I've had some things rattling around in my mind about adolescence for a while, but I don't really know how to pour this out. I mean, I don't know how to convey it to the outside world. My style is to first provide the necessary foundation for an idea. So let's start with what adolescence is.
As you know like your own name, adolescence is a transition period between childhood and adulthood. They beat up anyone who doesn't know this anyway. Etymologically, "ergen," according to Nişanyan, evolved from the word "bachelor male," and the Greek "ergenis" means bachelor. In conservative circles, the replacement for this word is the Arabic-origin "buluğ," which comes from the root "blg" and means "reached, matured." "Tebliğ" meaning communication and "mübalağa" meaning exaggeration also come from the same root.
What does etymology have to do with us? Actually, nothing. I find researching the etymology of words very interesting, especially Arabic-origin ones. I wanted to show with the word "buluğ" that the definition of adolescence simply means "matured." The word "ergen" was a surprise to me, as you know.
I had heard somewhere that children who entered adolescence in old Europe were now treated like adults, but I don't know exactly where they were treated as such. I just threw this information into my head. But for example, in Jared Diamond's book "The World Before Yesterday," it's mentioned that many societies treated children like adults at age 13 and that they participated in the same activities as adults. (I haven't read the book, maybe I'll read it if I find time.)
Today, at least in the society I live in, we treat adolescents almost like adults—or we don't. We don't because we still don't accept that they are independent individuals. Forget adolescence, my friends who have finished university and earn their own money still say they're overwhelmed by having to get permission from their families on many issues. But on the other hand, we treat adolescents like adults because we harshly judge their childish behaviors and expect them to behave maturely. As if they can do it, but they don't out of pure spoiledness. At least when you encounter an adolescence-themed scene on television, this issue is accepted without question.
The prevalent idea in psychology is that adolescence is a complete transition period. What a big deal. But let's think about it this way: their cognitive capacities are more developed than children's but not as much as adults'. Children, however, are a completely different world. People think that children behave childishly because they don't have as much knowledge as adults, and with proper education and the knowledge they acquire, they think they'll behave like adults. For example, let me share a fun video with you:
This is a fun video. Who doesn't love watching a child put an adult in their place? Plus, the atmosphere is entertaining. The children are making a fool of the man by achieving an organization that's completely unexpected for their age. But unfortunately, if we examine our child population, we can't find intellectuals and smart ones like these. It's not even possible for a child who hasn't reached 12 years old to express their opinion so beautifully on such abstract topics. Still, the kid spoke well.
Here's the problem: according to His Holiness Jean Piaget, a child needs to be twelve years old to understand abstract topics. Until age seven, a child's thinking is extremely egocentric and flawed; they can only establish simple deterministic logic. Think about it, when they see the same amount of water in a thin but tall glass, they think it's more. This isn't due to children's ignorance, but because they haven't acquired the necessary neurological infrastructure. At age seven, they reach the ability to think from a concrete perspective; only at twelve do they achieve the ability to think abstractly. And that develops over time. Yet here we see a child who has pondered philosophical topics enough to offer ideas about the state and world order, let alone abstract thinking. A child of this age can memorize other thoughts.
When a child called "Philosopher Atakan" appeared on television, while people were going around saying "Oh, what a smart child..." I suspected a very advanced level of child abuse. The child may have been forced to learn topics far beyond their capacity, and I think this matter needs to be investigated. This isn't the behavior of a smart child; here we have a child who has been subjected to rote learning day and night and rewarded with praise.
Let's return to adolescence. Adolescence begins right after the acquisition of abstract abilities and consists of learning to use abstract capacity at a certain level. Here we should see a person who has already determined their own principles, truths, and what should be. However, since brain development is still not complete, completely mature behaviors should not be expected.
What I've covered so far were generally accepted things I wanted to convey to you as foundation. We're removing neurology and developmental psychology from the game and putting sociology and psychoanalysis in their place.
