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Topic:

Early Adolescence Aspects Compared To Historical Pressures

Essay Instructions:

3 Pages per Question with 3 sources per Question
1. People often rate early adolescence as one of the most difficult stages of development. Please describe some of the issues that you and your cohort of teens faced. What were some of the fads, slang or favorite expressions, peer group issues, school controversies, and typical parent controversies while you were in the ages of 12 to 18 years? Identify aspects of early adolescence that might be “developmental” as compared to aspects that are a result of “historical pressures.
2. What do you know about trends toward earlier entry into puberty? What are the psychological and social consequences of early maturation? How should family and school adults help students cope with early physical maturation? What are the implications for sex education at home or at school?

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Adolescence
Your Name
Your Institution of Affiliation
October 15, 2017
1. People often rate early adolescence as one of the most difficult stages of development. Please describe some of the issues that you and your cohort of teens faced. What were some of the fads, slang or favorite expressions, peer group issues, school controversies, and typical parent controversies while you were between the ages of 12 to 18 years? Identify aspects of early adolescence that might be “developmental” as compared to aspects that are a result of “historical pressures”?
Early adolescence is usually categorized as the period where both physiological and psychological changes happen on an individual, due to a change in his/her hormonal secretions. However, while a diverse field of study has been dedicated to understanding each and every effect of this to an individual, different categorizations and definitions have also emerged, with some saying that early adolescence could happen from the ages of 9-13 (Pickhardt, 2009) and others defining it from the ages of 11-14 (WebMD.com, n.d.), among other typifications. Nonetheless, regardless of the age bracket used, plenty of studies have shown that the negative effects of early adolescence are just the same and that there exists a need to extend help towards people who are experiencing anxiety due to the changes that are happening in their body. Usually, this anxiety is due to an individual’s misunderstanding about what’s happening with his/her body, especially when it is not happening yet towards his/her peers. In line with our own experience, we could say that this statement could never be farther from the truth because during our days in middle school, we could still remember the “stereotypes” and the “misconceptions” about those people who are experiencing these changes very early on. In some cases, these misconceptions could lead to “shunning” from others, or if not to a change of one’s temperament from extroverted behavior towards a more introverted one, because of “self-consciousness”. As an example, one of our closest friends, when we were in grade 7, has had her first “period” during our P.E. class. Usually, she’s very extroverted and energetic before that day, but when her first period came she didn’t know what to do and had become very timid and moody for the whole week. Nonetheless, she was able to get herself back on track after two weeks, as she was able to talk with her parents as well as the school nurse about what’s happening to her own body. In summary, what this shows is that while the negative effects of early maturation could be from external factors or internal ones, being able to understand and talk with an adult or a professional could definitely help to mitigate these repercussions.
As of today, plenty of studies and surveys have indicated that the advent of early maturation is gradually becoming more frequent at younger ages compared to the generations before (Pickhardt, 2009). This is also the reason as to why different studies have utilized different age brackets in order to identify and analyze “early adolescence” and their effects on an individual. Nevertheless, it could be said that this classification is diverse and arbitrary because its definition could change, depending on what is currently considered as “changes brought by adolescence”. As stated in the article written by Chalabi (2013), he stated that today, even girls as early as three years old are experiencing a development of their breasts and thus, could be considered as cases of early maturation. Going back to the concepts of developmental and histor4ical pressures, the author of this article believes that this development of the breasts at an early stage of life is more of a “developmental pressure” because of the early release of estrogen, which might be caused by the change in diet and lifestyle of many families in the world. However, the author argues that the same phenomena could not easily classify as a “historical pressure” because today both quantitative and qualitative data have shown that bigger breasts for women are not directly linked with the male’s degree of preference to reproduce with them. In other words, this could not be a historical pressure because male partners are not only looking for the breasts as a sign of reproduction but rather with an almost infinite number of factors for decision making (e.g. love).
2. What do you know about the trends toward earlier entry into puberty? What are the psychological and social consequences of early maturation? How should family and school adults help students cope with early physical maturation? What are the implications for sex education at home or at school?
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