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My Adolescent Experience and Development: A Reflection

Table of contents

Adolescent experience in my life, physical development, emotional development.

“Perhaps you looked in the mirror on a daily, or sometimes even hourly, basis as a young teenager to see whether you could detect anything different about your changing body. Preoccupation with one’s body image is strong through adolescence, it is especially acute during puberty, a time when adolescents are more dissatisfied with their bodies than in late adolescence.” (Santrock)

Social changes

• Arnett, J. J. (2015). Adolescence and emerging adulthood : A cultural approach. Pearson Education.
• Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. WW Norton & Company.
• Gullotta, T. P., & Adams, G. R. (Eds.). (2016). Handbook of adolescent behavioral problems: Evidence-based approaches to prevention and treatment. Springer.
• Steinberg, L. (2014). Age of opportunity: Lessons from the new science of adolescence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Steinberg, L., & Morris, A. S. (2001). Adolescent development. Annual review of psychology, 52(1), 83-110.
• Suler, J. R. (2018). Adolescent development. In Psychology of Adolescence (pp. 11-38). Springer.
• Rutter, M., & Smith, DJ (1995). Psychosocial disorders in young people: Time trends and their causes. John Wiley & Sons.
• American Psychological Association. (2019). APA handbook of the psychology of adolescence.
• Offer, D., & Schonert-Reichl, K. A. (1992). Debunking the myths of adolescence: Findings from recent research. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 31(6), 1003-1014.

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• Abnormal Psychology
• Critical Reflection
• Jean Piaget
• Erik Erikson
• Human Behavior
• Constructivism

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Chapter 7. Growing and Developing

7.3 Adolescence: Developing Independence and Identity

Learning objectives.

• Summarize the physical and cognitive changes that occur for boys and girls during adolescence.
• Explain how adolescents develop a sense of morality and of self-identity.

Adolescence is defined as the years between the onset of puberty and the beginning of adulthood . In the past, when people were likely to marry in their early 20s or younger, this period might have lasted only 10 years or less — starting roughly between ages 12 and 13 and ending by age 20, at which time the child got a job or went to work on the family farm, married, and started his or her own family. Today, children mature more slowly, move away from home at later ages, and maintain ties with their parents longer. For instance, children may go away to university but still receive financial support from parents, and they may come home on weekends or even to live for extended time periods. Thus the period between puberty and adulthood may well last into the late 20s, merging into adulthood itself. In fact, it is appropriate now to consider the period of adolescence and that of emerging adulthood ( the ages between 18 and the middle or late 20s ) together.

During adolescence, the child continues to grow physically, cognitively, and emotionally, changing from a child into an adult. The body grows rapidly in size, and the sexual and reproductive organs become fully functional. At the same time, as adolescents develop more advanced patterns of reasoning and a stronger sense of self, they seek to forge their own identities, developing important attachments with people other than their parents. Particularly in Western societies, where the need to forge a new independence is critical (Baumeister & Tice, 1986; Twenge, 2006), this period can be stressful for many children, as it involves new emotions, the need to develop new social relationships, and an increasing sense of responsibility and independence.

Although adolescence can be a time of stress for many teenagers, most of them weather the trials and tribulations successfully. For example, the majority of adolescents experiment with alcohol sometime before high school graduation. Although many will have been drunk at least once, relatively few teenagers will develop long-lasting drinking problems or permit alcohol to adversely affect their school or personal relationships. Similarly, a great many teenagers break the law during adolescence, but very few young people develop criminal careers (Farrington, 1995). These facts do not, however, mean that using drugs or alcohol is a good idea. The use of recreational drugs can have substantial negative consequences, and the likelihood of these problems (including dependence, addiction, and even brain damage) is significantly greater for young adults who begin using drugs at an early age.

Physical Changes in Adolescence

Adolescence begins with the onset of puberty , a developmental period in which hormonal changes cause rapid physical alterations in the body, culminating in sexual maturity . Although the timing varies to some degree across cultures, the average age range for reaching puberty is between nine and 14 years for girls and between 10 and 17 years for boys (Marshall & Tanner, 1986).

