Report on Adolescent

INTRODUCTION

Adolescence is the period between the ages of 12-18 years. It can be considered as the transitional stage from childhood to adulthood. The period of adolescents is most closely associated with the teenage years, though its physical, psychological and cultural expressions may begin earlier and end later.The physical growth is distinct from puberty and cognitive development generally seen in adolescence as it can also extend into the early twenties. The main purpose of the adolescence age is to prepare children for the adult roles as it being the period of multiple transitions involving education, training, employment and unemployment as well as transition from one living environment to another living environment.

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The end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood varies from culture to culture as it can occur at different ages depending on the individual (chronologically and legally) being mature enough for the society to entrust them with certain privileges and responsibilities. Thus the chronological age provides only a rough marker of adolescence. The adolescence age is referred as the time of both disorientation and discovery as it’s the transitional process, which brings up issues of independence and self-identity. Henceforth it is usually accompanied by an increased independence allowed by parents or legal guardians and less supervised as compared to preadolescence.

REPORT ON AN ANDOLESCENCE

1. BACKGROUD OF THE PERSON

Name: Sayeda Hina Iqbal

Ethnic Origin: Indian

Date of Birth: 31^st October 1998

Age: 15 years

Siblings: 3 (older sister-22, older brother 19, younger brother 9)

How did I know this person: Introduced by a friend

Sayeda Hina Iqbal preferably called as Hina comes from an Indian background. Her family consists of her parents and her 3 other siblings, an older sister, an older brother and a younger brother. Hina’s home environment is very friendly where the whole family supports one another and doesn’t impose their decision on anyone. Her family is very warm and welcoming and have always supported one other on what one wants to do.

According to Diana Baumrind (1971, 1991) parenting can be classified into 4 different styles:

• Authoritarian- a restructive, punitive style.
• Authoritative- encourages independence but still places limits and controls on their actions.
• Neglectful- parents are very uninvolved in the adolescent’s life.
• Indulgent- parents are highly involved with their adolescents but places few demands or controls over them.

Looking at Hina, she has Authoritative parents as her parents encourage her to be independent but still have placed limits and control over her, which indeed involves her parents to be a part of her everyday life and its bring out an individual who is well aware of her limits and boundaries as well as independent and confident.

1. Developmental Information

Adolescence is the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood. There are many extreme physical changes that take place during adolescence. The most impactful changes are the height and weight. Teenagers undergo “the adolescence growth spurt”- a period of rapid growth changes in height and weight.

Looking at the subject i.e. Hina she has the normal physical development that most adolescents acquire. She has the height of 5 foot 2 inches and an average body weight which places in the average category i.e. the middle portion of the Bell shaped cure.

1. Cognitive Development:

1. At what stage of Piaget’s developmental theory was the subject functioning at? Justify by giving examples.

Cognitive development significantly increases during adolescence as teenagers begin to use the formal operations to solve problems during this certain period of their growth. According to Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory formal operation period is the stage during which people develop the ability to think abstractly, he asserted that children enter this stage at the beginning of adolescence.

However research finds individual differences in cognitive abilities is not universal as some researchers suggest that cognitive development is more continuous, opposite of what Piaget proposed.

Observing Hina, she is falls under the formal operation skills of Piaget’s cognitive development theory. The formal operation stage of Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory explains how the thinking ability of an adolescent increases during this stage and they are able think logically and idealistically and also be able to use deductive reasoning and an understanding of abstract ideas.

While observing Hina, it was very clear that she was able to use abstract ideas to understand the concepts being taught in mathematics and apply those concepts in order to solve her maths equations. During the observation, Hina was also able to think idealistically as she was able to think and enable a balance between what is right and wrong. She was also able to argue in order to make sure that her ideas were also given equal importance to as compared to others ideas. Being able to think idealistically also enable her to reflect upon what is possible and how can it be possible.

Being in the formal operational stage, Hina was also able to reason out the arguments she made and back them up with logical reasons in order for her problems to be solved, this helped her to solve problems and also test solutions.

1. Explain aspects of Vygotsky’s development theory that was observed such as interaction with family members.

According to Vygotsky’s Developmental theory, he believed that mental structures and processes can be traced to our interactions with others as these social interactions are more than social influences on cognitive development as they create our cognitive structure and thinking processes.

Observing Hina’s interactions with her family members, her family is very interactive. The interaction between Hina and her parents is basically about her school and studies where her parents show interest on what is going on in her school life. They also like a keep a track of who are the common friends that Hina hangs around with in and out of school. The interaction that Hina share with her siblings is more of fun related rather than serious interaction. This interaction includes teasing each other, joking around and sometimes playing pranks on each other.

1. Social emotional Development

1. Briefly discuss the emotional state of the person

Socio emotional development deals with the changes in an individual’s relationship with other people, emotions and personality. The social emotional development is shaped by unique combination of genes, brain development, environment, experiences with family and friends, and community and culture.

