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You are an adolescent, but do you know what adolescence means?

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Adolescence is the period of our life that extends between childhood and adulthood.

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It begins when we are 12 or 13 years old.

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It generally ends when we are 17 or 18 and we become youths.

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Adolescence is a critical period of our life because there are so many fast and profound changes.

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During this period, your body changes, but your mind changes too.

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In your body, you experience many physical changes.

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You gain weight, you gain height, and you become sexually mature.

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But in your mind, there are profound psychological changes too.

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Adolescence is typically the period when people want to become more independent from their parents.

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They want to take their own decisions by themselves.

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they want to become more autonomous. That can create sometimes conflicts with their parents,

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which is something normal in this period. This also explains why the group of friends is so

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important for adolescents. In a group, adolescents feel that they belong to a community with shared

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interests and problems. They feel accepted and they can interchange with other people their

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impressions and their ideas about the period they are going through the

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influence of the group is so important in this time because it shapes our

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values and also our habits so the kind of person that you become depends in a

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great way on the groups that influence you here influence the influence of your

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friends and your groups can be positive and negative at the same time how can

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the influence of the group be positive well they offer a secure space when you

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can share your problems with other adolescents and it makes you feel

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accepted and important in a part you belong to but groups can also have a

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negative influence. Sometimes we behave trying to follow the group's expectations

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and this sometimes leads us to do things we really don't want to do. We do them

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just because we think the rest of the group wants us to do it. For example,

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imagine an adolescent that is in a group where many people smoke. He or she

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doesn't want to smoke but he may do it in order to please their friends. In this

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case peer group is negative because it is forcing us to do something we really

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don't want to do. So it is hard sometimes to be part of a group and to assert

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one's personality without doing things we really don't want to do.