Chapter 13: Self and Socialization: How Do Young People Navigate Through Adolescence?

As children grow up and enter adolescence, we, as parents, grandparents and teachers, begin to think and worry about what they might become and where they will be within the next few years. Adolescents are doing the same. As they move from childhood to adolescence, they do not only become more interested in their future but they also develop many new skills that provide a basis for planning their personal future and various related alternatives (Friedman, 2000; Nurmi, 1989a). To state it in a metaphor used previously by Gisela Trommsdorff, already during the first years of the second decade of their lives, young people have developed many tools to “navigate through adolescence” (see Nurmi, 2001).