Customer Reviews

Being Adolescent: Conflict And Growth In The Teenage Years

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Have you wondered what it is like to be an adolescent? Day in and day out? Dealing with the daily details of life at home and at school? Are you a parent, teacher, or other adult who wants to learn about what goes on inside the adolescents you interact with?

This book describes a great approach to answering these questions using an innovative research protocol. Adolescents were asked to carry beepers throughout the day, and when they were beeped, they wrote down their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors at random moments throughout the day. They obtained many interesting results that gives insight into the daily lives of adolescents, whether at school, at home, or with friends.

In general, they found that adolescents exhibited more extremes of emotions than adults, as well as more self-consciousness and embarrassment. Although this conclusion would not surprise most people, the strength of the findings really comes through in the text. Reading the accumulated data gives a broad range of experiences from numerous individuals, and gives insight into how individual adolescents respond in various situations.

It's a fascinating read, and I really felt that I could get into the skin of these adolescents and get a sense of their daily thoughts and emotions. The diversity of adolescents covered in these studies may be limited, but what is presented is quite good.

I was assigned this book for a graduate education class on adolescent development. We referred to this book often during class discussions, even though it was one of several books we read. I highly recommend the book for parents and educators alike.

This is the driest Csikszentmihalyi I have read. Too many numbers and the information seems drawn out much longer than necessary. Does not seem the authors were able to really "tap into" the adolescent mind. While much information is still relevant, this book lacks a lifelike quality that would have been more appealing. DISCLAIMER: Have only read to chapter 8, perhaps it gets more interesting and personal in the final chapters.