Puberty begins when the pituitary gland begins to stimulate the production of the male sex hormone testosterone in boys and the female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone in girls. The release of these sex hormones triggers the development of the primary sex characteristics , the sex organs concerned with reproduction (Figure 7.8, “Sex Characteristics”). These changes include the enlargement of the testicles and the penis in boys and the development of the ovaries, uterus, and vagina in girls. In addition, secondary sex characteristics  ( features that distinguish the two sexes from each other but are not involved in reproduction ) are also developing, such as an enlarged Adam’s apple, a deeper voice, and pubic and underarm hair in boys, and enlargement of the breasts and hips and the appearance of pubic and underarm hair in girls (Figure 7.8, “Sex Characteristics”). The enlargement of breasts is usually the first sign of puberty in girls and, on average, occurs between ages 10 and 12 (Marshall & Tanner, 1986). Boys typically begin to grow facial hair between ages 14 and 16, and both boys and girls experience a rapid growth spurt during this stage. The growth spurt for girls usually occurs earlier than that for boys, with some boys continuing to grow into their 20s.

A major milestone in puberty for girls is menarche , the first menstrual period , typically experienced at around 12 or 13 years of age (Anderson, Dannal, & Must, 2003). The age of menarche varies substantially and is determined by genetics, as well as by diet and lifestyle, since a certain amount of body fat is needed to attain menarche. Girls who are very slim, who engage in strenuous athletic activities, or who are malnourished may begin to menstruate later. Even after menstruation begins, girls whose level of body fat drops below the critical level may stop having their periods. The sequence of events for puberty is more predictable than the age at which they occur. Some girls may begin to grow pubic hair at age 10 but not attain menarche until age 15. In boys, facial hair may not appear until 10 years after the initial onset of puberty.

The timing of puberty in both boys and girls can have significant psychological consequences. Boys who mature earlier attain some social advantages because they are taller and stronger and, therefore, often more popular (Lynne, Graber, Nichols, Brooks-Gunn, & Botvin, 2007). At the same time, however, early-maturing boys are at greater risk for delinquency and are more likely than their peers to engage in antisocial behaviours, including drug and alcohol use, truancy, and precocious sexual activity. Girls who mature early may find their maturity stressful, particularly if they experience teasing or sexual harassment (Mendle, Turkheimer, & Emery, 2007; Pescovitz & Walvoord, 2007). Early-maturing girls are also more likely to have emotional problems, a lower self-image, and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and disordered eating than their peers (Ge, Conger, & Elder, 1996).

Cognitive Development in Adolescence

Although the most rapid cognitive changes occur during childhood, the brain continues to develop throughout adolescence, and even into the 20s (Weinberger, Elvevåg, & Giedd, 2005). During adolescence, the brain continues to form new neural connections, but also casts off unused neurons and connections (Blakemore, 2008). As teenagers mature, the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for reasoning, planning, and problem solving, also continues to develop (Goldberg, 2001). And myelin, the fatty tissue that forms around axons and neurons and helps speed transmissions between different regions of the brain, also continues to grow (Rapoport et al., 1999).

Adolescents often seem to act impulsively, rather than thoughtfully, and this may be in part because the development of the prefrontal cortex is, in general, slower than the development of the emotional parts of the brain, including the limbic system (Blakemore, 2008). Furthermore, the hormonal surge that is associated with puberty, which primarily influences emotional responses, may create strong emotions and lead to impulsive behaviour. It has been hypothesized that adolescents may engage in risky behaviour, such as smoking, drug use, dangerous driving, and unprotected sex, in part because they have not yet fully acquired the mental ability to curb impulsive behaviour or to make entirely rational judgments (Steinberg, 2007).

The new cognitive abilities that are attained during adolescence may also give rise to new feelings of egocentrism, in which adolescents believe that they can do anything and that they know better than anyone else, including their parents (Elkind, 1978). Teenagers are likely to be highly self-conscious, often creating an imaginary audience in which they feel that everyone is constantly watching them (Goossens, Beyers, Emmen, & van Aken, 2002). Because teens think so much about themselves, they mistakenly believe that others must be thinking about them, too (Rycek, Stuhr, McDermott, Benker, & Swartz, 1998). It is no wonder that everything a teen’s parents do suddenly feels embarrassing to them when they are in public.

