The term adolescence derives from the Latin word adolescere, meaning “to grow into maturity”. It is the transitional period in a person’s life between childhood and adulthood.
Adolescence is commonly defined as the stage of life that begins at the onset of puberty, when sexual maturity, or the ability to reproduce is attained. It has been regarded as a period of rapid change, both biologically and psychologically.
Physical Development :
Puberty or sexual maturity marks the end of childhood and signifies the beginning of adolescence, which is characterised by dramatic physical changes in both, growth rate, and sexual characteristics. However, puberty is not a sudden event, but is part of a gradual process.
The hormones released during puberty result in the development of primary and secondary sexual characteristics. The primary sex characteristics include those directly related to reproduction and the secondary sex characteristics include features or signs of achieving sexual maturity.
Pubertal changes in boys are marked by acceleration in growth, facial hair, and changes in voice. In girls, rapid growth in height usually begins about two years before menarche, the onset of menstruation. The growth spurt generally begins at the age of 12 or 13 for boys and at the age of 10 or 11 for girls.
Physical development during adolescence is also accompanied by a number of psychological changes. Around puberty adolescents show an increase in interest in members of the opposite sex and in sexual matters and a new awareness of sexual feelings develops.
This increased attention to sexuality is caused by factors such as individual’s awareness of the biological changes taking place and the emphasis placed on sexuality by peers, parents, and society.
The development of a sexual identity defines the sexual orientation and guides sexual behaviour. As such it becomes an important developmental task for adolescents.
Adolescents are preoccupied with what they are like and develop individual images of what they look like. Another important developmental tasks during adolescence is accepting one’s physical self/ maturity. Adolescents need to develop a realistic image of their physical appearance, which is acceptable to them. It is important to keep in mind that puberty also involves cognitive and social changes along with physical changes.
Cognitive Developmental Changes:
Adolescents’ thought becomes more abstract, logical, and idealistic; they become more capable of examining their own thoughts, others’ thoughts, and what others are thinking about them.
Adolescents’ developing ability to reason gives them a new level of cognitive and social awareness. Piaget believed that formal operational thought appears between the age of 11 and 15. During this stage adolescent thinking expands beyond actual concrete experiences and they begin to think more in abstract terms and reason about them.
In addition to being abstract, adolescent thought is also idealistic. Adolescents begin to think about ideal characteristics for themselves and others and compare themselves and others with these ideal standards. For example, they may think what an ideal parent is like and compare their parents with these ideal standards.
In contrast to trial and error approach used by children in earlier stages of development, adolescent thinking becomes more systematic in solving problems — they think of possible courses of action, why something is happening the way it is, and systematically seek solutions.
Piaget called this type of logical thinking — hypothetical deductive reasoning. Logical thought also influences the development of moral reasoning. Social rules are not considered as absolute standards and moral thinking shows some flexibility.
The adolescent recognises alternative moral courses, explores options, and then decides on a personal moral code. For example, should I smoke as everyone. This also lends the possibility of adolescents not following society’s norms if they conflict with personal code of ethics. For example, individuals at this age might participate in a protest march for a cause rather than adhere/ conform to college norm.
Adolescents also develop a special kind of ego-centrism. According to David Elkind, there are two components of adolescents’ ego-centrism-:
1. Audience:
- Imaginary audience is adolescent’s belief that others are as preoccupied with them as they are about themselves.
- They imagine that people are always noticing them and are observing each and every behaviour of theirs. Imagine a boy who thinks that all will notice the ink spot on his shirt, or a girl with a pimple feels, all people would think how bad her skin is.
- It is this imaginary audience, which makes them extremely self-conscious.
2. Personal fable:
- The personal fable is part of the adolescents’ egocentrism that involves their sense of uniqueness.
- Adolescents’ sense of uniqueness makes them think that no one understands them or their feelings. For example, an adolescent girl thinks that none can sense the hurt that she feels because of being betrayed by a friend. It is quite common to hear the adolescent say to the parents; ‘you don’t understand me’.
- To retain their sense of personal uniqueness they may weave stories filled with fantasy around them to create a world that is away from reality.
Forming an Identity :
We must have sought answers to questions such as : Who am I? Which subjects should I study? Do I believe in God? The answers to all these questions involve the quest to define one’s sense of self or the search for identity.
Identity is who you are and what your values, commitments and beliefs are. The primary task of adolescence is to establish an identity separate from the parents. During adolescence a detachment process enables the individual to develop a personalised set of beliefs that are uniquely her or his own.
In the process of achieving an identity the adolescent could experience conflict with parents and within herself or himself. Those adolescents who can cope with the conflicting identities develop a new sense of self.
Adolescents who are not able to cope with this identity crisis are confused. This “identity confusion”, according to Erikson, can lead to individuals isolating themselves from peers and family; or they may lose their identity in the crowd.
