Sometimes we teenagers have to be adults and other times we are children. On the bus for example we have to pay adult price when we are sixteen years old, but that's almost the only time we are allowed to be adults. Well, not exactly, you always get to hear from your parents that you have to act like an adult when you have agreements with your siblings. “Your the oldest one, you ought to know better! Don't be so stubborn”, your parents shout while your sister is sitting on your back, pulling your hair. And all this because she wants to borrow some make up. “Stubborn, who is the stubborn one here?”, you think while you get up and go to get her some make up. She wins again, only because you are expected to give in, and that is what you do.

In school you have to be part grow-up and part child. You have to be grown up in the way you act, and preferably a bit in the way you express yourself. But this is also a place where you can be a child, or maybe more likely a teenager. As you go from elementary school to high school you have to start behaving better and acting more and more like a grown up. There is quite a bit of changes going from a child to a teenager. As a child it didn't matter that much if you didn't say “thank you” after a meal or maybe forgot to flush the toilet after yourself, but if you do something like that now it would be looked upon as rude and impolite. That is because you are expected to know better when you are older. As you grow up you get more and more responsibility. You can for example get more responsibility with your own money, but it is also expected that you'll use it wisely. Or you can be given the responsibility of taking care of your siblings, but also then there are expectations, expectations that you will take good care of them and not do anything crazy. You also get much more responsibility over your self, if you go out for a weekend your parents count on you taking care of your self and not doing anything stupid.

Some religious children and teenagers often have more challenges than non-religious young people. Some might be in a situation where their parents have a belief which they really want to share with their children, and their children feel such a pressure to have that certain belief, eventhough they don't really want to. Some might have parents that are non-religious and deny their children to have a belief. Then the teenagers have to choose if they want to defy their parents sayings, or go their own way. Most people would do what their parents say, because it is expected to do what your parents say when you're still a child. In some countries young people are put into containers and they are forced to be there over a long time, only because thy have a belief which is not approved by the society.

For some it is a big a challenge to fit in at school and to get friends. Many people feel that there is no room for them or that everyone else has friends but them. There are some people who go through every school day without any one to talk to. Maybe they don't have the right appearance, the right clothes or maybe they just aren't cool enough. But it is a fact that some young people have problems with fitting in or getting friends. It's a challenge for some to get to sleep at nights and to get up in the mornings , knowing they have no friends and no one to talk to. Maybe all you young people out there can think of this tomorrow when you go to school, have a chat with someone you don't talk to so often or maybe offer to help someone with their homework. It really doesn't take that much of an effort to make a difference.

There are many kinds of challenges, some are larger then others and some are just trifles. We all have our own opinions of what a challenge is. Some may think it' s a challenge to fly a airplane , to climb a mountain , to talk in front of large crowds of people and some may even think it's a challenge to make important phone calls. So, what's yours?