Comparativo de la legislación extranjera y nacional…

Thirty percent of the research population are under the age of 25. Adolescents who report for counselling at the hospital find entrance into the adult world harsh, controlled, unfair or without hope.

Counselling with adolescents at the hospital occurs mainly for three reasons:

1 The stress of schooling:

Schoolgoing teenagers often report for counselling just before a test or exam. Schoolgoing teenagers, both black and white, classify themselves according to two groups, the jocks and the cool ones.

The jocks are those who always do their homework, wear blazers to school, and want to achieve through education. They want to be cool, too, but the real cool ones won’t tolerate them in their ranks.

The cool ones are those that invest more in friends than in education, and see their future in the opportunities cool people can provide for one another. They do not like the jocks - actually they detest and ridicule them - but before a test or exam often express the wish to have some of the educational skills of the jocks.

Discourses from the research population, in which they express their captivity within adult power discourses, are:

• The teachers expect more from me; I feel like a failure (jock)

• The teachers and my parents do not understand my dreams (cool one)

• Since I failed my grade, I have been hearing voices which make me strong so that my parents and my teachers cannot make me feel bad about myself any more.

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• The teacher thinks she is God.

• My mother treats me like an infant, shouting at me to do my homework, but actually I am a young man already.

2 Teenage suicide attempts

Suicide survivors in the greater Tshwane Metropolitan are referred to Kalafong Hospital for recovery. Amongst them are a high percentage of teenagers, black and white.

These are the stories which are supported by power discourses vis-a-vis age:

• I am without hope at home: the grown-ups are fighting with one another.

• I am without hope since I have seen my father shooting my mother: the grown-ups are killing one another.

• I saw so many deaths this year, I am without hope.

• Other children also claim that my father is theirs.

• My father let me work as a prostitute.

• My parents don’t understand why we teenagers have sex.

• My parents and teachers don’t respect me because I smoke, but just look at how they are hurting each other.

• I do not have a father and my mother sent me to a boarding school; she is always absent.

• My father will kill me if he should find out I was pregnant.

• I was raped at church by another man, but I am not going to talk about it.

3 The wounded parent

Parents often express their disappointment in the behaviour of their adolescent children. These are the parents’ problem discourses:

• My child refuses to study.

• My child uses drugs.

• My child is sexually active at a young age.

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• My child is insubordinate and unruly.

• My child has chased me out of my own house.

• My son has killed his brother.

When an adolescent has tried to commit suicide, or a parent is desperate about the behaviour of a teenager, the rest of the family is called in to join the counselling process. These are the deconstructed discourses of reconstructed relationships between adult and adolescent, discourses which explore the dialogical spaces between adult power and adolescent powerlessness:

• We’ll negotiate rules in future.

• We’ll respect each other’s dreams.

• We’ll find a way of communicating our frustrations to one another in future.

• We’ll allow our mistakes to be corrected.

• We’ll honour each other more than we honour the opinion of society.

Journeying with stories (2/22) Kotsi and his mother give and take

Kotsi is a handsome 22 year old who has asked to see a counsellor.

The problem, he said, was his mother, who is a single parent. She treated him like a child and chased away his friends. The problem, it turned out, stole his concentration, and gave him headaches and insomnia. The problem, he himself said, was made bigger by his inability to control his friends, his time, and his love for women.

Consequently, we explored Kotsi’s strong points. His boss regarded him as a responsible, hard worker. He had lots of friends. And he was an eloquent, well-expressed person, who was also the lead singer in his church choir.

Next, we invited his mother by letter to join the counselling process, which she readily did two weeks later on the 10^th of December 2003.

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She complained that Kotsi was drinking heavily, that he was bringing girls into the house to spend the night with him, and that he was not making any financial contribution to the household, although he had a good job.

Kotsi’s mother wanted him to leave the house, but he wanted to stay, thus his quest for a counsellor to facilitate the situation. We started negotiating the terms of their future relationship. His mother identified his spirituality, as she saw it represented in him singing the lead in the church choir, as the starting point for a renewed relationship of trust between them, one she insisted should be based on decency and religious morality. Within these parameters, they undertook to show respect for each other’s lifestyles.

A week later Kotsi’s mother unexpectedly turned up at the counselling room, reporting that things were going fine, contrary to her initial expectations. Kotsi was showing great skills in decently co-existing with her, and she could part with the choice either to control him or to chase him away.

2.2.3.4 Financial Power versus Financial Powerlessness