Adolescent’s reactions to bodily changes varied from anxiety to pride. Adolescent is a transitional phase of growth and development between childhood and adulthood. The world health organisation (WHO), defines an adolescent as any person between ages 10 and 19.
There are certain body changes that occur during this stage in our lives and adolescents generally tends to desire greater privacy, trying to hide our developing bodies from others. Most female adolescent emphasize breast development as compared to the menstruation as the mark for pubertal initiation, while males emphasized voice changes.
In some cultures or ethnic groups, male circumcision is viewed as a mark of adolescents. While to some teenagers, adolescents is the stage or period of pubertal changes in which we tend to be arrogant and engage in sexual relationships.
Growing up myself, I came to realise that adolescents is not just a stage where we tend to go through some pubertal changes in our bodies, it is a stage or period where we prepare for adulthood and also a period where we learn to live with the new changes of our bodies and mind.
It is a stage where we learn how to take care of our bodies, how to prevent ourselves from engaging in some illegal acts ranging from intake of hard drugs to engaging in premarital and unprotected sexual intercourse, among others.
Adolescent is not just that time of people life where they feel they have arrived, but also that stage where parents, specifically mothers, educate mostly the female child on bodily changes, counseling on sexual relationships, how to make use of the sanitary towels or pads and keep their bodies clean.
It is the stage where even the male child needs to be educated on his personal hygiene and counseling on sexual relationships also. I firmly see it as the stage where we need to be very careful and not play around like we used to. Sex education should not be Allen to people in the phase because, the knowledge of sex education will expose them to possible danger in early sex and consequences of premarital and unpredictable sex.
According to research among some south African youths, 19.2% female youth said they had gotten pregnant at this stage, while 5.8% of the male youth indicated that they had impregnated a girl at the age of 12-19years of age. 16.2% of the ladies stated that they had an unwanted pregnancy and 6.7% terminated it. Adolescent pregnancy was found to be high in this sample of South Africa youths due to bad parenting, and peer pressure. And bringing it home to Nigeria, almost every community around fall sort of the requisite knowledge on counseling of adolescents in this phase of their life. They are often bewildered by the menace that stem from immature action taken at this phase.
At this stage, apart from teaching adolescents how to take good care of their bodies, parents should also teach their teenagers how to abstain from sex, expose them to the necessary knowledge they need to navigate this phase without falling trap to the ill accompanying. In all sex Education should be introduced to teenagers from the family, to the religious institution, school, and the media they’re exposed to.
– Abdullahi Latifat Jummai
Prince Abubakar Audu University (PAAU) Anyigba, Kogi State.
