Looking Back to Move Forward: Helping Teachers Understand Teenage Identity Struggles
The Turbulent Teen Years
As most of us remember, the teenage years can be a turbulent time. Teens are going through rapid physical, emotional, and social changes while trying to figure out their identity and place in the world. They are prone to mood swings, impulsivity, and risky behaviours as they navigate new relationships and responsibilities.
According to psychologist Erik Erikson, adolescents are in the stage of "identity versus confusion," meaning their main developmental task is establishing a sense of self. If they don't form a cohesive identity, they will emerge from this stage feeling insecure and confused about who they are.
With so many changes happening at once, it's no wonder teens can seem so perplexing to the adults in their lives. As teachers shape young minds day after day, compassion for this age group is essential. But reconnecting with the ups and downs of adolescence after many years can be challenging. This is where self-reflection comes in handy.
Looking Inward to Understand Outward
Self-reflection techniques allow teachers to recall their own teenage years, identity explorations, and desire for autonomy. By looking inward, they can rediscover the emotional world of teens and cultivate greater empathy.
For example, guided visualisation exercises take teachers back through the halls of their high school. What challenges did they face while figuring out friends, family, future goals? How did it feel to be hyper-focused on social status or wanting independence from parents? Re-exploring these memories creates an emotional bridge to better understand what today’s students are going through.
Leveraging Social Media Narratives
Reflecting on the specific trials teens face today also builds empathy. The explosion of social media in the 21st century has greatly impacted adolescent identity development and self-image. Young people carefully curate different personas across Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and feel pressured by the 24/7 connectivity social platforms bring. Hearing first-hand teenage accounts of cyberbullying, influencer culture, or impacts on mental health due to social media provides salient talking points for reflection exercises.
As teachers unpack how vastly different the adolescent landscape is today compared to their own, it solidifies understanding and compassion for what students are dealing with.
Reflective Sessions for Lasting Change
One way for schools to formalise this self-reflective process is through psychoemotional strength programs. An individual teacher meets with a trained facilitator, a person who has experience working in schools and who is also a clinical counsellor and clinical supervisor, once a month, to exchange stories, perspectives, and insights on relating to adolescent identity struggles.
By discussing their own teenage years and contrasting them with modern student experiences, core themes around the timeless search for belonging, meaning, and independence emerge. Teachers realise they share many of the same feelings and motivations as students today, even if the expression looks different in a social media-infused context.
Teachers build trust with their facilitator to share vulnerabilities, re-examine assumptions, and claim compassion for the tumult teenagers inevitably face while finding themselves. They also gain confidence to translate these “looking inward” takeaways to “looking outward” application with greater empathy, insight, and emotional intelligence in reaching their students.
By remembering their own identity journeys, educators can extend the patient guidance and nurturing care teenagers yearn for while navigating uncertain waters into adulthood.