its disturbing taste like a forbidden fruit. Let us help the adolescent with much good taste to calmly understand the great and beautiful mission entrusted to him as a result of the maturation of his life-transmitting function. Let us instill in him first of all the idea of Christian love, “L'amour-agapé,” which empties itself and gives itself permanently: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for those one loves.” Let difficult chastity appear to him as a period of initiation into true love, and let his emotional powers, while waiting to mature fully, be spent in a daily sacrifice of self (in movement, in the profession, etc.), thus preparing for the self-denial that the family will later demand.
This research leads us to the issue of advocacy. Here too we have responsibilities.
Let us help the adolescent as much as possible to become aware of his potential and tastes. Let us develop in him a sense of the responsibilities that await him. The young creature who at this age is in a hurry to fill his place as a man is capable of understanding. If we have the pleasure and honor of hearing the permission of a vocation to the seminary or religious life, let us express our pleasure to the adolescent and exhort him to prayer and to be faithful in the little things, so that when he experiences his vocation and realizes that it was not a passing enthusiasm, he will be able, on the day the Lord wills, to follow Him with freedom and generosity.
These are some rules of conduct that can give us some inspiration in our difficult task of educating adolescents. Let us trust them, for their age is full of riches and leaps. Our movement gives them a first place in its ranks, and they give it in return the treasure of their wonderful enthusiasm, their new strengths, their high ideals. Above all, let us entrust them to the Lord, for only his divine gaze can penetrate their mystery, and only his grace can immerse and reveal the hidden depths of their personality. Let us ask him to help them to preserve throughout their whole lives this first vision of life shining with the clarity of dawn, to enrich it little by little with their human experiences, and let us ask him to help them also to emerge from their shrinking solitude and to reach an ever deeper communion with him and with their brothers.
Dr. Kosti Bandali
This article was originally written in French.
The two friends kindly translated it into Arabic.
George Khodr (currently Bishop George) and Fouad Malek.
“Al-Noor Magazine”, Issues 4 and 5/6, 1953
