Many people will tell you that the teen years can be the greatest years of your life.  They can be—but they can also be the most challenging time because you’re transitioning from childhood to adulthood in just a few years.  If you sometimes feel down because you’ve got too many pressures, you’ve got good reason to feel that way.  This article’s focus is to discuss what people mean when they talk about “growing up.”  Maybe if you realize how much is involved, you’d be less uptight about not being perfect.  We’ll also talk about some of the things you can do to make the job of “growing up” less stressful, and more enjoyable.

     Basically, there are five areas that you should focus on as you’re progressing through these years.  The first is to accept your body and use it effectively.  All teens go through a period when they’re self-conscious about their bodies.  They worry about things like how slowly—or quickly—they’re developing physically.  Teens worry about their appearance, including weight or skin problems.  Your goal is to learn to accept your body and features, and be realistic about the way you look.  Try not to compare yourself with others, but look at your own growth as unique.  Learn to care for your body.  Participate in sports and other physical activities in order to effectively use it.  For more information on ways to accept your body, check out the article: “Are you unhappy with the way you look?”

     Secondly, during your teen years, you should establish your own sexual identity and develop mature relationships with members of both sexes.  When you were a kid, most of your friends were probably the same sex as you.  But now, it’s healthy to develop friendships with members both sexes.  This may be complicated at times.  However, once you’ve established friendships with both, you’ll start to feel more comfortable with yourself.  The more friendships you have with members of both sexes, the more information and experiences you’ll have which will help you develop healthy relationships.

     The third area is becoming emotionally independent.  As a kid, you depended on your parents to fill all of your emotional needs.  But now you’re faced with the challenge of getting love, understanding, respect and support from people other than your parents.  While you’re learning how to do this, you may run into problems at home.  It’s often hard for parents to let go and for teens to grow emotionally independent of their parents.

     In addition to developing emotional independence, the fourth area focuses on another kind of independence - financial.  This means deciding on the job or career you want in the future, and preparing for it.  But first, you have to identify your goals in life.  These goals should reflect your interests, abilities, and values.  Laying the foundation of financial independence can feel very intimidating, but it’s one of the big things you’ll need to be aware of as you’re growing up.

     And finally, you’re expected to develop your own personal set of beliefs—in other words, your own value system.  This means sifting through all the beliefs that your family, teachers, church and society have taught you are important and valuable, and then choosing the ones that personally mean the most to you.  The beliefs that will probably mean the most to you are those that will let you live in peace.  Trying to find a balance between values that express you and those of society can often create problems.  For example, if you think going to church isn’t important, but your parents do, this can be an issue.  Maybe it would help if you let your parents know that you understand their concern, but that you need time to further explore reasons for going to church.  If you do decide to go to church, it will be for reasons you believe in.  For the rest of your life, you’ll be trying to create a balance between doing what you believe in and what others expect from you—but when you’re just starting to develop your own personal set of beliefs, it can be emotionally challenging.

      All of these expectations can seem like too much to cope with.  You may get down on yourself because you think you’re not doing as well as you should.  Just remember that you’re facing a HUGE job, and nobody expects you to be perfect.  Although your teen years can be a difficult time, it’s possible that you may look back on your teen years as the greatest years of your life.