Social Development in Adolescence

Some of the most important changes that occur during adolescence involve the further development of the self-concept and the development of new attachments. Whereas young children are most strongly attached to their parents, the important attachments of adolescents move increasingly away from parents and increasingly toward peers (Harris, 1998). As a result, parents’ influence diminishes at this stage.

According to Erikson (Table 7.1, “Challenges of Development as Proposed by Erik Erikson”), the main social task of the adolescent is the search for a unique identity — the ability to answer the question “Who am I?” In the search for identity, the adolescent may experience role confusion in which he or she is balancing or choosing among identities, taking on negative or undesirable identities, or temporarily giving up looking for an identity altogether if things are not going well.

One approach to assessing identity development was proposed by James Marcia (1980). In his approach, adolescents are asked questions regarding their exploration of and commitment to issues related to occupation, politics, religion, and sexual behaviour. The responses to the questions allow the researchers to classify the adolescent into one of four identity categories (see Table 7.4, “James Marcia’s Stages of Identity Development”).

Studies assessing how teens pass through Marcia’s stages show that, although most teens eventually succeed in developing a stable identity, the path to it is not always easy and there are many routes that can be taken. Some teens may simply adopt the beliefs of their parents or the first role that is offered to them, perhaps at the expense of searching for other, more promising possibilities (foreclosure status). Other teens may spend years trying on different possible identities (moratorium status) before finally choosing one.

To help them work through the process of developing an identity, teenagers may well try out different identities in different social situations. They may maintain one identity at home and a different type of persona when they are with their peers. Eventually, most teenagers do integrate the different possibilities into a single self-concept and a comfortable sense of identity (identity-achievement status).

For teenagers, the peer group provides valuable information about the self-concept. For instance, in response to the question “What were you like as a teenager? (e.g., cool, nerdy, awkward?),” posed on the website Answerbag, one teenager replied in this way:

I’m still a teenager now, but from 8th-9th grade I didn’t really know what I wanted at all. I was smart, so I hung out with the nerdy kids. I still do; my friends mean the world to me. But in the middle of 8th I started hanging out with whom you may call the “cool” kids…and I also hung out with some stoners, just for variety. I pierced various parts of my body and kept my grades up. Now, I’m just trying to find who I am. I’m even doing my sophomore year in China so I can get a better view of what I want. (Answerbag, 2007)

Responses like this one demonstrate the extent to which adolescents are developing their self-concepts and self-identities and how they rely on peers to help them do that. The writer here is trying out several (perhaps conflicting) identities, and the identities any teen experiments with are defined by the group the person chooses to be a part of. The friendship groups (cliques, crowds, or gangs) that are such an important part of the adolescent experience allow the young adult to try out different identities, and these groups provide a sense of belonging and acceptance (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006). A big part of what the adolescent is learning is social identity , the part of the self-concept that is derived from one’s group memberships . Adolescents define their social identities according to how they are similar to and differ from others, finding meaning in the sports, religious, school, gender, and ethnic categories they belong to.

Developing Moral Reasoning: Kohlberg’s Theory

The independence that comes with adolescence requires independent thinking as well as the development of morality — standards of behaviour that are generally agreed on within a culture to be right or proper . Just as Piaget believed that children’s cognitive development follows specific patterns, Lawrence Kohlberg (1984) argued that children learn their moral values through active thinking and reasoning, and that moral development follows a series of stages. To study moral development, Kohlberg posed moral dilemmas to children, teenagers, and adults, such as the following:

In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging 10 times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $400 for the radium and charged $4,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money and tried every legal means, but he could only get together about $2,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So, having tried every legal means, Heinz gets desperate and considers breaking into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife.

• Should Heinz steal the drug? Why or why not?
• Is it actually right or wrong for him to steal the drug? Why is it right or wrong?
• Does Heinz have a duty or obligation to steal the drug? Why or why not? (Kohlberg, 1984)

Watch: People Being Interviewed About Kohlberg’s Stages [YouTube] : http://www.youtube.com/v/zY4etXWYS84

As you can see in Table 7.5, “Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Reasoning,” Kohlberg concluded, on the basis of their responses to the moral questions, that, as children develop intellectually, they pass through three stages of moral thinking : the preconventional level , the conventional level , and the postconventional level .

