The Emergence of Redemptive Storytelling During Adolescence

Adolescence is an important time for organizing a complex, relatively stable, and well‐integrated story of one's life. To accomplish this work, adolescents maintain autobiographical narratives. One strategy that adolescents can use in presenting autobiographical narratives involves redemption—approaches for recognizing and confronting past harm and ultimately progressing toward positive resolution in one's life. Redemptive storytelling is positively related to well‐being. Further, the capacities for redemptive storytelling fully emerge by adolescence. However, there remains less research addressing redemptive storytelling among adolescents. We review the concept of redemption in autobiographical storytelling, argue for the ways redemption should be relevant to the development of adolescents, and provide a call to action for more research in developmental and narrative sciences to consider redemptive storytelling among adolescent populations.