My assigned lot in life is that of the mother of a fifteen-year-old son. My son
has not yet gone through the growth spurt that always accompanies adolescence. I
can imagine that as my son, I would feel extremely self-conscious at all times.
Speaking from experience, it`s hard to be so different than all your classmates
are. Many high-school students dislike having distinguishing features that set
them apart from the rest, such as being short. These features can be the basis
for a lot of teasing and humiliation. Being a female, I don`t have any
first-hand experience dealing with a male`s perspective, but I would think it
would be even harder to be a short boy. Males in our society are stereotypically
strong and muscular. Rarely do we see couples in which the wife is taller than
the husband. My son must feel humiliated by his peers because he does not fit
the "masculine mold". Teenagers are very impressionable. They are
still trying to form their own identity, separate from that of their parents.
Most adolescents want to be a person that everyone else likes and accepts, and
some will take drastic measures to be just that. It could get to a point where
my son would try to take some sort of growth supplement from the back cover of a
magazine, which would not be a healthy idea. Teenagers often have such a burning
desire to fit in that they hate themselves when they cannot. I say all of this
from experience, currently going through "the best years of my life"
right now. The thing to remember, though, is that everyone grows at a different
rate, and not everyone is truly laughing at you. This information will be
extremely hard for my son to believe, because I as a teenager myself still don`t
get it. When you walk into a room, it is impossible for everyone to be staring
at you and laughing about your appearance, because they are too worried about
themselves! Teenagers don`t often realize that many of their peers feel just as
uncomfortable in their own skin as they do. For my role as a mother, I think I
need to be as supportive as possible. It can be a very detrimental thing for a
teenager to feel like he doesn`t belong anywhere and that no one likes him,
leading to drugs, alcohol, even death. I need to find out what my son needs and
do my best to provide it for him, without turning him into a spoiled child. The
best thing for a person who is upset is a loving, caring individual who supports
him. However, none of this support can be shown in public. Adolescence is the
time of natural separation from one`s parents, a time when parents begin to be
"uncool" and "embarrassing". To show any sort of affection
in front of his friends would make my son feel even worse. This would only be
yet another thing that would set him apart from his peers (or at least he would
think so). Overall, the fact that my son has not yet received his growth spurt
will probably be viewed as a negative thing. He will be unhappy and teased by
his friends for not appearing masculine, and this could lead to disastrous
results. To prevent any of these happenings, I will try to be a loving, caring,
supportive parent, although not in public, for I feel that would simply make it
worse. The situation, however, could turn out to be very positive. When all of
his friends have stopped growing, my son may shoot up past every one of them. We
will not know how this turns out, however, for at least a few years, at which
point it will probably be less of a problem. As a poster I once saw states
(paraphrased), "The problem, once solved, is simple".