Although research has supported Kohlberg’s idea that moral reasoning changes from an early emphasis on punishment and social rules and regulations to an emphasis on more general ethical principles, as with Piaget’s approach, Kohlberg’s stage model is probably too simple. For one, children may use higher levels of reasoning for some types of problems, but revert to lower levels in situations where doing so is more consistent with their goals or beliefs (Rest, 1979). Second, it has been argued that the stage model is particularly appropriate for Western, rather than non-Western, samples in which allegiance to social norms (such as respect for authority) may be particularly important (Haidt, 2001). And there is frequently little correlation between how children score on the moral stages and how they behave in real life.

Perhaps the most important critique of Kohlberg’s theory is that it may describe the moral development of boys better than it describes that of girls. Carol Gilligan (1982) has argued that, because of differences in their socialization, males tend to value principles of justice and rights, whereas females value caring for and helping others. Although there is little evidence that boys and girls score differently on Kohlberg’s stages of moral development (Turiel, 1998), it is true that girls and women tend to focus more on issues of caring, helping, and connecting with others than do boys and men (Jaffee & Hyde, 2000). If you don’t believe this, ask yourself when you last got a thank-you note from a man.

Key Takeaways

• Adolescence is the period of time between the onset of puberty and emerging adulthood.
• Emerging adulthood is the period from age 18 years until the mid-20s in which young people begin to form bonds outside the family, attend university, and find work. Even so, they tend not to be fully independent and have not taken on all the responsibilities of adulthood. This stage is most prevalent in Western cultures.
• Puberty is a developmental period in which hormonal changes cause rapid physical alterations in the body.
• The cerebral cortex continues to develop during adolescence and early adulthood, enabling improved reasoning, judgment, impulse control, and long-term planning.
• A defining aspect of adolescence is the development of a consistent and committed self-identity. The process of developing an identity can take time but most adolescents succeed in developing a stable identity.
• Kohlberg’s theory proposes that moral reasoning is divided into the following stages: preconventional morality, conventional morality, and postconventional morality.
• Kohlberg’s theory of morality has been expanded and challenged, particularly by Gilligan, who has focused on differences in morality between boys and girls.

Exercises and Critical Thinking

• Based on what you learned in this chapter, do you think that people should be allowed to drive at age 16? Why or why not? At what age do you think they should be allowed to vote and to drink alcohol?
• Think about your experiences in high school. What sort of cliques or crowds were there? How did people express their identities in these groups? How did you use your groups to define yourself and develop your own identity?

Anderson, S. E., Dannal, G. E., & Must, A. (2003). Relative weight and race influence average age at menarche: Results from two nationally representative surveys of U.S. girls studied 25 years apart.  Pediatrics, 111 , 844–850.

Answerbag. (2007, March 20). What were you like as a teenager? (e.g., cool, nerdy, awkward?). Retrieved from http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/171753

Baumeister, R. F., & Tice, D. M. (1986). How adolescence became the struggle for self: A historical transformation of psychological development. In J. Suls & A. G. Greenwald (Eds.),  Psychological perspectives on the self  (Vol. 3, pp. 183–201). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Blakemore, S. J. (2008). Development of the social brain during adolescence.  Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61 , 40–49.

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Farrington, D. P. (1995). The challenge of teenage antisocial behavior. In M. Rutter & M. E. Rutter (Eds.),  Psychosocial disturbances in young people: Challenges for prevention  (pp. 83–130). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Ge, X., Conger, R. D., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (1996). Coming of age too early: Pubertal influences on girls’ vulnerability to psychological distress.  Child Development, 67 (6), 3386–3400.

Gilligan, C. (1982).  In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Goldberg, E. (2001).  The executive brain: Frontal lobes and the civilized mind . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Goossens, L., Beyers, W., Emmen, M., & van Aken, M. (2002). The imaginary audience and personal fable: Factor analyses and concurrent validity of the “new look” measures.  Journal of Research on Adolescence, 12 (2), 193–215.

Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.  Psychological Review, 108 (4), 814–834.

Harris, J. (1998). The nurture assumption — Why children turn out the way they do . New York, NY: Free Press.

Jaffee, S., & Hyde, J. S. (2000). Gender differences in moral orientation: A meta-analysis.  Psychological Bulletin, 126 (5), 703–726.

