From the author: Reflection on the crisis of adolescence Crisis of adolescence For a significant part of teachers working with teenagers, it is typical to perceive students of this age as potentially “difficult”. Complaints from teachers (and parents) about the “uncontrollability” of teenagers, their lack of socially significant goals and interests, their tendency to “waste time” and deviant behavior are common. “We weren’t like that!” - say parents and teachers, especially of mature age. Having put aside a lot of objective reasons for such a judgment, let’s pay attention to the social context in which the formation and development of a teenager’s personality takes place today. Thirty, a hundred years ago, and today, adolescence is a special period in a person’s life. Strictly speaking, any period is transitional to the next. But only adolescence is actually called “transitional.” Indeed, during this age period the whole person changes qualitatively physically, emotionally, intellectually, and morally. Of particular importance is the formation of a system of moral guidelines, planning a life path, and creating an image of the future. These changes are characteristic (with varying degrees of severity) for any teenager. In other words, we were all teenagers, we all experienced the transition of our own status. But the formation of a system of our moral guidelines and values ​​was carried out within the boundaries of a society in which there was a fairly definite understanding of “right” and “wrong”, good and evil. And this provided a kind of starting point for the formation of one’s own worldview, one’s own system of reference points. Today's teenagers are socially and morally disoriented. (stars, politicians, businessmen) In order for a teenager’s life path not to turn into a chaotic wandering through a dark forest, he (the teenager) HAS THE RIGHT TO KNOW. A teenager HAS THE RIGHT TO KNOW that his age is a fertile time when his essential powers can be revealed . But this revelation takes place in a spiritual quest, with a sometimes painful search for one’s own path. A teacher and a parent can become a translator of this experience for a child, giving the key to deciphering the code of life. Without a “social support” in the form of growing-up rituals acceptable to society and the individual, a teenager recreates them independently - from signs of growing up in society. They are interested in external manifestations, and not only deep motives in the form of responsibility, wisdom, etc. They will become adults for themselves and their peers because they make their own decisions, wear heels and prohibited clothes, have a sexual life, swear and smoke if they cannot be offered an alternative... They need an adult idea, a goal, a guideline - as the Komsomol used to be, for example, only perhaps in the family and school version. At our school, adult high school students, for example, are on duty in the cafeteria, organize holidays, stay overnight on camping trips... But at home, how can you determine that you are already an adult? (probably lazing around, sitting in front of the TV and computer until late, drinking beer and smoking...) Guys should have a personal life, money, the right to choose and speak. They should have a strong opinion from your conversations with other adults, overheard by chance, that adults should think about the future, make efforts, bear responsibility, and not drag out a serene existence, like a baby next to its mother. This condemnation can be expressed in front of a child about TV characters, some supposedly “acquaintances”, but not their peers, but much older men and women. Previously, the transition to adulthood was ritual, it was clearly organized in time. It was carried out in the period preceding the actual transition to the world of adults, and stopped when, after completing the initial rite, the teenager received confirmation of his new socio-age status. It is also very important to consider that the ritual procedure itself, the specifics of the ritual action, had a powerful impact on the personality of the initiate. IN.