Teenagers, teens – their challenges, their behaviour, their thought process and million other things about this age group is being talked, discussed about. Have you ever wondered when did this Distinction happen? When did this term, this name “Teenager” came into existence?
Recently, I was reading an article on teenagers and this struck to me. So here is the result of my exploration….
It was near World War II because of social and industrial changes, this distinction, based on age group (children aged thirteen till nineteen years) became prominent. The children who were in this age group, were no longer boys and girls but not men or women, either.
Earlier there was no separate teenagers culture. It was just that kids passed from childhood to adulthood (that is, until they themselves were married!!)
It was not before 1930s that this distinction started to happen. Children used to work with elders in the family, provide support for younger kids in the family but for the economic change that happened in 1930s and lead to the collapse of the economy, families being broken and children forced to move away to distant places in search of job/work.
From here started major social problems for these young people. In the words of sociologist Grace Palladino, “Adolescents runaways or transient youth, as they were called, forced adult society to focus on teenage problems.”
It is during this period that emphasis started on providing training and job opportunities by President Roosevelt’s National Youth Administration (NYA). With this change, public high schools came into picture and so came along a different “teenage culture”.
Advertisers started exploring the lifestyles of these young people, which had very little to do with family life or adult responsibility. All they wanted was good time and dance. And such terms were coined like, “teeners”, then “teensters”, and finally “teenagers” in 1941. The American teenager was born.
Thus, teenagers were defined and identified as someone who live in their own sweet world of fantasies, gangs….dance….music….movies….speak a different lingo. Teenagers were finding their own voices.
I, as a Parenting Coach, and a mother of teenage daughter, adore these curious teenagers and love to Explore with them their world and help them Express their feelings, views, thoughts, and challenges be it anger, anxiety, stress, fears, phobias, bullying, friendship, self esteem, peer pressure etc. so that they get Empowered and are able to manage themselves better.
[su_frame]I conduct open house one full day workshop, of my signature program called 3E – Explore Express Empower, especially designed, customized for Adolescents and Teens in the age group of twelve to twenty one years. To know more about 3E, kindly get in touch with me. [/su_frame]
Do leave a comment below in case you like the write up and feel free to contact me @98109 29711 for any kind of teenage challenge. You can also write to me on my email id kavita@jina.co.in
Your comments deeply matter to me and inspire me.
Informative. Good to know how this term was coined