I have read a New York Times article about the lack of doctors specializing in adolescents. Here in the Philippines, that is a relatively new field. If I am not mistaken, there is a unit like this at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and/or Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC). You can click on the link to read the article, thank you.
That adolescence is a critical stage with the development of children, I agree. I have interpreted in the article that this is a time when these children are “looking for their identity, their niche” and if they successfully go through this stage, they are more or less okay to face bigger and more difficult challenges as they grow older. If however, they have had a difficult passage of rites in this stage, they could either end up in prison or being an underclass, according to the article.
To me these negative outcomes mean having low self-esteem, not being able to know what they want to do enjoy doing, not having the right mindset, behavior and skills to reach their goals. Though really, this is still a time when their goals are still very much so idealistic, at least, they have developed a pattern, a plan on how to somehow achieve these goals. I know this for a fact because I have an adolescent, a tween daughter who will turn 12 come August. Since kindergarten, her “what I want to be when I grow up” dreams have changed half a dozen times. When she wanted to be a vet, we always visited pet shops, we let her take care of the dogs: bathing them and going with them to the vet. When she wanted to be an interior designer like her tito, we let her design houses using the SIMS cd. Now she wants to be a dog breeder. Though my reaction was like “Huh?” I am happy of course that at this stage, she has goals and that she is looking for ways to make herself do her best in ways that will help her achieve what she wants.
But then again, I want to say this this stage is somewhat a little difficult for both the child and the parents. Because adolescent’s body is changing, the physical, emotional, social and mental changes affect the behavior. My daughter has become more assertive, more outspoken, “dictatorial” according to my husband. She makes her wants known but she patiently waits for the gratification of these things that she wants, and for that I am thankful. Her mood changes a lot and has become sensitive but everything is still manageable. To those who have toddlers, preschoolers it is best to be prepared when your children become adolescents. In the meantime, I think I may have to arrange an appointment with an adolescent medicine doctor for my daughter before her 6th grade school year starts. 
This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 8:16 am and is filed under Bits and Pieces, Lessons in Life, My Family, My Thoughts, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
. Yeah right.