Teams are groups that work cooperatively toward common goals. Each member has a role and they work together using individual strengths. Adolescents want independence but also want to please peers and challenge rules. They reject what is normal and expand interests. Teamwork is an important skill for adults to master, both in sports and careers. It determines safety and success. Without cooperative skills, one will have difficulties as an employee and in life. Each person must decide how to live but being a good team member makes life easier.

1. Teams are groups of people who work
together, cooperatively, toward a common goal and vision
with an attitude of being able to accomplish the goals. The
most common example of a team is the sports team. They
players work together, each having a role or job, toward
scoring points that will determine the winner. The vision is
winning the game; the goal is developing strategies to
accomplish the goal, and the objectives are individual
players using their strengths in jobs or roles.

2. Adolescence is a stage of semi-independence, when all
that is needed for adulthood begins to develop. The
individual moves from being a member of a family group
into personal independence. It is about individual
development, as the body becomes an adult's body. The
mind struggles with perceptions and interests from
childhood but wants more challenging opportunities that
decision making (and sometimes problem solving) allows.
Adolescence is when teenagers separate more from family
and blend with other teens who replace parents as the
ones to please.

3. The Conflict

4. Adolescents want to be separate and unique, allowed to
make choices for themselves and prove they are adults
(although in training). They reject what has been "normal"
and expand their horizons, interests, friendships, and
begin creating goals for their futures. Following rules and
laws may be difficult, if only because adolescents want to
challenge everything in the process of exerting control
over their lives.

5. Teams or groups working together offer a common goal or
vision toward which everyone involves works
cooperatively. Rules and laws establish order so everyone
can contribute. Learning to work cooperatively with
others, either peers or authority figures (teachers will
become supplanted by supervisors and bosses), is a critical
skill every adult needs to master.

6. Why Teamwork Is Important

7. Many teens participate in sports or clubs, partially for
something to do away from home, parents and
siblings, but also to meet their growing interests, talents
and skills. Participation in these activities is part of
learning adult behavior. Rejecting being a team member
can have lasting repercussions for an individual's future.

8. Without cooperative performance skills, the person is a
difficult employee.

9. Work sites are social settings, and cooperative behavior
determines the level of safety for everyone. Everyone has
the right to be safe physically, mentally and emotionally.
Positive, helpful and supportive attitudes are critical.
When one individual doesn't work in the same way
toward the same goals, one or more types of safety can be
compromised. Someone who gossips, ridicules others, or
generally discounts others' efforts is a negative or
destructive influence. That person tears apart the
assembled "team" of which they are a member and
sabotages the group's goal(s) and vision(s).

10. Most people want to find a job they enjoy doing, having a
career that allows them to be independent and self-
sufficient. This means they must learn to be governed by
rules and laws, social conventions (manners), and people
who have the right to tell them what to do. It means they
can't be an individual who always determines
what, when, where, how and why anything gets done.
Even independent business owners must allow others (if
only their customers and state and federal regulations)
have control over aspects of their lives.

11. Without the skills of teamwork, collaboration and social
relationships, an individual will have many difficulties in
life. They may suffer financial and/or emotionally. There
are many people like this. Each person must decide for
himself/herself how (s)he is going to live his/her life. The
better (s)he is as a team member, the easier life will be.

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