3 The social world of adolescence

The social world of adolescents is central to their health and wellbeing. It can make young people feel vulnerable as well as provide opportunities for support. In this section, you will consider vulnerability in more detail.

Figure 10

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Group of young people laughing and waving hands

Figure 10

In the opening activity, you will reflect on the social context of adolescence, the pressures it places on young people, and how they might respond.

Activity 5: Identifying sources of pressure

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

Step 1: First, jot down the first thing that comes to mind about adolescent social pressures, e.g. the pressures to meet expectations of other people in their social world of family, friends, peers, communities.

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Answer

Did you base your answer on your own experience or someone you know? It can be easier to tune into your own feelings than to understand someone else’s world. Those the course team brought to mind were social media pressures, conflicts with parents and concerns about educational performance.

Step 2: Watch this video and make a note of some the factors that are mentioned by John Goss.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 3: John Goss on sources of pressure

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Transcript: Video 3: John Goss on sources of pressure

John Goss

In my role as a counsellor, I see various challenges that adolescents face today. I would say there are things like sexuality and gender identity and growing up in family, family relationships, relationships with their peers. Quite often schooling is a big issue. And social media in various ways quite often comes into play in a counselling session.

In terms of challenges around school, I think adolescents face various challenges around education. Sometimes that’s around choosing subjects, choosing the direction they want to go in. I think that’s probably one of the first challenges that comes to mind.

Adolescents also face some quite big challenges among their own peer groups as well. Sometimes social media comes into play here to some degree. Sometimes that’s how they get along with their friends’ challenges around various or family-related issues.

There’s various social challenges when growing up, especially in school and college and education. For some people, that’s sometimes things around expectations of what they would like to achieve. Sometimes balancing that out with expectations that the family would like them to achieve. So that, in particular, can be a particular challenge.

Another sense its peer pressure. And forming social groups can also be another factor. For some people, that’s about forming friendships and finding their identity within a particular friendship group. And for others, it’s sometimes around feeling pressured into doing things they might not want to do or maybe feeling that they don’t fit in.

End transcript: Video 3: John Goss on sources of pressure

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Video 3: John Goss on sources of pressure

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Discussion

Below are some sources of the social pressures young people experience. You may also have picked up some of these from the video at the beginning of this session.

• Managing friendships
• Family relationships
• Romantic relationships
• Exam pressures
• Health concerns about self or others
• Lack of clear career motivations/ambitions
• Bullying
• Fitting in with social groups
• Social media
• Caring for others
• Loneliness or social isolation

Select the answer for

Question 1a

here

Step 3: Read the list and think about a young person you know. How many of these pressures do you think they may be experiencing? Tick the three most important ones to you. There are no right or wrong answers here. To open up the discussion for this step, once you have selected your choices continue to click all the other options and select ‘Check Your Answer’.

Managing friendships

Family relationships

Romantic relationships

Exam pressures

Health concerns about self or others

Lack of clear career motivations/ambitions

 

a. 

Managing friendships

b. 

Family relationships

c. 

Romantic relationships

d. 

Exam pressures

e. 

Health concerns about self or others

f. 

Lack of clear career motivations/ambitions

The correct answers are a, b, c, d, e and f.

Discussion

It is worth bearing in mind that even if a young person seems to be sailing through life and coping well, there’s a good chance they will still be experiencing a significant number of social pressures. A young person who is clearly having difficulties is more likely to need some support to manage them, and you will find out more about this in Session 6.

Some social situations can be difficult and challenging. You’ll consider the challenges of bullying and loneliness next.