As school winds up to end-of-year examinations and then winds down to Christmas the psychological lot of your average 17-year-old scholar is not a happy one.

It is probably the same around the world.

Mary lived on a small South Pacific island, and had been brought up in the customary way, her life being ordered by the rituals of a society, which traces its origins back hundreds of years.

Her father was a pig farmer, a man of considerable influence within his own tribe, and her mother – well, like  many people in similar circumstances she was an extremely hard worker but something of a second-class citizen.

Young Mary came from a family of nine and was so bright that when the question of her secondary education arose she left her small island and, through a series of grants, was able to finance her time at a school “on the big island” where again she worked hard and achieved accordingly.

But as the end of her schooling approached she was confronted by the reality that the way she was treading could inevitably lead her to tertiary education even further away from home.

While this was quite exciting, her father had conditioned her about her capacity to cope while she was away from him and, indeed, away from her traditional family role as an elder daughter.

Her schoolteachers expected great things and her father expected her to come home.

In the middle of this situation Mary felt pulled apart and became deeply depressed, which meant that she had to return home.

Back home certain customary remedies were applied and she got better.

Her father told her the ways of the “big island” had caused her illness and advised her to stay away, otherwise she would become sick again.

This is probably a familiar story, but one piece of the tale is missing – the fact that it is based on a family living just 2 ½ hours’ flying time east of Brisbane.

If we were to fly almost as far west we would probably find a similar situation.

Lizzy was the bright-eyed and very capable daughter of a wealthy farmer, though not of pigs.

She also came from a family in which there were a great number of rituals associated with her future, her church, her socio-economic status (I’m not allowed to call it class any more and her education).

She was sent to one of the smarter secondary boarding schools and her life was extremely comfortable.

Academically she did well, which surprised her as much as it did her family, and she would probably have gone on to university, although the course she chose was outside Queensland.

She had also met a young man she had become fond of who had attended a local State school.

It was at this point that her father arrived on the doorstep of the school complete with ‘Toorak truck’ and gave her the benefit of his opinions.

He was particular about where her duty lay and what her actions were doing to her mother.

It’s no surprise that Lizzy also became deeply depressed and in term three of her final year she effectively sabotaged her academic chances and returned to her ‘tribe’ where she settled down.

I wonder what Mary and Lizzy would say to each other if they met?

For the record, both Lizzy and Mary exist, but some of the facts have been altered to protect them from any further assault.

These young people suffer from what has become known as the ‘identify crisis’ – that time in a young person’s life when they simply don’t know who they are or where they’re going.

They feel tightly bound by the expectations of school, family, peer group and themselves, and however tough they are, however good their capacity to communicate,  nonetheless they are still children looking for direction but refusing to acknowledge it.

Certainly they never allow a parent to believe they will accept any advice.

I think it is important that parent’s remember a simple fact – that in all probability we have taught our children all that we value.

We have taught them our priorities, our way of doing things; we have taught them our boundaries, our philosophies, our outlook and the chances are that for the next few years they will kick the living daylights out of each and every one of them, bending the rules to the point of breaking, and demanding our response.

How do we respond?  Do we continue to say “she’ll be right” or “don’t you realise how lucky you are?”

“When I was your age…”.

Or do we stick to our guns, recognising that to let off steam is to let them down.

Woe betide any parent who believes that trying to be as trendy as them, trying to be too understanding, usually forces that young person into being far less so.

I would suggest that young people at that time don’t need understanding.

What they need is love.

What they need is friendship.

And the wisdom to know the difference.