Does Your Teen Feel Scrutinized?
Teenagers often feel like they live in a fishbowl.
Everyone is watching them. Their friends are examining their clothes. The cute boy in their class is staring at their pimple. Their social media followers read and then judge every post.
This painful but important stage of development is part of the process of individualization. Teens truly feel like there is an imaginary audience watching them all of the time. They are constantly going through a loop of trying something out, watching and waiting for feedback, then making changes based off of that feedback.
While teens really do have an audience (we all do), they overestimate how much that audience is really paying attention to what they do. Add in puberty which makes teens very aware of their physical bodies and their changing cognitive development, and you have a perfect storm for self-consciousness.
After teens have been in the Imaginary Audience stage for awhile, they start to create their Personal Fable. When they feel like they have been scrutinized for awhile, they start to feel that they are unique, special and different. They feel like they are unlike everyone else, including their friends and family.
You might hear your teen say things like "no one understands me" or "you don't know how that feels." Teens feel invincible, take more risks, and think bad things won't happen to them.
In Raising a Screen Smart Kid, Julianna Miner describes the process this way, "You present a part of yourself to the Imaginary Audience, try out new parts of your personality that feel right or interesting, get feedback on them, pivot in response to that feedback, and present more or less of that part of your newly forming identity until you eventually get a sense of who you are."
The difference now is social media. Teens used to move through these stages in a few short years, but now there really is an almost intangible audience out there. There are more ways for teens to try on new identities and they can get easier feedback through likes, comments and follows. It encourages the behavioral loop that already exists during the teenage years.
As parents, it's important for us to be aware of these stages and to help our teens move through them. The way we talk about who is watching them, how much danger is lurking out there, what people will think if they see pictures of your teen, and predicting what will happen if they write one bad post "(you won't get a job if they see this photo"), can all add to the idea of the Imaginary Audience. While each of those things might be true, we need to be aware that we are doubling down on the idea of an unseen audience watching every little thing teenagers do.
You can help your teen shift away from the "unseen other" and start to think through things logically. Who is really in their audience? Who is paying attention to them? Can your teen really know what someone else is thinking? Is your teen responsible for other people's reactions and in what way? You can also focus on teaching them life skills, responsibility, the importance of interacting with real people in real time, and how to use social media in a healthy way.