Adolescents on one hand, may desire independence but may also be afraid of it and show a great deal
of dependence on their parents. Rapid fluctuations between self-confidence and insecurity are typical of this stage.
Adolescents may at one time complain of being “treated like a baby” whereas on other occasions they
may seek comfort by depending on their parents. Seeking an identity involves searching for continuity and sameness in oneself, greater responsibility and trying to get a clear sense of who one is, i.e. an identity.
Factors Influencing Formation of Identity In Adolescence
The formation of identity during adolescence is influenced by several factors:
- The cultural background, family and societal values, ethnic background, and socioeconomic status all prevail upon the adolescents’ search for a place in society.
- Family relationships become less important as the adolescent spends more time outside the home and develops a strong need for peer support and acceptance.
- Increased interactions with peers provide them with opportunities for refining their social skills and trying out different social behaviours. Peers and parents are dual forces having major influences on adolescents.
- At times conflicting situations with parents lead to increased identification with peers. But generally parents and peers serve complementary functions and fulfil different needs of the adolescents.
- Vocational commitment is another factor influencing adolescent identity formation. The question “What are you going to be when you grow up?”, requires the ability to think about the future and to be able to set realistic and achievable goals.
- In some cultures freedom is given to the young people to choose an occupation, whereas in certain other cultures the option of making this choice is not given to the children.
Some Major Concerns :
As adults when we reflect on our adolescent years and recall the conflicts, uncertainties, occasional loneliness, group pressures, we feel it was definitely a vulnerable period. During adolescence peer influence, new gained freedom, unresolved problems may create difficulties for many of us.
Conforming to peer pressure can be both positive and negative. Adolescents are often confronted with decisions regarding smoking, drugs, alcohol, and breaking parental rules, etc. These decisions are taken without much regard to the effect they can have.
Adolescents may face periods of uncertainty, loneliness, self-doubt, anxiety, and concern about themselves and their future, they are also likely to experience excitement, joy, and feelings of competence as they overcome the developmental challenges.
Major challenges faced by adolescents are:
1. Delinquency :
Delinquency refers to a variety of behaviours, ranging from socially unacceptable behaviour, legal offences, to criminal acts. Examples include truancy, running away from home, stealing or burglary or acts of vandalism. Adolescents with delinquency and behavioural problems tend to have a negative self-identity, decreased trust, and low level of achievement. Delinquency is often associated with low parental support, inappropriate discipline, and family discord.
However, most delinquent children do not remain delinquent forever. Change in their peer group, becoming more aware of their social responsibilities and developing feelings of self worth, imitating positive behaviour of the role models, breaking negative attitudes, and overcoming poor self-concept help in reduction of delinquent behaviour.
2. Substance Abuse :
Adolescent years are especially vulnerable to smoking, alcohol and drug abuse. Some adolescents take recourse to smoking and drugs as a way of coping with stress. This can interfere with the development of coping skills and responsible decision making.
The reasons for smoking and drug use could be peer pressure and the adolescents’ need to be accepted by the group, or desire to act more like adults, or feel a need to escape the pressure of school work or social activities.
The addictive powers of nicotine make it difficult to stop smoking. It has been found that adolescents who are more vulnerable to drugs, alcohol, and nicotine use, are impulsive, aggressive, anxious, depressive, and unpredictable, have low self-esteem, and low expectation for achievement. Peer pressure and the need to be with their peer group make the adolescent either go along with their demands to experiment with drugs, alcohol, and smoking or be ridiculed.
Drug use if continued long enough can lead to physiological dependency, i.e. addiction to drugs, alcohol or nicotine may seriously jeopardise the rest of the adolescents’ lives. Positive relationships with parents, peers, siblings, and adults play an important role in preventing drug abuse.
In India, a successful anti-drug programme is the Society for Theatre in Education Programme in New Delhi. It uses street performances to entertain people between 13 to 25 years of age while teaching them how to say no to drugs.
The United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) has chosen the programme as an example to be adopted by other nongovernmental organisations in the region.
3. Eating Disorders :
Adolescents’ obsession with self, living in fantasy world and peer comparisons lead to certain conditions where they become obsessed with their own bodies.
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that involves relentless pursuit of thinness through starvation. It is quite common to see adolescents eliminate certain foods from their diets or to eat slimming foods only. The media also projects thinness, as the most desirable image and copying such fashionable image of thinness leads to anorexia nervosa.
Bulimia is another form of an eating disorder in which the individual follows a binge-and-purge eating pattern. The bulimic goes on an eating binge, then purges by self-induced vomiting or using a laxative at times alternating it with fasting.
Anorexia nervosa and bulimia are primarily female disorders more common in urban families.
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