Background
Adolescence is a time of significant growth and development inside the teenage brain. This brain remodelling happens intensively during adolescence, continuing into the mid-20s. The combination of a teen’s unique brain and environment influences the way a teenager acts, thinks and feels.
Being in a Limbo, a state of uncertainty, and the transitional phase from a child, into an adult, the joy and agony of puberty, deciding career paths and who to mentor after, the struggle to be understood, mental health and relationship battles, including societal pressure, and the vices, teenage escapades, most especially in Nigeria.
As teens and young adults, we've had our fair share of the challenges, therefore, we know, from experience that the teenage years is one of the toughest periods of a person's life.
In an effort to contribute, and motivate today's teens in Nigeria and the world, we have compiled a series of conversations with people we hold in very high esteem, sharing their battles as teens, including opinions and advices.
Introduction
Toluwawumi Adesewa Fadun is an educator, content creator, writer, and lover of God.
She writes to inspire and educate teens and youth with Purpose and Personal Development being the focus. She helps young people discover purpose and live to fulfill it following God's lead.
In this conversation with the Luce blog on her experiences and choices as a teen, she spoke at length about her opinions on social media involvement and the effects, teenage relationships and sexual engagements. She also offered some useful advices.
The Conversation.
Question: As a teen, did you have a close relationship with your parents?
Answer: Not really. I went to a boarding school so, I had just few moments to spend with them. The relationship was not so close.
Q: Did you have religious parents?
A: Yes, I did. I will call them Christians.
Q: How did you draw the boundary between religiosity and spirituality.?
A: Religiosity is following the practice of a particular religion while Christianity is following the scripture and Christ.
Q: Did your parents shape your general outlook towards life, religion and sprituality?
A: Yes. I got the basics from them. I did the building on my own. I was exposed to deeper knowledge of the scripture so I had a choice of what to believe in.
Q: Were you spiritually sound even as a teen?
A: I had spiritual understanding but I was not sound. Every Teen wants to explore what their peers are involved in which most times are wrong.
Question: At what age did you start making an income for yourself?
A: Age twenty. I did more of little savings from my monthly allowance.
Question: Today we have teens who are into businesses, digital trade, cryptocurrency, bitcoin and forex investments. As someone who started making an income early, what is your opinion on this. Any advice you have for them?
A: It is a good idea. What I believe is the earlier you start, the better you get to have deep knowledge about anything. The youthful stage starts with being a teen. I know of a teen who is involved in cryptocurrency; all I did was to encourage him to do more and stay clean taking the right process. I even advised him to start a media or TV where he can get to advertise for people and get paid since he has so much contacts.
So, my advice to teens in this category is, know your lane, start early and stay clean. Get an expert to teach and guide you.
Question: On social media involvement, were you technologically inclined early? We have teens all over the media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, with thousands, if not millions of followers. How did you manage social media with the physical or spiritual life?
Did it affect you in any adverse way, academically or generally?
What advice do you have for teens on social media today?
A: Yes, I was. I connected with my friends on different social platforms; ranging from Facebook to 2go, Eskimi and Whatsapp even when I was yet to have a phone.
Social media affected me as a teen. I had to engage in some activities that are not right, one was having to keep (steal) my mum's phone for use since I didn't have a smartphone yet.
Plus, I met with some people I should not have been exposed to.
I preferred chatting to reading my book so it had a negative effect on my academics.
I never paid attention to striking a balance between my social media involvement with spirituality as a teen, all I knew was to connect with my friends.
One thing I wished I had done was making effective use of social media involvement; seeing beyond chatting and meeting new friends.
My advice for teens on social media today is, use your involvement purposefully. State your purpose for appearing on social media and use it to learn instead of making yourself feel among the users of the smartphone. In simple terms, don't involve in social media because your friends do, be involved to get value! The world is moving to a stage where only the value-filled will survive.
Question: At what age did you have your first relationship? How did it end up?
A: At 14. It ended up badly because there was no official break up. We just stopped talking, calling, and chatting, life moved on after we left secondary school.
Question: What was the motive for the relationship? Peer pressure or you believed you found genuine love?
A: I can't call that love. It's simply infatuation. I don't even have an understanding of what love is. I would say the foundation of the relationship is peer pressure. I just wanted to fix it, I needed someone to talk to during Xtracools and chat at length with on 2go and Facebook. So, it's no love.
Question: What can you say about today's teens and sexual engagements?
A: Teens engage sexually due to peer pressure. Many also fall into this team because they have no one to control them or advise them. This can also be blamed on our elders and parents. Parents should always create time or periods of Q and A with their teens. Not all African elders pay attention to teens or try to understand them, all they see are unserious set of people which is not, they forget teen age is an exploring stage for every child. The elders/parents in society should learn the language of teens and relate in a right manner.
To the teens, don't fall for advises given by your friends only, don't be scared to speak up to someone who would understand you, seek advice...
To be Continued.
©The Luce Blog
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