Global Youth Ministry Network - Asia

Teenagers can be emotional people. They can laugh uncontrollably during the first part of the youth meeting and then become depressed and resentful in the second half.  Mood swings can be caused by the erratic surge of hormones in their body. Their feelings can be tense as well as unpredictable. Since they are just beginning to experience adultlike emotions, they are having difficulties dealing with them. On the negative side, they can be susceptible to emotional appeals they receive from music videos, movies and even occult groups (i.e. Emo culture). Knowing their emotional roller-coaster experience can help youth ministers identify with them, not be hypercritical and be more sympathetic and patient about their emotional conduct.

Emotional changes among teens can also be understood by viewing it through the lens of identity development. They tend to detach themselves from their parents and start to attain their separate sense of identity. According to German-American psychologist Erik Erikson, one of the main tasks of adolescents is to resolve the question, “Who Am I?” Erikson saw adolescence as a “time out” period during which a person experiments with a variety of identities (i.e. tough student, class clown, spoiled brat). If an adolescent receives positive feedback about the identity he is embracing, he/she would surely continue the behavior. Else, he/she would experiment with other identities.

Read on the Spiritual Development of Teens

Previously discussed:

Physical Development of Teens

Intellectual Development of Teens

Social Development of Teens