ADOLESCENT INTERVIEW 1

Adolescent Interview

Brooke Cunningham

Brigham Young University-Idaho

ADOLESCENT INTERVIEW 2

Adolescent Interview

To understand more about adolescents and how they think and feel about life

circumstances, I selected a young adolescent and asked her some questions. It is my intention to

determine whether the teen I interviewed seems typical and whether the experiences she is

having are normal. For this interview, I talked with my twelve-year-old sister, S. She is the

second-to-last child born in our family, and she has three brothers and three sisters. S. is an aunt

to almost three nieces and all five of her older siblings have reached adult age (18 or older). This

is her first year attending junior high school.

Describing Self and Others

As I began interviewing my sister, I realized that there was a pattern in how she

responded about the attributes of herself and others. In our class, we discussed how adolescents

begin to refer to themselves by psychological characteristics, rather than by their physical

characteristics, activities, or roles (McCoy, 2019, Fall). I found that this was true in my sister’s

case; she described others with psychological characteristics. This shows her ability to look at

characteristics outside of people’s appearances or roles. When asked what she liked about

school, she said she liked her teachers because they were fun, nice, and understanding. S. also

described her friends as silly. When asked about what qualities she thought were important in

selecting a person to date, she said, “I want him to be nice and funny. … I want him to consider

how other people are feeling.” She described herself as artistic, cautious, concerned about others,

and that she tries to be understanding. S. told me that she likes that she looks after others and that

she is obedient. This tendency to focus solely on psychological characteristics is not a bad thing;

it is simply part of how adolescents think about the world and the people around them. A sudden

cascade of storm and stress in their lives is what proves to become difficult for them.
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Storm and Stress

Because of the length of the interview, I chose to conduct the interview in three different

time periods. During the final session of the interview, I noticed that S. was experiencing a time

of sturm and drang (or storm and stress). As we discussed in class, many adolescents experience

intense stress and emotional turmoil during their teen maturing years (McCoy, 2019, Fall). S. had

come home early from school due to “girl problems,” but still agreed to finish the interview. It

seemed that each answer she gave was unsure. It looked like she wanted to cry. She kept saying,

“I don’t know,” and her eyes darted back and forth as she gave vague responses to me. A few

days earlier, she had seemed comfortable and enthusiastic in answering questions. I wondered

why she would consent to finish the interview if she was feeling so terrible. She could have been

nervous that I would be disappointed with her if she did not complete the interview. She may just

be experiencing the normal storm and stress of adolescence.

Self-Concept vs. Self-Esteem

One of the responses that S. gave surprised me. When I asked her to describe herself, one

of the things she said was this: “I love to read, but I don’t want that to be what people first think

of [when they think of me]. I don’t want it to be defining me.” Almost every time my husband

and I go to visit my family, S. is in her room or on the couch reading a book. When she and some

other family members came to visit us for two days, S. brought a couple of sizeable books with

her. My mom says it has become kind of an addiction for her. Her reading habit seems to be

defining her at this time in her life because she does it so often. So, I wonder why she does not

want it to define her.

Something that helped me understand how she may be thinking had to do with identity.

In class, we discussed how self-concept and self-esteem differ from each other (McCoy, 2019,
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Fall). These ideas helped me to understand what S. might be thinking. Self-concept has to do

with an adolescent’s sense of “What defines me? What is most important to me? How do I see

myself?” etc. On the other hand, self-esteem is the teen’s evaluation of themselves, as reflected

in a thought like, “What do I value about the perception I have of myself?” In S.’s case, she may

not value the fact that she reads all the time as a positive thing, and therefore, she does not want

to be known as “the girl who reads.” She persists in reading nonetheless and does not seem to

have a desire to change this aspect of herself. Maybe she feels like she will not be liked if people

know she reads novels extensively. She likely wants people to see other positive parts of her

personality and value her for those things instead.

Conclusion

Overall, it seems that S. is a pretty typical adolescent. Her experiences are rather similar

to a lot of adolescents. She is entering a period of her life when she is getting more

responsibility, she now has a cell phone, she spends a lot of time on the internet, and she cares

very much about what people think of her. The maturity and thoughtfulness of some of her

responses surprised me. She wants to make sure people are understood and treated well. She also

wants to help the people she loves, as evidenced in her answer that she would give a large sum of

money to our mom to help her pay off debt. Though she often feels consumed with stress, she

works hard to do what is expected of her. She may not realize that intense stress is a normal part

of adolescence, but she is still doing what she can to be the best person she can be.
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References

McCoy, J. K. (2019, Fall). Adolescent Development (Lecture notes). Rexburg, Idaho: Brigham

Young University-Idaho.