What Changes During Adolescence?

Find a therapist to support kids and teens

Every generation struggles with the challenges of their youth.

Today's youth are often criticized for their use of cellphones and social media.

Perspectives from clinical research, practice, and the classroom reveal the valuable insights of youth.

There is virtue in not judging kids today who simply need forums to make their voices heard.

Across time and generations, elders have often bemoaned with exasperation, “Kids today!” As a quintessential “baby boomer,” I often hear same-aged peers complain about youth (e.g., those born between the late 1990s and early 2000s). While developmental psychologists eschew using broad labels to describe large generational cohorts (i.e., the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha), these labels tend to stick and become integrated into our cultural narrative, evoking common associations and perceptions. To this end, I would like to reflect a bit on young people who make up Gen Z and Gen Alpha—youth who are presently in their teens and 20s—from three distinct perspectives: clinical trial research, psychotherapy practice, and the college classroom.

For 20 years, I have been immersed in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of a suicide-focused treatment called the "Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality" (CAMS—Jobes, 2023). While various RCTs of CAMS are underway in the U.S. and abroad, I am presently focusing on three NIMH-funded studies with young adults, college students, and teens who are suicidal. The “Suicide Status Form” (SSF) is central to CAMS and is a multipurpose tool for assessing, treating, tracking, and documenting clinical outcomes. In the first session of CAMS, patients rate SSF constructs (i.e., psychological pain, stress, agitation, hopelessness, self-hate, and overall risk of suicide) and respond to qualitative prompts writing........

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