Teenagers need more space
By: Ulfat Zehra
It is now universally acknowledged fact that teenage is the age of strife and strain. In other words, it is the period after childhood that has a long-lasting impact on a person’s life.
However, our society sets unreasonable boundaries for the teenagers which they are unable to understand and trespass. It is true that adolescents must be given limited freedom. Nevertheless, it makes no sense to bind them within unreasonable confinements.
Those teens whose feelings and expressions are suppressed, lead to horrible consequences. Drugs, suicide, aloneness, fear, anger, frustration, etcetera are the results of suppression of legal things. Since time immemorial, our society has been treading the same path of implementing rules and regulations that have no sanction at all.
With the changing times, everything goes through a change. The same bent of mind towards teenagers must have gone through a change. However, this is not the case. Why teenagers need freedom? This is discussed in the coming lines.
The first is personality development. Freedom gives teenager a chance to develop himself or herself in an all-round manner. Freedom allows him or her to open the closed doors of his or her mind to fly in the vast sky of critical thinking and looking above the surface.
The second is satisfaction of needs. A teenager’s life is all about mental and hormonal changes. If his legitimate desires of needs are suppressed, he or she doesn’t grow in the full possible manner. On the other hand, if he or she is allowed to satisfy his or her legal desires, it is possible to see physically as well as mentally fit adolescents.
The third is emotional imbalance. Teenagers go through an emotional imbalance. In other words, they have mood swings. Restricting their world in any sense can have negative impacts. If certain emotions are given a vent, it will make the life of a teenager. However, suppressing them and never allowing the repressed emotions to come out, is a warning sign.
So, reasonable freedom must be given to the teenagers in order to build themselves fully. Subjecting them to unreasonable restrictions can lead to severe repercussions. Understanding teenagers is the need of the hour. If they are misunderstood again and again in the present age of more strife and strain, it will lead to disastrous results. Now, it is up to the saner people to use their energies to make teenagers the best of the realized personalities.
(The author is a student)
