ADOLESCENCE

Adolescence

Adolescence

Introduction

Adolescence, in industrialized countries, is viewed as the transition stage between childhood and emerging adulthood. In the United States, because of physical and social shifts, adolescence can currently be said to span ages 10 or 11 to 18. But the actual life stage of adolescence is socially and historically variable, dependent on the coming to adulthood within the context of current economic circumstances, social norms, and policies.

Discussion

In the United States, G. Stanley Hall established adolescence as an area of study, publishing the first textbooks on adolescence in the early 1900s. At that time, he defined the age range of adolescence as beginning at age 14 and continuing into young adulthood, capped at age 24. His influential theory of adolescence as a time of “storm and stress” is still widely touted. According to Hall, this stage was characterized by conflict with parents, mood disruptions, and risk behaviors. More recent research suggests that this description does not accurately reflect the life experience of most adolescents. Scholars today emphasize that most adolescents have good relationships with their parents, that their mood swings are rarely so extreme as to need psychological interventions, and that most of them do not engage in highly reckless behavior on a regular basis. However, the storm-and-stress descriptor continues to be evoked for this age group.

Early adolescence is usually seen as the ages 10 to 14 and is regarded as an increasingly significant developmental period. Early adolescence is a time of physical, sexual, and psychological awakening. The median age for menarche, the onset of a girl's first menstruation, has steadily dropped in the last century and has now leveled out to age 12.5. Initial changes of puberty begin about 2 years earlier, currently marking the beginning of adolescence at about age 10. Incredible physical growth coincides with major changes in the social life of early adolescents as most move from elementary to middle schools. Identity issues permeate the whole adolescent period, with adolescents addressing the questions “Who am I?” and “Who can I become?” For early adolescents, it is thought that they first engage these questions through affiliation with others their ages. They take on a “group identity,” where through their choices of affiliation they are essentially signaling “I am like you.” Early adolescent culture is permeated with the presence of “cliques” that reflect these choices.

Later adolescence, ages 15 and up, brings youth closer to the issues and eventual roles of adulthood. During this time, it is expected that an adolescent begins to form a sense of self that is distinct from friends and family. While sharing some traits and beliefs in common with both of these important groups, at the same time an adolescent may exert his or her differences from them. This sense of distinctness is a hallmark of adolescent behaviors. There is also an emphasis on future thinking during this time, where adolescents begin to envision life possibilities or, conversely, begin to lose hope in a personal future for themselves. These choices are reflected in choices such as ...