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Lynne, S. D., Graber, J. A., Nichols, T. R., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Botvin, G. J. (2007). Links between pubertal timing, peer influences, and externalizing behaviors among urban students followed through middle school.  Journal of Adolescent Health, 40 , 181.e7–181.e13 (p. 198).

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Marshall, W. A., & Tanner, J. M. (1986). Puberty. In F. Falkner & J. M. Tanner (Eds.),  Human growth: A comprehensive treatise  (2nd ed., pp. 171–209). New York, NY: Plenum Press.

Mendle, J., Turkheimer, E., & Emery, R. E. (2007). Detrimental psychological outcomes associated with early pubertal timing in adolescent girls.  Developmental Review, 27 , 151–171.

Pescovitz, O. H., & Walvoord, E. C. (2007).  When puberty is precocious: Scientific and clinical aspects . Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.

Rapoport, J. L., Giedd, J. N., Blumenthal, J., Hamburger, S., Jeffries, N., Fernandez, T.,…Evans, A. (1999). Progressive cortical change during adolescence in childhood-onset schizophrenia: A longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging study.  Archives of General Psychiatry, 56 (7), 649–654.

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Rubin, K. H., Bukowski, W. M., & Parker, J. G. (2006). Peer interactions, relationships, and groups. In N. Eisenberg, W. Damon, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.),  Handbook of child psychology: Social, emotional, and personality development  (6th ed., Vol. 3, pp. 571–645). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

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Adolescent and Adult Brain Development Essay

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Behavioural differences of adolescents and adults brain development

The behaviour of human beings is determined by the brain particularly the prefrontal cortex which determines the maturity of human beings.

Adolescents in the second decade of their life are among the most hardworking compared to adults.

They are found to put so much effort to work utilizing their energies to the maximum (Dolan 2002, pp. 76). However, adolescent behaviour is found to be more violent than adult behaviour in the execution of duties. At times, some adolescents tend to behave more or less like adults but this is not the case. This essay devises mechanisms through which one can analyze the relationship between age and behaviour of human beings based on mental development. Studies by neuroscientists show that adolescents possess the ability to perform very organized work in one day but the following day they do something one did not expect them to do. It was also arrived at that the brain of an adolescent takes chronological modelling which makes them able to live by taking risks and making some inappropriate responses.

The scientific study of the brain also known as neuroscience is among the greatest studies used in the analysis of actions of human beings both at their young and old ages. In the transition age from childhood to adulthood, the brain undergoes development especially at its frontal lobe which is responsible for the socialization process. If the brain development of an early adolescent is measured then compared with that of a late adolescent, it will then be discovered that the late adolescent brain will have grown significantly resulting in many differences in change of behaviour (Hooper 2000, pp. 103). What develops in the mind of an adolescent that makes them change to adults is the prefrontal cortex which is located in the frontal lobes of the brain. This part is also known as the executive of the brain which is responsible for organizing personal priorities, setting strategies and allocating attention. The development of this part of the brain is what makes adults different from teens in terms of behaviour response.

The unavailability of this ability in adolescents makes them behave in a more disorganized manner. Most of them indulge in excessive beer drinking forgetting their priories of life, some even decide to leave education for beer compared to an adult who just drinks a little beer and goes on with his planned strategies and priorities.

The growth and development of the chemical messages dopamine among adolescents take place drastically during adolescence. This part is responsible for mature judgment among adults but this at times is noticeable among late adolescents. This explains why adolescents at their early stages perform things without due concern about the results they would get. It happens that most just do a thing for their own satisfaction. Some at times take their time to jump off cliffs not aware that they may get injured but to satisfy their egos. This slow brain development of adolescents puts their lives at very high risks of death or procuring deadly diseases like sexually transited diseases due to their high levels of carelessness and failure to think of the future.

The part of the brain that handles information and critical messages and also which is responsible for helping in conceptualizing laws and rules as well as codes of social conduct and norms tends to have complex interconnections of neurons on the different parts of the cortex during adolescence. This complexity of interconnections reflects the amount of information that needs to be handled in the mind of an adolescent. Such development enables adolescents to learn and master cognitive and emotional challenges in life. This is why adolescents at this age are able to mater many things and with diverse involvement in so many activities like many friends, education, games, drinking and many other unidirectional activities (Hooper 2000, pp.137). In their twenties, adolescents reach an adult pattern with reduction of the complex interconnections to the formation of parallel processing mechanisms as adult age approaches. This is due to specific roles that adults become involved with which are relatively directional compared to those of adolescents.

