Adolescents in Popular Literature: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Home Administrator Advice Problems-Solutions Sources	Sometimes reading a young adult novel can give you a better insight to your child's emotions. Here we will analyze the experiences of Twilight's main character Bella Swan, and use her experiences to relate to the emotions and development issues that are typical of adolescence.
	*Clumsiness: Bella drops her tray in the cafeteria. According to Making the Most of Middle School by Anthony W. Jackson and P. Gayle Andrews, "Growth is more rapid during adolescence than any other developmental stage except infancy," however, development varies from child to child.  Often times, bones grow at different rates which makes it hard to have control over their body. Adolescents commonly trip over themselves or other people, drop things, run into things, etc. Bella is continuously clumsy throughout the story and has many accidents becasue of this. *Egocentric: When Bella drops her tray, she thinks that the whole school is watching her and becomes extra embarrassed. The adolescent world is very egocentric. Middle school students often are extremely self concious and get embarrassed very easily. Trudy Knowles and Dave Brown, authors of the book What Every Middle School Teacher Should Know describe an adolescent thought process like this: "Because I am thinking of me, everyone must be thinking of me. Because I notice my hair, everyone must be looking at it." *Overdramatic: When Edward is driving Bella to the prom at the end of the story, Bella throws huge tantrum just because she does not want to go. She says that "angry tears rolled over [her] cheeks" and says she "is mad" (484-485). Adolescent emotions fluctuate to the extreme and are often irrational. These kids are stuck in a place between adulthood and childhood, and often do not know which one to act more like. This may cause great overreactions in situations they are not comfortable with because they do not know how to properly deal with their emotions. *Extreme feelings for opposite sex: Bella is convinced she cannot live without Edward Cullen. She says constantly how much she loves him,  once even saying "[she] would rather die than stay away from [Edward]" (274). During middle school, students start exploring their sexuality. They often develop intense crushes on people for which they may believe they are in love with. Relationships start turning more physical, including a lot more intimate interactions between the students. Constant touching is very prevalent in middle schools. Knowles and Brown attribute a lot of these feelings and actions to the dramatic increase in hormones that usually occurs during the adolescent period. *Peer relationships: Since Bella is a new student at her school, you see her go through the struggle of finding a group of friends. Middle school students may change groups of friends daily. Socialization is an extremely important part of middle school. Knowles and Brown interviewed adolescents in their book and found that the biggest problem middle school students say they have is not gettting along with kids and having them tease you. Kids are much more successful when a community is present and they feel comfortable with their peers. However, it is a daily struggle to maintain positive peer relationships. *Wanting freedom from parents: Although Bella claims that her mother is her best friend, she still does not want to tell her mom anything about Edward, her new boyfriend. Adolescents often outwardly state that they are embarrassed by their parents. It is not uncommon for kids to try to keep their parents from being too involved in their life. Middle school students often think that their parents have no idea what they are going through, and so they cannot relate.  *Wanting to be close to parents: When an evil vampire threatens the life of Bella's mom, Bella decides to put herself in danger to protect the life of her mom who she loves so much. Although their are times when kids push their parents away, they still really want their parents to be a main factor in their life. Knowles and Brown write about an important study that showed when adolescents are interviewed, they almost always choose their parents as the most important people in their life. Adolescents need and appreciate the love and support that parents provide, although they may not always show it.