Shining the light on young people and their wellbeing
When young people commence high school, they’re navigating the tumult of puberty, both with the physical changes from child to adult, plus exponential cognitive growth, and socio-emotional development.
As they become physically mature, they seek to be treated in more adultlike ways. Their vision of themself becomes more complex as they engage in self-evaluation and begin to establish their identity. There can be multiple transitions in beliefs and values before identity achievement in late adolescence.
It is a period of intense flux.
There are several indications that young people are striving for autonomy during this rocky time. They include:
- Elevating friends and peers above family – more and more time is spent with peers seeking mutual understanding and social support. This might look like travelling to school with friends rather than getting a lift or engaging in more team sports or creative arts.
- Pushing boundaries or rebelling – this can manifest in talking back to a teacher or someone in authority, sneaking out when supposed to be home or studying, or trying something new and possibly illegal like drinking or vaping.
- Privacy seeking - bedroom doors are frequently closed, sometimes even locked. If you ask a year 8 how there day was you’ll usually get a one word answer such as ‘good’ or ‘ok’. They no longer want to share who said what to whom in the playground.
- Identity questioning – During this period, self-esteem, develops new dimensions through relationships with others. Notice the development of the concept of the self through trial and error (new hair colours or piercings, exploring their gender or sexual orientation).
- Moral reasoning development - moving from sharing the judgement stance of parents and black and white concepts of fairness to finding complex solutions through analysing own expanding social experiences.
Environmental factors play a large part in influencing how well young people navigate through early adolescence. Some young people thrive, and others have their mental health impacted negatively.
The ability for teenagers to cope and be resilient through to adulthood depends on the skills they acquire early on in this period. Early adolescents need support developing skills to help them deal with any extra challenges thrown their way.
Year 8 is the pivotal time to establish wellbeing goals and develop skills in help seeking.
That’s why Raise prioritises offering the program to the year 8 cohort: In 2023, 1771 mentees from year 8 graduated from the Raise Mentoring program which was 70% of all Raise graduates for the year.
Our Year 8 student mentees achieved statistically significant improvement in all four key Raise mentoring outcomes: Hope, Asking for Help, Resilient and School Belonging. 78% of year 8 students said they felt the program helped them cope with their issues.
Learn more about Rasie Outcomes
