Puberty and adolescence social relations

| In our society, adolescent communication with their family is usually dominated by two major themes: sexuality and the struggle for autonomy.

Family life

They are the most conflictive issues in family relationships during this stage. Family communication has two main functions, the education of children and the proper functioning of the family group. In childhood it is usually easy and fluid but in adolescence is when the difficulties begin. Adolescents question the guidelines, values ​​and norms of parents and teachers and this is one of the most frequent conflicts in family communication.

Communication between parents and children goes through different phases throughout the child's and adolescent's life:

• 0-1 years: intra-family communication should be aimed at developing trust in others through bonding and affection
• 1-3 years: family communication should stimulate autonomy and will
• 3-6 years: initiative and responsibility must be fostered in the child
• 6-12: family communication should facilitate the knowledge of feelings and self-esteem
• 13-19: the development of the adolescent's identity must be supported, accepting their differences, tastes, opinions and decisions

Therefore, communication between parents and adolescents is not a matter of a day, it is the fruit of work that has been carried out throughout childhood.

Emotional intelligence is born from fluid family communication. Parents should be firm and give tactful or "left hand" advice to the adolescent, since authoritarian and dictatorial behaviors often cause estrangement from their children. It is true that the limits must be clear because adolescents also need them to know that they are loved by their parents. A balance must be found between what is negotiable and what is not within the family dynamics.

The friends

Friendship is a subject that interests the adolescent a lot, in fact the most important socio-affective change from childhood to adolescence lies in leaving behind the emotional dependence of the family to transfer it to friends.

For an adolescent, friendship is the fundamental support for their ideas and actions, it is the pillar of their life and puts it before the family. In the first years they usually establish friendly relations with individuals of their own sex. Later they join together in gangs of boys and girls. Gang formation is a natural phenomenon and good for their development. He feels identified and linked with a group, the gang assumes the socializing function that the family had performed. It is the ideal setting to cultivate interpersonal relationships and develop autonomy (make decisions outside the family), the definition of identity, gives security in the process of separation from the family, constitutes a source of learning in social and sexual relationships and establishes references, objectives and values.

The last phase of adolescence, when the adult personality has already been formed, one begins to look for the couple relationship, leaving the gang behind.