The risks of prolonged adolescence
There are many stages that a person goes through to reach the adult stage. Since they are babies, going through their childhood, preadolescence, youth and at the end of maturity, these are steps that must be taken. But not all have the same rhythm and sometimes someone may need more time to complete these steps throughout their development.
However, staying too long in one of these stages is counterproductive. This is the case of prolonged adolescence, that is, maintaining behaviors that are supposed to correspond to an age that has already been overcome. Sometimes this is because the young boys they do not possess the necessary resources to be able to emancipate themselves or because they avoid the responsibilities of adult life.
The function of adolescence
As has already been said, every stage in life fulfills a specific function. Adolescence in particular serves to finish outlining the social behavior and begin to shape how the adult personality of each individual will be. It also supposes a time in which more and more responsibilities are assumed and independence is gaining ground.
Finally, this process of maturation ends with the emancipation of young people. Once the children leave home and form their own home, they take full responsibility for their lives. In order to ensure that a person arrives fully prepared at this time, before you have to go through the top stage of maturity.
However, in recent times the young Spaniards take longer to emancipate themselves. This means that the aforementioned process can not be completed, as stated by the family counselor Luis Rodríguez Molinero. Staying in the shelter of parents at an age when independence is supposed to have taken place lengthens the process more than necessary, preventing maturity from being reached.
Reasons that lengthen adolescence
Rodríguez Molinero identifies the following reasons that make young Spaniards lengthen their adolescence:
- "With how good I am". Spanish parents like their children to be at home and do not want to see them leave. However, to extend this process is not productive, parents must accept that children are able to act for themselves and encourage them when they want to leave this comfort zone.
- Fear of leaving the comfort zone In relation to the above, it is the children who do not want to leave home. Parents should let their children know that they are very capable of acting for themselves without the help of their parents.
- Helicopter parents. Those parents who write all the way to their children avoid that they are able to choose and that they can achieve the total autonomy that emancipation supposes.
Damián Montero
