What Changes During Adolescence?

Find a therapist to support kids and teens

I have a problem with resilience. Or rather, a problem with the [mostly] Gen X notion that Gen Z need more of it. Being an adolescent or young adult is tough, and tougher now than it was for Generation X when we were experiencing our own adolescence and young adulthood. Modern life is furnished with social and political inequity, extreme weather events, widespread poverty, pandemics, racism, homophobia and transphobia, violence against women and girls, exploitative porn, misogynistic media, non-consensual image-sharing, cyberbullying and war. This state of so-called “permacrisis” affects us all, to a greater or lesser extent, but it impacts Gen Z more than older adults because these events have been prevalent for a greater portion of their lives than they have been for ours.1

Another thing that makes modern life hard for Gen Z is the amount of choice on offer. They are sold the myth that this is a good thing, but that’s not true. Making choices is hard, because it results in change, which is tough in and of........

© Psychology Today