What is adolescence

Adolescence is the period in which a boy or girl is changing from a child into a man or woman. A boy or girl in this stage of development is, said to be adolescent, and is called an adolescent. There is no definite age at which adoles­cence begins, and none at which it ends. Some boys and girls become adolescent when they are 10 or 11 years old (or even younger); with some, adolescence does not even begin until they are 14 or 15. Some are out of adolescence by the time they are 18 or 19, while with some it lasts into the twenty-fifth year. How­ever, almost any 16- or 17-year-old is fairly sure to be adolescent. Some of the signs of adolescence are physical. A boy grows hair on his upper lip and around his chin, and needs to shave; he also grows hair in his pubic region, around his sex organs. His voice begins to change to a deeper level, but is likely to "break" without his being able to control it. In a girl, the physical signs are the beginnings of menstrua­tion, a discharge of blood at regular in­tervals, which eventually will probably become once each month; she also may begin to grow hair in the pubic region, and her breasts may grow larger and occasionally feel sore. Changes in tastes and habits are also likely to come during this period. Boys begin to be more interested in girls, and girls in boys. Both boys and girls will have a tendency to take everything too seriously, to feel self-conscious and ashamed whenever they seem to do any­thing wrong or awkward; to become very particular about the way they dress and what they say and what other people do and say—especially the other people