Adolescence can be a very challenging time period. Many teenagers engage in risky behaviors. A parent tells you that they don't understand why their teenager is making bad choices and being disrespectful. How can you use the theories of development to help explain the choices that teenagers make.

 

From:

Freud's Psychosexual Stage Theory

• Idea of body-centered (or, broadly, "sexual") drives

• Emotional health of both the child and the adult depends on adequate resolution of these conflicts

Erikson's Psychosocial Stage Theory

• Child's sense of basic trust develops through the successful negotiation of infantile needs.

• As children progress through these psychosocial stages, different issues become salient

Kohlberg's Moral Understanding Stage Theory

• Theory of moral development in 6 stages, from early childhood through adulthood.

• Preschoolers' earliest sense of right and wrong is egocentric, motivated by externally applied controls.

• In later stages, children perceive equality, fairness, and reciprocity in their understanding of interpersonal interactions through perspective-taking.

• Most youth will reach stage 4, conventional morality, by mid to late adolescence.

• The basic theory has been modified to distinguish morality from social conventions.

Piaget's Cognitive Development Stage Theory

• Cognition changes in quality, not just quantity

• Described how children actively construct knowledge for themselves through the linked processes of assimilation (taking in new experiences according to existing schemata) and accommodation (creating new patterns of understanding to adapt to new information)

Step-by-step explanation

Additional info you might wanna know:

• An early adolescent's relationship to society centers on school

• Change in school structure mirrors and reinforces the changes involved in separation from the family

• Friendship difference between boys and girls:

o Female friendships may center on emotional intimacy

o Male relationships may focus more on activities

• From concrete operational thinking to formal logical thinking (abstract thought)

• Other processes include distinct contributions of reasoning (cognitive abilities) and judgment (the process of thinking through the consequences of alternative decisions or actions)

• These processes may develop at very different rates, youngz adolescents may be able to apply formal logical thinking to schoolwork, but not to personal dilemmas

• When emotional stakes are high, adolescents may regress to more concrete operational or magical thinking

• This can interfere with higher-order cognition and ultimately affect the ability to perceive long-term outcomes of current decision-making

• It is normal for early adolescents to be preoccupied with their body changes, scrutinize their appearance, and feel that everyone else is staring at them (Elkind's Imaginary Audience)

• This exposure may cause girls to develop a distorted sense of femininity

• They may be at risk for viewing themselves as overweight, leading to eating disorders and depression

• Similarly, boys may have difficulties with self-image, images of masculinity may be confusing, leading to self-doubt, insecurity, and misleading conceptions about male behavior

• Media has profound influence on cultural norms and on adolescents' sense of identity (Internet, Cellphones, Social networking sites)

• Adolescents who develop earlier than their peers, especially girls, may have higher rates of school difficulty, body dissatisfaction, and depression

• These adolescents look like adults and may have adult expectations placed on them, but are not cognitively or psychologically mature