Adolescence

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 471.

Youth as a Stage of Human Development

We all distinguish such stages of human development as childhood, youth, and adulthood, each having its own subdivisions. And no other stage in the life cycle provokes as many questions and debates as youth – the period between childhood and adulthood,the age somewhere between 12 and 30.

Youth may further be subdivided into adolescence(roughly the years between the ages of 13 and 18), and young adulthood (it begins with the age of 18 and goes on to somewhere around 30).

During adolescence, roughly the years between the ages of 13 and 18, young people move beyond their rather limited world of childhood and begin experimenting with the behaviour, beliefs, and attitudes of adults. At this age they mix some qualities of childhood with some of adulthood, and the word "turbulent" is perhaps the best to describe the average experience of teenagers.

At this age they face with changes in their bodies, emotions, and personalities which may be very stressful. This is also the age when a teenager may get ready to go to a university. The pressure on him or her is very high as the competition is very tough and, unfortunately, not always fair.

Very often teens run into many problems: bullying and drugs, running from home and dropping out from school, jails and prisons, sexual abuse and teen pregnancy – these are just a few problems to mention here.

Parents usually worry about their child more than their teenager about himself or herself,

and to protect the child they often exercise their power and limit their child's rights: they do not allow to go where he or she would love to go, they give orders and prohibitions,they may beagainst their child's fashion, friends and a girl/boy friend, hobbies, music, lifestyle and other things their child appreciates so much. As the result the good relationship between them and their child is often broken. Thus, the tense parents-children relationship contributes to the most typical problem of teenagers which is usually called ‘the generation gap'.

But most teenagers overcome the challengesof adolescence quite successfully and settle into being young adults.

Young adulthood

The age of young adulthood has always been regarded to be the nicest period of human lives.

At the age of young adulthood people become more socially responsibleand morepsychologically mature. They are entitledall adults' rights: rights for voting in elections, for such activities as driving, marrying, working in some jobs, holding public office, and buying such restricted goods as alcohol.

Young adults become less dependent or fully independent of their parents or other relatives for support. If they are students and fully supported by parents they may be free from daily winning oftheirbread. If not married they are free from the burdenof responsibilitywhich brings the parenthood.

With morefree time and fewer family responsibilities they have a wealth ofleisure opportunities: going to health clubsand gyms, dining out, shopping, watching TV, reading, attending musical concerts, going to the cinema, theatre, spending time with friends -- these are only a few of the options open to them. And everywhere in leisure activities they have certain priorities. For example, young people are less likely to read newspapers nowadays than the average population but are slightly more likely to read magazines. They also read a lot of eBooks (downloadable books and magazines). On the whole, Internet and online leisure activities are becoming the primary entertainment source for them.

Young adults are generally in good healthand high spirits, physically fit and attractive. They strive for love, intimacy, and compassion, they seek to form intense, usually romantic relationships with other people. Their expectationsare often, however, illusionary. Emotional interactions may be very intense in a college environment – where everyone is roughly the same age and with the same aspirations.

Itis also the period of life when young people do the most important decisions for their future family and career.

The period of young adulthood lasts somewhere until the early 30ies when most of the young people usually settle down: they advancetheir careers, gain promotions and raises, get stability in their personal lives and start a family.