How to Survive Teenhood – Finding your Way Around Teenhood

How to survive teenhood is something we should be better equipped for. One of the things I hated my mother for was her referring to my being a teen as the reason for any behavior she rather found silly. And as a teen, I won’t need to tell you that I found everything she thought silly to be quite reasonable, or yeah, I had reasonable explanations or reasons for even the truly silly ones.

How to survive teenhood is something one should be given a badge of honor for knowing.  I mean what’s adolescence without mistakes, some life-threatening, others much lighter than some. I don’t think I would ever want a repeat of that phase and neither do I want to watch those moments on clips. I hate to admit that I had no idea about how to survive teenhood and my mum was right, yes, adolescence and hormones were the reasons for all my delinquency then.

To survive your teenhood, there are simply dos and don’ts that should guide you through the phase. I’m sorry, this isn’t some rule that you MUST obey but just something I know will guide any teenager to have better control of his/her life, handle life better and stay leveling upright through teenhood to adulthood. I’m saying yes, you’re more than the scheming hormonal person, adults love to think teens are.

Now here are a few don’ts to survive your teenhood:

1. Don’t Snitch or be a Scheming One

I had a conversation with my colleague and I asked what she thinks was her character trait as a teenager and she said she was such a snitch! Jeez! That was so funny and a bit surprising. Funny because it’s simply funny, I mean the things we do as kids and teens, and surprising because no, she isn’t that same girl right now. You can trust her to keep you safe.

Anyway, you may not be so lucky to be rid of these bad habits and traits as my colleague so don’t bother starting them. Resist the urge to tell on your siblings, classmates, and friends even if you’re right. It’s something that sticks, I can never like anyone that snitches on me whether it was in the past and I told her “I wouldn’t have ever liked you if I was in your teenhood”. Don’t sow bad seeds in people’s hearts when you’re going to grow up to become a better human in the future, they may not be so accepting of the new you even if it’s truly changed and good.

And this applies to all negative traits, try to limit them. There’s always that urge to scheme and manipulate during teenhood, to compete, score points, and rule and it’s usually the life. There’s no perfect human but you can do better even as a teen. Now tell yourself that you can.

2. Don’t Engage in Any Sexual Relationship or Act if You don’t Want to

There’s always the peer pressure to not look like you’re too moralistic or holy and the thoughts like “Everyone is doing it.” “I am beautiful enough and so why not?” You don’t have to prove that you’re desirable and beautiful by kissing that guy that is asking to kiss you. You don’t have to ask that girl out because all the boys are coupling up. And you don’t have to kiss anyone just because your peers are bearing tales of their escapades.

On a normal, sexual relations shouldn’t be heard amongst you if you’re not up to 18 years old but if we’re being realistic, our hormones don’t understand that point from 13 years old. There are always urges and curiosity and feelings. And the more the adults try to tell us not to, the more we want to rebel because that age is characterized by rebellion. 

The truth? The adults are right and we teens are right too, I mean don’t they get that we have these feelings and crave this love and loving? 

However, control must be had. I think as teens what we need most is self-control and discipline else our mistakes may be leading us to ruin if I’m to be honest with y’all.

So I guess I should rephrase this, don’t be pressured by your hormones to engage in any sexual act even if you want to or by peers when you don’t want to. In other words, sexual relationships should be out of the books! If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend? Get adults to know to keep you both in check and have an agreement to wait till you’re mature enough. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like such a mummy.

3. Don’t Go Anywhere you Shouldn’t Go to

Clubs, all-night parties, and orgies are not for teens! Do you want to explore? Wait! Other people are having fun and not getting into trouble? You are not them! But it won’t hurt? Well, maybe no but you might be setting yourself up for trouble so ask yourself so what if I get caught by the authorities? What if I find myself in the wrong room and get arrested along with other criminals? What if I get drugged and messed with and worst of all, videotaped? Remember, the internet never forgets! And the records too, stay forever. You’re not missing so much, trust me. And there’s so much fun that you’ll even tire of adulthood.