As soon as a baby is born, they come to their parents with a truckload of responsibility, because the baby creature cannot take care of themselves. The parents' life comfort decreases, they struggle economically, and in return, the baby can offer nothing but baby talk. Moreover, there's the psychological pressure the baby creates on the mother. I'm not talking about social pressure here. There are many mothers who experience a depressive process after birth, and sometimes it goes as far as killing the baby. And if the baby has colic, don't even mention the joy... Now, to silence the child's screaming, whether you sweep the house morning and night or learn throat singing is up to you.
The counterpart to this is the child's "indebtedness" to their parents. This indebtedness is the child's dedication to and service to parents who have made great sacrifices. Good or bad, every family exploits their child, somewhat for the child's benefit too. Some give the child household chores, some direct the child to areas they themselves couldn't succeed in, and some directly use the child in unacceptable ways. But all of these are forms of exploitation. According to psychoanalysis, every person is inherently selfish, but those who deny this are ultimately the most selfish. Parents inevitably turn their unlimited control over the child into exploitation.
With the acquisition of abstract thinking, the child begins to analyze the situation they've been in for a long time, to imagine other conditions in their mind, and to determine what's ideal. They demand that this situation be corrected, but something more annoying enters the picture. The adolescent person is not talented enough to express the complex abstract connections they've analyzed. Their cognitive capacity isn't advanced enough to express this outwardly; it continues to develop, but they need a strong expressive ability to be able to externalize those abstract outputs they've obtained.
Now let's examine society's perception of adolescence. A significant portion of people think that adolescents suddenly rebel without any problems. Yes, when sexual tension combines with inadequate expressive power, an exaggerated expression emerges. However, accepting this directly as a purposeless expression is also not correct. The problem lies in things that have been ongoing for a long time but accepted. Just as we understand a baby's problem, we need to understand the reason behind the aggression expressed in adolescence. Because they lack expressive power, even if they gained expressive power, they would have accepted that they couldn't express themselves. This is accepted by the child as the parent's inadequate understanding capacity.
I think this later closely affects the person's relationship with society. The person is experiencing their first conflict with a micro-society, and when they encounter larger social structures, they will project the same schemas onto society. (His Holiness Sheikh Piaget!)
I know three people whose relationship with their family I know to be bad in later ages and whom I've observed closely. The first is someone whose father was a low-ranking soldier. His father was stuck in such a narrow mindset that he couldn't express himself to his father. He spent his childhood in discipline and dedication. Later, he believed that a serious portion of all the people around him were stuck in narrow molds, working as if they would never die.
The second is a child from a religious family. When he refused to comply with the strict rules set by his family, and when he tried to explain this but received no response, he lost his belief that he could communicate with people. Then he gradually isolated himself and accepted the thought that people wouldn't accept him.
The third is also a child from a religious family. However, instead of refusing to comply with the strict rules set by his family, he started to appear to comply while doing what he wanted behind the scenes. As a result, we ended up with a man who truly behaves two-faced toward people, appearing to do his responsibilities while shirking them.
The reasonable escape from this, in my opinion, is directing the child to express themselves strongly and parents' understanding. This is compromise. Both sides have ultimately been worn down, and both sides have parts that are right in their own way, but compromise is necessary. The child should communicate their wishes and realize the purposelessness of their endless anger arising from expressionlessness toward the parent. The parent should abandon the language of sacrifice, which is what hides and justifies this exploitation.
The worst outcome of this is when this independence attitude is met with the harshest response and encounters bullying. This bullying contains much more social violence than physical violence. As a result, this creates an individual who exactly imitates the parent's attitude, resembles and imitates them, but worse, has a harsh attitude toward individualization. However, individualization is the most natural result of maturation.
To summarize: adolescence is related not only to sexual maturity but also to the ability to think about abstract concepts. The adolescent realizes their position toward their parent over time and opposes this along with sexual tension, but the inadequacy of expressive power prevents them from explaining themselves. The coping mechanism they develop also shapes their perception of society and determines their behavior toward society. If this is suppressed, the adolescent loses their identity and becomes despotic. We can express this in three stages: unawareness, conflict, and compromise.