The human brain during adolescence is the part of the body that is rapidly developing as adulthood approaches. This has been confirmed by neuroscientists through Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), a technique that has been used to study brain development from adolescence to adulthood. Many biological changes take place in the brain during adolescence including the thickening of the grey matter as well as increasing the white matter in the brain (Giedd 1999, pp. 115). The close levelling of the grey matter and the white matter in adolescents brings out an increasing level of maturity based on the actions associated. This automatically changes the behaviour from a more disorganized manner to a more organized and focused behaviour just like adults. The growth of the brain however can be influenced by either genetic or environmental factors. These may include bacteria, viruses, education, peers, drugs, nutrition and many others.

The MRI studies have shown how the adolescent brain is activated during some life situations. Normally, adolescents are very violent and easily carried away by emotional situations. The Magnetic Research Imaging research centre found that high emotions among teens were a result of activation of their amygdala which is the mental part responsible for experiencing and reacting to fear and danger. The amygdala is however absent in adults’ brains (Rausch 1998, pp. 97). Compared to adults, during emotions, a different part of the brain was found to be active. Their frontal cortex which is associated with thought and judgment was found to be activated at times of anger or danger. This frontal cortex is normally absent in adolescents but develops towards adulthood. The reaction of adults was classified as intellectual while those of adolescents were said to be out of personal guts.

During adolescence, teens frontal cortex is not normally functional but lags behind while still developing to maturity. Studies have been done by observing changes that occur during reasoning when an adult or an adolescent suffers brain damage. It was found that adults who suffer brain injury affecting their frontal cortex tend to be more impulsive and are easily destructed from their tasks thus lack sustained attention and suffer from short memory (Hooper 2000 pp.126).

This observation clearly gives the reason why adolescents possess a problem in inhibiting impulses. This was supported by the fact that in adolescents circuits needed for the control of impulses are not fully developed making it hard to sustain impulses.

In this study, it was also found that adults with damaged frontal cortex became hard to adapt to changing environments. This ability is associated with the frontal cortex which develops with age towards adulthood. In adolescents due to their developing frontal cortex, exhibit a problem in adapting to environmental changes in life even affecting their ability to change from situations. This is why many adolescents who are drug addicts are unable to change.

Connected with this premature development of the prefrontal cortex, it also affects the ability to plan for the future and the consequences of the line of action taken (Fieldman 1990 pp.47). Therefore, adolescents tend to make their decisions guided by emotions not taking into consideration the outcome of such a resolution. In addition to this, studies have found that the absence of the prefrontal cortex among adolescents makes them arrive at decisions guided by immediate outcomes and rewards.

Scientific studies and research have found that adolescents are never the same as adults in behaviour. The differences are based on the fact that the adolescent brain especially the part that controls the ability to make sound decisions in complex situations, the ability to control impulses and the making of good planning is not fully developed to maturity. Neuroscientists confirmed that this maturity happens in the third decade of life among human beings.

Social research recommends that teenagers should be in the hands of responsible adults or institutions that can help them learn adult behaviour.

In relation to laboratory animals, at their adolescent age, they are found to be very active just like adolescent human beings.

Hooper, C. (2000) Adolescent emotions and behavior. New Jersey, Erlbaum.

Fieldman, S. (1990) Adolescent development. Cambridge, Harvard Uni. Press.

Giedd, J. (1999) Brain development in adolescents. Florance, Routledge.

Hooper, C. (2000) Adolescent development psychology. Oxford, OUP.

Rausch, M. (1998) Neuroscience of emotions of human beings. Cambridge, MIT Press.

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Adolescence and Learning from Experience

"consequential learning" lets consequences of choices inform decision making.

Posted June 2, 2014

Although not exactly the parent’s words, this was the spirit of what she said.

