Adolescence: My experience

Adolescence: My experience

Michelle Powers

PS220

Adolescence is to me the most difficult of stages during the developmental process. The changes that happen to a young person’s body, mind and experiences will determine the young person’s path to their future and are the most unexpected to occur, at least until they get into elderly stage and at that point just being able to be considered elderly is a privilege and not a concern. Even then the affects of how the body and mind has been treated over the years of adolescence and adulthood will determine how your mind and body will react when you are an elder. I chose this stage because I have three young adults, I have done the best I can do during their upbringing and still their outcome has been totally up to them. Everything from eating right, working out, having and displaying good moral values, to how to cope with relationships or how to end them when they are not healthy. When they were younger I controlled the majority or their decisions but once they hit puberty or adolescence I relinquish that control in order for them to be able to make their own decisions either good or bad and deal with the consequences as a result. I had to watch my sons and daughter grow pubic hair and teach them the upkeep process in those areas. I showed my daughter how to conduct her own self breast examination. I even showed both boys through the help of a cucumber how to properly put on a condom. I have had to be the ear and advice for relationship dramas and have had to be the bearer of bad news when it came to young ladies or men thinking that they could become a boyfriend or girlfriend to my adolescents before they graduated. Not to share too much but I remember the conversation about abstinence and purchased lotion for my boys that I am sure did not always go on their legs due to the regular purchases that were necessary. The adolescent stage was not just difficult for me I know it was more difficult for them as well. I was never one to mix words when it came to reveal the truth about what happens if, so they heard some harsh words of advice but only time will tell if it all paid off or not.

The physical changes that take place during this stage would be called “puberty” takes place gradually. Puberty affects the skeletal, muscular, reproductive, and nearly all other bodily systems, Healthy Children.Org, (2014). Heredity plays a large part in the growth process, meaning if your parents are tall the chances of your child becoming taller during this physical change in adolescence is increased. Height is not the only factor that is influenced by heredity or should I say genetics, which can affect health and weight as well. I say that each of my children took something from me , my oldest took my height my daughter took my attitude and my youngest took my athleticism. During puberty hairs grow in places that the child has never had before such as the face, underarm and pubic area. Most adolescence gain weight about 4-7 lbs. per year and grow taller (about 25 of human growth in height happens during puberty, Healthy Children.Org) . Girls begin to have more pronounced breast and nipples. Boys penises and testicles become larger, some boys even have slight breast growth. This physical transition into adulthood also involves a rise in hormones, this is when the sexual maturation occurs. Girls hips and gain fat while boys gain muscle and their shoulders broaden. Berk and Meyers, state on pg.528, that adolescence go to bed much later than they did as children and their sleep patterns change, although I never had a problem with mines being in bed by 9 every night unless it was late game night and we got back late as a result. They either went to sleep on the bus home or as soon as they got back into the car to head home. The psychological changes happened more often with my daughter than it happened with my boys. Moodiness or stress reactivity is heightened by changes in brain neurotransmitter activity during adolescence, Berk and Meyers, pg.530, (2016). As children grow and begin the process of puberty they begin to want the respect of an adult or to be treated like one. This is where parenting can really be difficult. Some parents want to control every step their young adult is making or authoritarian, with the belief that their young adult is incapable of making the right decisions and should do as told. In adolescence, parenting practices remain essential to the development of both health and risk behaviors, Patios, N. D., Debon, C., Zanin, S. C. G., & Siqueira, A. C. pg.645, (2018). I used a combination of parenting styles because no single style would work for me there were times when I needed to be permissive and then there were times when I needed to be authoritative and when pushed to the brink I had to be authoritarian. Being able to shift between parenting styles is what helped me to be able to allow them the space to be young adults with the knowledge that they were not yet adults.

The need to fit in is more prevalent during adolescence and is essential to the mental well-being especially with peers that are of like mind. Sometimes the acceptance of another person or group is so relevant that most adolescence are willing to degrade themselves and forget their morality. Young adults can unknowingly make comments towards others that can have dangerous or even deadly results. For instance a young girl sits beside another young girl and the other young girls says that one is too big to fit. The young girl that it was said to may begin to limit what she eats so much so that she becomes anorexic or bulimic as a result of a simple comment. Some comments are made purposely to hurt the feelings of another such as I wish you would kill yourself and then because the person doesn’t feel like they fit in with anyone they go home and follow the advice.

Erickson’s Psychosocial Child development theory each stage of development a crisis must be mastered which leads to psychological virtue. There are many crisis’s that can occur during this stage of life from physical, cognitive to social, depending on the adolescent’s ability to cope, would determine the mastering capability of the stage into adulthood.

Cultural factors have a major impact on an adolescence ability to maneuver through this stage to adulthood. I will start with myself and family as an example. I was a young black woman with three children no father present and a GED. Statistically, I was supposed to fail as a parent due to my ethnicity lack of religious practices and father’s presence. Fortunately I am stubborn, and I refused to be a stat on someone’s chart. I went to work I spent quality time and was an ever-present part of their growth process in order to change the outcome of their lives to be something better than their environment, that is not the same for all. Some minorities are content with their outcome being predetermined and as a result blame the patterns of ancestry as the excuse. The same goes for adolescence, if you speak with one they will no doubt give you an excuse for why they are either in the situation they are in or why they did what they did. Excuses allow for blame to be placed on someone or something else as the reason for an outcome. I believe in, there is no excuse for blame and we are responsible for our own outcomes. Many may not be in the best situation or environment and it may not be no fault of their own but the choice to change the outcome with no excuses for not giving an effort to change has to be on themselves. During adolescence responsibility wants to be taken by the young person, that responsibility has to be carried on their shoulders like a weight. The adolescent can wait to be an adult then they should not be afraid to carry the weight that adults carry. It was hard for me to have to sit back and watch the children that I bore carry their own weight of responsibility, but I trained them with small weights before I completely shifted the load. I didn’t just transfer the load and walk away I kept peeking and would occasionally check up to see if their load being carried correctly. Through all of their changes and stages of life as a parent observing the differences, failures and improvements is an experience that will not be erased. The one thing I can take away from all of the stages is the memories of love, tears, hugs and high fives from all of my children that began as infants to childhood to adolescence to know their adulthood. I can give you the rest of their story as I become elderly in my own stage of development.

References

Berk and Meyers, Infants, Children and Adolescence, (2016)

Healthy Children.Org, https://healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/gradeschool/puberty/Pages/Physical-Development-of-School-Age-Children.aspx

Patias, N. D., Debon, C., Zanin, S. C. G., & Siqueira, A. C. (2018). How have parents raised their kids? Adolescent’s perception of parental responsiveness and demandingness. Psico-USF, 23(4), 643–652. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-82712018230405