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Exploration Nicole Coutinho Broadly, the word exploration is associated with travelling and seeing new countries, however, for adolescents, exploration is fundamental to their development. By dictionary definition, exploration means the action of travelling in or through an
Figure 2: (Clements & Musker, 2016)
unfamiliar area to learn about it (Oxford University Press, n.d.). The aforementioned goes beyond implications and resonates deeply within adolescent lives. From infancy to adolescence, a child's identity is shaped and dependent on parental authority. As adolescents reach puberty, they are involuntarily propelled into an age of exploration. From physical changes in body fluctuations and hormone increases to social changes of a shift of dependence on their friends, all demonstrate new experiences that can become difficult to explore in adolescents. Through this transition, parents often struggle in adjusting to their child's development of an independent personality and unconsciously implement barriers to exploration. In adolescence, a parent-child relationship does not end but becomes one with mutual dependency and understanding. For example, adolescent exploration depends on the parent's readiness to let go and encourage autonomy. As exploration is inevitable in adolescence, parental overinvolvement and disapproval of individuality can affect development. The idea of overinvolvement is a trait often possessed by helicopter parents, which results in resistance to exploration leading to long-term mental health issues as a consequence. The main problem of helicopter parenting is that the parent acts as a cushion to the child before they even get the chance to fall and possibly fail. Thus, as a consequence of parents being overcontrolling and overprotecting (Gilbert, 2021), adolescents feel pressured to refrain from exploration in