FROM puberty to age 21, young people need to replace their lack of self control with self determination." Sounds familiar?

Artistotle wrote this of Greek adolescents, while Plato stressed the importance of early experience in the formation of character. Marie Murray, principal clinical psychologist with St Joseph's Adolescent and Family Services Centre, Fairview, Dublin, points out that this is not unlike some of our current labels such as independence, identity and career choices, and our current worries about the influence of videos and magazines.

Many parents dread the thought of their happy young children growing up and becoming awkward, spotty, angry adolescents, wandering through the house clad all in black and slamming doors in their wake. However, Murray points out that society's stereotypes do no one, least of all adolescents, any favours.

Dr Nuala Healy, consultant child and family psychiatrist with the centre, stresses that 70 to 80 per cent of young people go through adolescence without any problems, confounding their parents' worst expectations. Anna Freud, Sigmund's daughter and a child psychotherapist, neatly sums it up as a "normal period of abnormality".

Physical changes take place and girls usually experience the onset of puberty earlier than boys at nine to 16 years as opposed to 11 to 16. Hormonal changes can cause spottiness, greasy hair and moodiness and this is part of the common idea of adolescence.

Marie Murray notes that the remedies are available for most of these conditions and it is good if parents can be "sympathetic and helpful and understanding. For instance, taking practical steps like buying the shampoo for greasy hair and spot creams, letting them get a new hairdo, allowing them to be age appropriate in their clothes."

At the same time as physical changes are taking place, the adolescent is entering what has been described as a "psychological moratorium" a gap between the security of childhood and the new autonomy of approaching adulthood. Murray says that at this point world views are important. "Numerous identities now become available from the surrounding culture (this is why there is so much concern with violent and inappropriately sexual identities) and the adolescent may experiment with different roles trying them out to see which they like."

The adolescent who successfully copes with these alternative identities and conflicts during adolescence emerges with a new sense of self. While the adolescent who is unable to resolve this identity crisis may withdraw or lose their identity in that of the group.

Eight developmental tasks that the adolescent must work through have been described achieving new and more mature relations with age mates of both sexes achieving a masculine or feminine role accepting one's physique and using one's body effectively desiring, accepting and achieving socially responsible behaviour achieving emotional independence from parent and other adults preparing for an economic career preparing for marriage and family life and acquiring a set of values and an ethical system as a guide to behaviour.

For parents, it is also a time of reappraisal. They are approaching middle age and may be wondering what they have achieved. This may be the case particularly if it is the first child in a family to reach adolescence, says Murray.

They may also feel that they are working towards the "empty nest syndrome. If the parents have been disappointed with the way their own lives turned out or with the opportunities they didn't get, they may become angry with the adolescent for not availing of all the comforts and opportunities they are afforded, she explains. This is as much part of their own life as that of the adolescent and as a family therapist she says it is important to see the adolescent in the context of the family and the stage in its life cycle.

Parents need to examine their own value systems. "Maybe somebody is very successful in sport and requires his or her adolescent to go that route, whereas in fact the adolescent may prefer books," she says. Parents should ask themselves what they are bringing to the situation am I wishing my child to achieve my own goals rather than his or hers?

Anne Byrne was in conversation with Tom Breen, director of the St Joseph's Adolescent and Family Services Centre in Fairview, Dublin, psychotherapist, Kay Burke, a teacher with special education qualifications, Marie Murray, principal psychologist and Dr Nuala Healy, consultant family psychiatrist, who also work at the centre which has organised a seminar with the theme "Key approaches in adolescence unlocking professional thinking and practice". It will take place this Friday at All Hallows, Drumcondra, Dublin.