4. Don’t Listen to that Voice Asking You to Drop Out

I don’t know about everyone else but right from when I clocked 13 in High School right through to the University, this urge to drop out of school was so strong. There’s one that tells you to change schools and the other that asks you to change your course of study. Don’t listen to any, it will do no good to your mental health even if it will make you feel that you’d be doing that for your mental health initially. You don’t want to start feeling like a failure very early in life right? I thought as much! So focus! It’s just a distraction, that voice.

And these are the Dos to get a hang of how to survive teenhood:

1. Set Goals and Write Them Down

You are not too young to have goals and strive to achieve them all. You know that right? One of the biggest mistakes I made was thinking that I was too small to want to publish a book at 14 years old. You know what? I wish I can get back to being 14 again but we all know that’s never possible. And oh my, the years run so fast! You don’t have much time. Soon you’ll look back at teenhood and wish you’d started earlier enough. 

You stand a chance of achieving more when you start early enough.

2. Balance Fun with Work

Those lies that teenhood is for fun aren’t totally true. Balance up your teenhood by working for your future. It’s an error to fix all your time working and studying without fun and social life and vice versa. So here’s it, make a To-do list on how you want your day or week to look and balance everything up. Meet up with your friends, go to that party, attend and cheer the boys at the basketball games, study, turn up for your job, meditate.

Adulthood comes with so many tough shockers, so prepare yourself for the work ahead by learning to stay in order and work now. Don’t work all through your teenhood either because there’s still so much work to do in adulthood so have so much fun, because you’ll hate yourself for not having all the fun as you should have when the demands of adulthood hit hard. 

3. Seek Counseling and Therapy

You can never be too careful in teenhood and it’s not even advised. Teenhood will daint your future if not properly handled. This is why you need a therapist or counselor as a teenager. Therapy isn’t only for the depressed and everyone should have a therapist. You need proper counseling and regular therapy to navigate teenhood and manage experiences that might have been damaging to your future. Therapists won’t make the problems or messes go away and neither will they give you solutions but they will help you to help yourself grow, find solutions yourself or handle the impacts of events, understand your emotions, and find and make peace with yourself.

4. Embrace your Growth and the Strange Development 

This should be the first thing I should have talked about! I can never forget how I was so ashamed to be seen developing all the features, I even developed low self-esteem. 

I didn’t want to accept that I grew breasts already and quite so early! I kept trying to cover my developing breasts, and I won’t even talk about the fact that I kept hitting my chest by mistake only to squeal in pain each time I had a bath because I forgot I had breasts growing on them. And oh, those growing breasts hurt like mad!

And what did I do when I saw my menses? I wasn’t ready! I thought everyone would think I was doing bad things or whatever, but I don’t get why I hid the fact that I had started seeing my period from everyone including friends. Not like I’m supposed to blow a trumpet about that but come on, I didn’t need to hide it, feel so ashamed of walking into a shop to pick my sanitary pads or lie about it.

You don’t have to feel weird that your voice is becoming thicker or that you’re waking with an erection now. Own these growths and developments with your full chest.

I must say that I was so proud when my sister advertised and screamed about her menses when it started. And many other teens who are not ashamed walk their development stages without shame. There’s nothing to feel ashamed about. At the end of it all, no one ever really remembers those things except you and how you felt, so make that period worth your memories.

And to better figure out how to survive teenhood, here’s an extra tip for you; NEVER PANIC ABOUT THOSE FEELINGS AND SEXUAL DESIRES!

You’re not wrong to want to kiss, touch, or make out with that boy or girl. But you’ll only be wrong if you go with those feelings and engage in those acts! Suddenly noticing that girl’s butts and how cute that guy is, wanting to run your hands through the hairs on that dude’s hairy chest or fondle that girl’s breasts are all normal feelings and desires you’ll encounter in teenhood. And it will be even more frustrating that you can’t indulge! Not when others can, so you’ll feel “why not?” Truth is, engaging in those comes with so many complexities that you may not be able to handle as a teen. Don’t tempt yourself by falling for the temptation.