Middle Childhood and Adolescence

Middle Childhood and Adolescence

Middle Childhood and Adolescence

A family is a group of people which consists of a father, mother and a child or children who live under the same roof called home. Some families lack either a father or mother and they are subjected to single parenting or when they lack both and end up in foster homes. This doesn’t make them any less family. There are two types of families, a functional family and a dysfunctional family (Newman & Newman, 2014).  A functional family is a one which keeps in consideration the needs of everyone involved. It is not a family built to perfection but they compromise on some things in order to be on the same level and keep it happy healthy.

A functional family is one that makes sure the needs of the members are heard and are being worked on, that the members are accountable for their actions and they can also express what they are thinking of, their desires, wants, wishes and knowledge. This provides a good environment for the children to be comfortable and express themselves with utmost honesty. Hence when they grow out to adolescence, they still have that in mind and have nothing to fear or be ashamed of. This will make the child be able to interact with other children well because they have acquired good skills from his or her family.

A dysfunctional family is one that does not care for it’s members or has very poor communication with family members. Some families maybe dysfunctional because they are going through a very fought time due to divorce or maybe their finances are not good or they are going through some domestic violence. All these are not good for children especially when the family is usually not ready to compromise or resolve the problems.. This will eventually disrupt the child’s mental and emotional state and have them have a rough time opening up and mingling with others.

The environment can also affect the psychological state of a child. A shared environment is where a child is able to share some of his or her individual environment with his or her other siblings. This involves sharing of the parenting style used, the faith of the parents and the general personality of a child. Parents who bring up their children in a faith based home, and with the same parenting style have their children acquiring almost the same personality. This is usually good for the children’s upbringing. In cases where there is non shared environment like when there is spacing between the birth if the kids, the parental style will be different because of the difference, thus the kids will have a different personality.

Peer influence can also affect the growth of a child in their middle childhood and adolescence either positively or negatively. A child interacts with their peers when they are in their middle childhood. Children at middle childhood long for friendship and acceptance which they get from their peers. They make peers depending on acceptance and identity. In middle childhood, the child is interested in doing a good work and not listening to their peers. In this stage, the peers might have an upper hand in the social and moral growth. If the peers are of bad company then they will mislead the child but if they are good then the child will have a positive impact.

In adolescence, peers are made from having similar interests or hobbies. This is a stage where boys and girls mingle the most and comfortably. Peers pose a risk to old friendships. It can influence the adolescence either positively by helping the child concentrate on his or her interests and perfecting them which will go a long way in building them as a person. It can influence them negatively when the adolescent gets overwhelmed with their own thinking and judgement and becomes consumed to believing everyone should be like them. (Elkind, D. 1967)

Egocentrism vary from one adolescent to the other. It is usually based on the thoughts of the adolescent or how the child views himself or herself. It is essential because it helps the adolescent identify themselves in an environment. Some adolescents, focus too much on their appearance and how they look which might lead them to having an unhealthy behavior and low self-esteem(Davies et al, 2016). They draw this mostly on social media and magazines which have boys or girls looking in a certain way.

Adolescents experience pressure from various areas. One of them is peer pressure. Being a stage where they mingle and get comfortable with the opposite sex, they face pressure from peers to engage in sex. Being naïve and innocent they might fall to a circumstance that lead them to engage in that activity. This may end up causing early unwanted pregnancy for young girls or sexually transmitted infections or even worse HIV and AIDS.

The adolescence also experience pressure from having the need to fit into a certain group. This affects girls where the cool girls happen to be the skinny and beautiful ones, so you would find some girls trying to lose weight by starving themselves in order to look that cool. It affects the boys as well in that the boys have to be in a certain gang or club in order to fit. This might not be good since some of these boys will be required to commit a crime in order to fit in.

Pressure can also be experienced when the adolescence is facing problems at home either when the parents are going through a rough divorce or when the family has a financial problem. All these put pressure on an adolescent and have them seek help from other friends and not their parents. In cases on finance, the adolescent ma feel obliged to look for a job in order to help and provide for the family. This will this make the adolescence not mingle with children his or her age thus depriving them their right.

Moral values are developed especially from the parent and should be nurtured at a very young age. If the parental style involves guiding a child through the right way and helping them understand that some things are bad at a very young age then that child will have good moral values. It will be easier for him or her to discern good and bad and will be able to make wise choices despite the pressure from peers (Duell Icenogle et al 2016).

Some moral values can be developed through peers especially when the parents are too busy and do not have time for the child. At childhood, he or she can acquire some values that might either be pleasant or unpleasant. This will be very hard to change at adolescence since the child will already be used to having unpleasant values. Thus a parent should be available, keen and interested in the child’s welfare.

Reference

Davies, P. T., Martin, M. J., Coe, J. L., & Cummings, E. M. (2016). Transactional cascades of

destructive interparental conflict, children’s emotional insecurity, and psychological

problems across childhood and adolescence. Development and Psychopathology, 28(03),

653-671.

Newman, B. M., & Newman, P. R. (2014). Development through life: A psychosocial approach.

Cengage Learning.

Duell, N., Icenogle, G., & Steinberg, L. (2016). Adolescent Decision Making and Risk

Taking. Child Psychology: A Handbook of Contemporary Issues, 263.