Why Time Increasingly Matters in Adolescence

"Time is life-time, and increasingly young adolescents want to determine how their lives are personally spent. The outcome for parents is that they can feel rushed by youthful demands, while it can take more time for them to get what they requested."

"To measure our life experience: how much there is, how long it lasts, how to keep up, scheduling what needs to happen when. About measured time, the adolescent can become more impatient and resistant: 'I need this now!' 'I'll do that later!'"

"As more diversity, distance, and disagreement grow between adolescent and parent, conflicts over time increase. For parents, an adolescent's sense of time can be frustrating in two contrasting ways: youthful impatience and youthful delay."

Time functions in three essential ways that generate parent-adolescent conflict. Measured time involves scheduling and pacing life activities, where adolescents become impatient and resistant. Evaluated time concerns how experiences feel—whether rushed or relaxed—prompting adolescent criticism and dissatisfaction. Communicated time relates to sharing life experiences, with adolescents becoming increasingly private and secretive. As diversity, distance, and disagreement grow between parent and adolescent, time conflicts intensify. Parents experience frustration from contrasting behaviors: youthful impatience demanding immediate gratification and youthful delay postponing parental requests indefinitely. Both reflect adolescents' growing desire for personal control over how their life-time is spent, leaving parents feeling rushed while struggling to accomplish their own requests.

Read at Psychology Today