“I don’t raise teenagers like their lives are mine to manage. I never have. I manage myself as a parent and I raise young people who someday soon will have to manage themselves as independent adults. This means I know my limits. What I choose to do and say and set as a parent is up to me. How they choose to respond and act on their own is up to them. I can inform their choices, but I can’t control them, so I don’t get into arguments about who’s in charge of their lives. No contest. They are. What I can do, however, and what I always try to do, is help them connect the dots – between the actions they take and the outcomes they get. That's Reality Education , that’s how they grow responsibility, and that’s my responsibility to help them learn.”

This struck me as a pretty practical approach to parenting : help the adolescent focus on the choice/consequence connections in their lives. This is when the notion of “Consequential Parenting” came to mind: one job of parents is to help the teenager confront and learn from the consequences of her or his choices both for good and ill.

I believe the essence of self- management for parents to teach their adolescent in preparation for adult independence is thoughtful decision- making. One must be reflective (“What happened the last time?”), predictive (“What might happen this time?”), and receptive (“What have I been told?”) Stopping to consider what is a wise decision takes time, and that is part of the problem.

Time to think can be hard to take in adolescence when impatience, impulsiveness, urgency, pressure from peers, and inability to postpone gratification are all urging “act now while you can!” Compared to children and adults, adolescents often seem to have a higher speed of life. They are in a hurry to grow up faster. They don’t want to miss out or be left out, they don’t want life to pass them by, they want to give everything a try, they want to keep up with companions and the competition and not lag behind.

Just like substance intoxication can intensify the moment, adolescent excitement can also create a Tyranny of Now. So, preoccupied with satisfying some present want or need, the young person can give no thought to what happened before or might come after, truly surprised when they get hurt or caught or into trouble. The urgent order of the moment seems to be: “Full speed ahead and ignore the risks!” And at some points, sooner or later, most adolescents will “crash,” regretting a result they could have foreseen and avoided, if only they had stopped long enough to take time and think how freedom of choice is never free of consequences.

To parents, this can seem contradictory. After all, if an adolescent can delay them forever, if she can continually procrastinate and put off what she doesn’t like doing, why can’t she delay herself long enough to think about complicated choices in her life? The answer may be that delay in service of resistance is a lot easier for an adolescent to mount than delay in the face of temptation is to tolerate.

Sometimes parents can encourage the young person to routinely practice delaying an important decision for literally just a minute to consult judgment by taking “The Quick Thinking Test,” a short exercise in choice/consequence, consequential thinking. This means raising and answering three brief questions: “Why would I want to do this?” “What are the harmful possibilities involved?” “Are the rewards worth the risks?” A lot of the troubles I see teenagers get into are NOT a function of some inability to think; it is a function of not taking the time to think. Their judgment is fine; they are just not consulting it to full advantage. “I knew better; I just wasn’t thinking!” is often a true confession.

So what might parents want to explain about how one’s passage through life unfolds? They can talk about how experience proceeds like an endless chain of personal choice linked to some consequence (a person having more control over choice than outcome), and how everyone’s path is ruled by the larger play of happenstance (over which a person has no control at all.) So parents might say: “Leading your life is a mix of figuring out how go with the flow of chance and circumstance that you can’t command or change; and then going your own best way to the degree freedom of choice allows, always facing consequences, learning from experience as you grow.” People who won’t or can’t connect choices with consequences are learning disabled.

Now consider three kinds of consequences – natural, social, and parental in an adolescent’s life.

A time for Natural consequences could be when an un- mindful action leads to an unwanted outcome – texting while driving takes the new driver’s eyes off the road, the car rear-ending the one ahead which had come to a sudden stop. Inattention can be costly.

A time for Social consequences could be when a regulation or law is intentionally broken -- older peers pass a shoplifted CD to the youngest of their number who gets detained outside the store with stolen goods. Law breaking can be costly.

A time for Parental consequences could be when a family condition that has been agreed to goes unmet – a high school junior refuses to answer repeated parental cell phone calls when out two hours later than curfew, and gone is cell phone use for a couple of weeks. Broken family commitments can be costly.

In each case, present consequence can inform future choice and a corrective lesson can be learned.

But suppose what consequences have to teach are denied by well-meaning parents who don’t want to see their teenager made unhappy or hurt by the error of his ways. “Oh he’s really a good kid. He means well. Let him off. He’ll know better the next time. He promised.” Sometimes it’s hard for parents to let unhappy consequences of unfortunate choices bite.