Observing Hina, it showed that she was seeking for more independence. She was able to make decisions but at the same time she was still waiting to get the confirmation from her parents. This wait made her frustrated as she wasn’t able to perform a certain task without the permission granted by her parents. During the observation, it was noticeable that Hina wanted to try out new things to get new experiences and take risks but due to her not fully having control of her independence she was restrained from doing it. She also took up the responsibility of her decisions, actions and consequences.

It was also very noticeable that Hina’s self-esteem was influenced by her friends as she was able to do new things and have new experiences while being around her friends but not when she was on her own or in her home environment. It was also very visible that she had intense mood swings and they were very unpredictable, she was very sensitive to others emotions and tends to misread facial expressions and body language which leads to her getting angry very easily. She also is very self-conscious about her physical appearance and compares herself with her peers.

1. What did you observe with regards to Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory of Development

According to Urie Bronfenbrenner human development is relat6ed to the entire ecological system. The ecological theory has the 5 systems which talks about the contextual nature of the person’s life and offers an ever-growing diversity of options and sources of growth.

The microsystem is closest to the child as it has the direct impact on the child’s development. It includes family, school, religious institutions, neighbourhoods and peers. Observing Hina she had stable microsystem due to her having stable relationships with her family and peers

The mesosystem which consist of the interactions between the child’s parents and teachers also the relationship between the child’s parents and his/her peers. Hina was influenced by the mesosystem as there wasn’t much interactions between her parents and her peers which influenced her development as her parents asked her to be with the right group of people.

The exosysytem consist of links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role and the individual’s immediate context for example, conflicts between two parents can affect the child’s development. There wasn’t such a situation in Hina’s case she was able to interact very well with both her parents.

The macrosystem describes the culture an individual comes from. A child, his or her parent, his or her school, and his or her parent’s workplace are all part of a large cultural context. Being the outermost layer of the individual’s environment, it affects influence throughout the interactions of all other layers. The macrosystem influences what, how, when and where we carry out our relations. Hina is being affected by this layer due to her culture which does affect her interactions and relations in a not so good way.

Lastly comes the chronosystem encompasses the dimension of time as it relates to a child’s environment.Elements within this system can be either external, such as the timing of a parent’s death, or internal, such as the physiological changes that occur with the aging of a child. This does affect the child’s interactions depending on external or internal effects. Looking at Hina she didn’t have any influences from this system as she suffered none of the elements mentioned above.

1. Influences from family and friends

Hina’s family and friends does influence her in both positive ways as well as negative ways. Her parents being authoritative give her the independence and freedom she requires but it also reminds her to stay within her limits which does influence her as she knows what is right and what is wrong and also enables her to take up the responsibility of her own actions and decisions. Whereas regarding her friends, they try to boost up her self-esteem as they encourage her to go for new experiences but at the same time it decreases her self-confidence as she tries to compare herself with her peers and doesn’t see her own potential and ability.

Hina doesn’t have any eating disorders and smoking habits however she does sleep a lot sometimes more than 12 hours a day. Her hobbies are to read books, listen to music, watch television and do a lot of shopping. She doesn’t like to engage herself in activities which require her to be active, she seems to run away from such activities and not leave her comfort zone and do something outside of her comfort level.

1. Summary

Hina is a normal teenager who has her ups and downs. She is going through the same process that any teenager would go through at this stage of adolescence. She has her physical changes taking place which is making her physical appearance change. She is also going thorough cognitive development and therefore she is able to think abstractly, ideally and logically. Her cognitive development also enables her to think hypothetically. She is also going through the emotional development due to which her emotions are all over the place and therefore she has sudden mood swings and is unable to control her moods such as anger. Going through the emotional development at this stage is making Hina seek more independence than she already does and therefore this seeking of independence sometimes leads to conflicts between her and her parents as she believes that her parents don’t seem to understand her, due to which she seems to distant herself from her family and spends more time with her peers. This has both positive effects on her development as well as negative effects. The positive effects are that she is able to face new experiences and show responsibility for her actions. It gives her the independence that she seeks from her parents but at the same time when she is unable to receive that independence in her home environment she gets angry and argues with her parents leading to conflicts.

All these things are very common during the adolescence period as teenagers are trying to seek self-identity, be independent and be able to do things on their own without asking for permission from their parents or guardians. They want to be the one in control of their lives and feel the leader of their lives. Teenagers usually feel that their parents are interfering in their lives whereas all they are trying to do is guide their teenage children in the right direction.

References

• Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System Theory

http://www.floridahealth.gov/alternatesites/cms-kids/providers/early_steps/training/documents/bronfenbrenners_ecological.pdf

• Ecological systems theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_systems_theory

• Formal Operational stages of Cognitive Development

http://psychology.about.com/od/piagetstheory/p/formaloperation.htm

• John W. Santrock. (2012). Child Development- thirteen edition. United States of America: McGraw Hill Companies

• Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

http://psychology.about.com/od/piagetstheory/a/keyconcepts.htm

• Stages of Adolescents Development

http://thebccp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/34_stages_of_adolescence.pdf

• Social and Emotional changes in Adolescents

http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/social_and_emotional_development_teenagers.html