Identity in young people by Katharine Hill

Identity by Katharine Hill

Sixteen-year-old Angus had just started sixth form college. Sporting ripped jeans and having applied copious amounts of hair gel, he had a definite new look, variations of which continued for a few weeks – collared shirt and chinos one day, tracksuit and trainers the next. His mum laughed and said, ‘I think he’s loving the freedom of being able to reinvent himself every day.’

While that’s true, there is something much deeper going on. Angus is asking himself the question on the lips of every adolescent: ‘Who am I?’

The teenage years are a time when young people attempt to establish their own identity away from their parents – and it’s a process that doesn’t happen on a level playing field. Influences on their emerging identity come from culture and media, faith and family, school and peers. This has never been easy, but for today’s generation, in the context of a fast-shifting culture and a pandemic, it is no mean task. Our digital age allows them to invent and reinvent themselves in a carefully curated stream of videos and photographs, all of which is done against the backdrop of social approval, with the pressure to measure their worth by the number of followers or likes.

Alec, who is 17, commented: ‘Social media makes it much harder to keep your identity. We can love something because someone else loves it, or hate something because someone else hates it.’  And 15-year-old Kirsten, who experiments with different personas on social media, admits she finds it stressful to keep her various identity plates spinning. Our children are told to look within to find their identity, but the problem is that the options are endless. The very quest can easily chip away at their emotional wellbeing, leaving them insecure, confused and unsure of their place in the world.

Psychologist Jennifer Crocker argues that in order to build a healthy identity we need to raise our gaze and adopt what she calls a ‘part-of-something-bigger-than-me’ mindset. And a key factor in building young people’s optimism and resilience has been found to be religious hope.

As parents we have a vital role to play in helping our children discover their unique identity. We can be a sounding board for their questions and provide a safe space for them to discover answers, but the greatest gift we can give them is the reassurance that they don’t need to ‘construct’ an identity, because they are loved and accepted for who they are. No matter what anyone else thinks of them, there is a God who knows them inside and out, and loves them anyway.

Katharine Hill

A Mind of Their Own: building your child’s emotional wellbeing in a post-pandemic world by Katharine Hill is out now, published by Muddy Pearl March 2021 https://www.muddypearl.com/product/books/family-and-relationships/a-mind-of-their-own/