And sometimes, the young person’s “promise” may hold, but also maybe not. Bad consequences can inspire more reform than good intent. In this instance, protecting their teenager from the consequences of mistake or misbehavior runs the risk of preventing him from learning what he needs to know, and worse, he may have to profit from even harder experience later on. For example, having been spared from facing substance use education, community service, and other consequences for a Minor in Possession charge as a sophomore in high school may clear the way for the young person to dare driving under the influence after Prom senior year.

A common way that parental consequences for a violation miscarry is when parents couple a corrective consequence with criticism, when correction is critical enough. Sensitive to parental disapproval, the adolescent feels hurt and angry when parents attack his character. “How could you make such a thoughtless, stupid choice?” So now, when I ask the teenager why she is grounded for the weekend, I get this reply: “My parents were angry at me again!” And she missed the lesson about the choice/consequence connection parents were trying to teach. Better parents should have responded in a non-evaluative manner: “We disagree with the choice you have made, this is why, this is what needs to happen in consequence, and this is what we hope you will learn.”

Finally, what might be major components of Consequential Parenting? Three come to mind.

First, there is the issue of Accepting Responsibility: “You rise and fall based on the choices you make and facing the consequences you get, so you must own your decisions and confront the outcomes.”

Second, there is the issue of Predictive Thinking: “When considering a serious choice, you need to anticipate possible consequences that might occur, weighing your decision accordingly before you make it.”

Third, there is the issue of Reflective Learning: “Whatever consequence occurs from any choice you make, you need the outcome to instruct your present understanding and inform your future decision making .”

I don’t think the parent paraphrased as the outset of this blog would have claimed that “Consequential Parenting” of adolescents was the whole parenting story. She was too well-versed and wise and loving for that. However, I do believe that focusing a lot of her attention on the teenager’s choice/consequence connection, as she faithfully did, was helpful piece of the parenting puzzle.

For more about parenting adolescents, see my book, “SURVIVING YOUR CHILD’S ADOLESCENCE,” (Wiley, 2013.) Information at: www.carlpickhardt.com

Next week’s entry: Adolescence and Learning to Speak Up

Carl Pickhardt Ph.D. is a psychologist in private counseling and public lecturing practice in Austin, Texas. His latest book is Holding On While Letting Go: Parenting Your Child Through the Four Freedoms of Adolescence.

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What Are the Three Stages of Adolescence?

• Medical Editor: John P. Cunha, DO, FACOEP

Adolescence is the time in a young person’s life when they transition from childhood into young adulthood and experience physical, behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and social developmental changes. 

There are three primary developmental stages of adolescence:

• Children experience considerable physical growth and increased sexual interest
• These changes can start as early as age 8 for females and age nine for males
• Girls may start their period around age 12
• Body changes can cause both curiosity and anxiety
• Children may question their gender identity during this stage, and it can be a challenging time for transgender children
• Adolescents at this stage tend to have concrete, black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking and a limited capacity for abstract thought
• Thinking may be egocentric, and children this age may be self-conscious about their appearance and apprehensive about being judged by their peers
• Intellectual interests expand, and early adolescents develop deeper moral thinking 
• They explore how to be independent from their family and may push boundaries and react strongly when limits are enforced
• Males may have a growth spurt and some voice cracking as their voices lower
• Physical growth for females slows and most have regular menstrual periods by this time
• Interest in romantic and sexual relationships may start and teens may question and explore their sexual identity; masturbation may be a part of this sexual exploration and getting to know their body
• Less time is spent with family and more time is spent with friends
• Teens become more self-involved, appearances are important, and peer pressure can peak at this stage
• The brain continues to mature and there is a growing capacity for abstract thought, though emotions often drive decision-making and they may act on impulse without thinking things through
• During this stage, children may start to set long-term goals and become interested in the meaning of life and moral reasoning
• Most have grown to their full adult height
• In this stage, young people become able to think about ideas rationally, have impulse control and can delay gratification, and plan for the future
• They have a stronger sense of identity and individuality and can identify their own values
• They also experience increased independence, emotional stability, stability in friendships and romantic relationships, and may also establish an “adult relationship” with parents, looking to them less as authority figures and more as peers

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