Puberty is an inevitable process in the life of everyone. It is a period of time, during which a child becomes an adult person, acquiring more and more traits of a young man or woman. For girls this period begins earlier than for boys, somewhere between ages 8 – 14, while for boys the pubertal period begins at about 12. Once you have come into the pubertal period, you are considered to be a teenager and not a kid any more. The puberty comes to its end by age 20.
 This period is extremely difficult for almost any teenager, because everything changes in his or her life, not only around him or around her, but great changes occur inside them. These changes are of a physical, emotional, and social character.
• Physical changes: girls’ breasts become larger, the menstruation period begins, and their hips become somewhat wider; boys’ penises and testicles also grow and develop, their voices become sharper, more like the voices of adult men, their chest becomes wider. Both boys and girls begin to have pubic hair.
• Emotional changes: teenagers’ felling about self, their family, their friends and other people become different. They wish to have more independence from their parents, they want to be closer to some of their friends (though, sometimes not to the best friends from the point of view of moral), they want to know everything, to try to experience everything by themselves.
• Social changes: teenagers want people to treat them like adults, therefore, they do not always act the way adults do, because of the lack of personal experience.
However, it is clear that every teenager wants to become an adult person as quick as possible, but unfortunately, there is no “magic” switch to adulthood available. No one will ever wake up having answers to all life’s questions, and no one’s life will stop to change after his or her 18th birthday. Life occurs every day, every minute a person learns and experiences a little more, to add to his or her life’s experience.
In order to grow into a worthy person, every one has to learn to accept changes. Moreover, not all changes are for good, but life does not consist of bright and clear days as well. Teenagers face a lot of new things, of they may look at usual things in a new way, anyway, for most people it is the best time of their lives. However, teenagers have to make bunches of choices as well; some of them are simple, but others are extremely difficult. How a young girl or boy chooses to face all the choices of her or his life at the pubertal period plays a large role in shaping the kind of person she or he becomes in adult life.
For example, courses, which teenagers choose in high school may influence what career he or she decides to enter. Of course, it does seem for the majority of young people as a lot of pressure, but no one is expected to make only right choices in his or her life. Anyway, it is extremely important to understand that change is a great thing, and everything a person learns from his or her good or bad experiences is useful for a teenager.
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