Psychosocial Development in Adolescence

What I knew

Friendship and emotions were the two words that better describe this stage. I knew that the people you are surrounded by will make an influence on your decisions, whether are bad or good. Everything was related to friendship and be accepted in a group. Unconsciously you asked yourself “Who am I? What do I want to study? What am I going to do in the future?” this is the stage where you do not have any idea of how to answer these questions.

I knew that not all teenagers react in the same way when they feel peer pressure. Thank God when I was a teen my parents taught me to say NO. I wanted to do the same as my classmates but I never had my parents’ approval, so I decided to look for a group that could share the same values and opinions as me. Amazingly it worked. I found myself in my group of friends, I felt free to express my emotions to them. At that moment I realized that I needed to be careful when choosing a group of friends. In the other hand, I knew that most of teenagers are in troubles with this situation. They do what their friends do.

Furthermore, teenagers misbehave with their parents and teachers. Erikson claims that each stage has a crisis period of social and emotional development (1993). This means that teens do not have control of their emotions, they do not like to be talked what they have to do. They are rebellious and prefer to share their emotions with their friends instead of their parents.

What I learned

In the psychosocial stage there is a huge necessity to interact with others. Both boys and girls look for the peer approval because they want to be part of something. This stage is kind of dangerous because teenagers are trying to discover their interpersonal skills (Eriksson, 1993). It means that a teen can explore their abilities but if his/her group of friends does not share the same skills, they will be forced to interrupt his/her capability. For example, a boy can be fan of reading books; however, if his group hates to read and prefer to play video games, this group will be a huge influence in making him stop reading. For an adult it seems a crazy idea, but for a teenager it looks like he needs to be with that group for not being alone.

Models of behavior 

You are not a child anymore, and your attitude toward people will change. Contact with parents begins to decrease (Thornburg, 1983). That is why parents and teacher may feel that they have less influence on them. However, according to James Marcia, teenagers are in the search of their identity, they try to confirm what their values, attitudes and ideologies are. Manning (1987) stated that “peer group serve as the primary reference source of attitudes, values and behavior”. Body image is also important in this development. This happens in the gender differences. Boys feel more satisfied with their bodies than girls. For example, boys prefer to be in a group where the body image is not important. Nevertheless, girls do care of their appearance, which is why they tend to be only with one or two friends.

Identity vs Role (12-18 years).

According to Eriksson adolescents have doubts about their identity (1993). This means that teenagers develop a sense of self and personal identity. They are looking for their identity when they join in clubs, work in groups and practice any sport. These activities help them to gain relationship with others based on their own personal identity. Also, they look for role models and try to integrate those ideals into their own value system (George & Alexander, 1993). It is important for them to follow a model, but sometimes teenagers get confused and they try to follow pop artists, friends with aggressive behavior, and so on.

What I will do as a teacher

Now my lesson plans will be focused on the strengths of my students and to achieve the weaknesses of them. I will provide them opportunities where they can develop same-sex friendships and cross-sex interactions, for example:

•              My activities will be focused on group works. If I ask them to make a drama or role-play it needs to be related of bodies’ acceptance. For example, how is beauty considered around the world? What would you do if your best friend has low self-esteem? In these situations they can provide solutions while they are in front of others’ problems.

•              I need to identify the positive and negative peers. If I am capable to do this, I can separate them so they can learn social skills like listen to others’ opinions. A debate will be fine for this scenario.

•     Teenagers prefer to work with someone they choose. It is fine but, I will try to design cooperative learning activities. For example, if I ask them to make a video where they need to describe the behavior, abilities and accomplishments of themselves and a friend, they will be forced to observe and recognize that been different is normal, that at the end they will have something in common.

Reference

Erikson's Psychosocial Development- Ages and Stages Project. Retrieve from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grSxCdtLl38

  Santrock, J. (2010). Adolescence. New York: McGraw-Hill.