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My Adolescent Experience and Development: A Reflection

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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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Childhood and Adolescence Development

For centuries, the intricate processes of development in children and adolescents have captivated the attention of theorists and researchers alike. Prior to the era of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, prevailing perceptions regarded children as miniature replicas of adults. In the Middle Ages, children as young as six years old were routinely dispatched to work as apprentices in vocations such as farming, blacksmithing, and carpentry. However, a significant shift in the economic landscape at the close of the Middle Ages prompted a transformation. Many professions transitioned from manual labor to demanding academic skills. Consequently, the treatment of children underwent a substantial shift, transitioning from being integrated with adults to a focus on educational instruction.

The purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to a range of topics—physical, cognitive, language, personality and social, and morality development—that have collectively enhanced our comprehension of how children and adolescents are far from being mere miniature adults; they are captivating and distinct individuals. Through these explorations, we gain insight into the multifaceted journey of growth and maturation, shedding light on the remarkable uniqueness of young minds and hearts.

Research and Theory

Physical development.

The trajectory of physical growth and development during childhood follows a continuation of the patterns observed in infancy. Similar to infancy, development during childhood adheres to the cephalocaudal (head-to-tail) and proximodistal (center-to-periphery) growth patterns. This means that growth initiates from the head, chest, and trunk, progressing to the arms and legs, and culminating with the hands and feet. However, a reversal of this pattern occurs in adolescence, where the growth of the hands and feet precedes that of the trunk or upper body. This transition can lead to a brief period of awkward stature and movement for teenagers.

Motor development in childhood is marked by several significant milestones. Between the ages of 3 to 5 years, children learn to ascend and descend stairs using alternating feet. As they progress, they acquire the abilities to jump, hop, skip, throw, and catch a ball. The period from 7 to 12 years witnesses improvements in running speed, vertical-jump height, throwing and kicking accuracy, and overall fluidity of body movement. These motor milestones are closely associated with the growth and maturation of the body’s various systems.

The orchestration of much of this growth is facilitated by hormones released by the endocrine glands. The pituitary gland, regulated by the hypothalamus, plays a pivotal role in releasing hormones that influence growth. Human growth hormone (GH), secreted by the pituitary gland, is a key factor in bone development. Thyroxine, released by the thyroid gland, supports the impact of GH on overall body and brain maturation. The adolescent phase introduces the release of sex hormones (estrogens and androgens) by the pituitary gland. These hormones influence the development of primary and secondary sex characteristics, as well as the maturation of the brain.

In this period of significant hormonal, physical, and emotional transformation, adolescence has often been characterized as a time of “storm and stress.” Originally conceptualized by philosophers like Aristotle and Socrates, and later formalized by G. Stanley Hall, this phase is seen as a period of conflict with parents, mood fluctuations, and risk-taking behaviors. Jeffrey Arnett (1999) revisited this concept and found that while individual experiences of storm and stress vary, most adolescents do undergo some degree of these components. Additionally, cultural influences play a crucial role in shaping the nature and extent of storm and stress experienced during adolescence.

Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget’s groundbreaking work has been instrumental in shaping our understanding of cognitive development. Derived from his meticulous observations of children, Piaget’s theory outlines the stages of cognitive development. To grasp his theory fully, it’s essential to appreciate its fundamental assumptions. Firstly, Piaget postulated an unvarying sequence of developmental stages that are qualitatively distinct, although he acknowledged the possibility of individual variations. Secondly, his theory adopts a constructivist perspective, asserting that children are not passive recipients of development but actively engage in constructing their understanding of the world through interactions and experiences. Lastly, Piaget proposed that there is no regression in stages under typical circumstances; the acquisition of knowledge and skills is cumulative, building upon prior stages.

Piaget’s observational research provided insights into how children acquire and refine their cognitive frameworks, or schema, of the world. When born, children possess minimal knowledge and a set of reflexes. However, as they interact with their environment and mature, they begin to integrate and adapt their existing understanding. Children employ two key processes to assimilate new information. One process is assimilation, where they incorporate novel information into their existing cognitive structures. For instance, if a child knows that a cow makes a “moo” sound, they might initially assume that all animals make this sound. When faced with a horse making a different sound, they might mistakenly label it as a “moo.” Over time, as their experiences broaden, they accommodate this information, adjusting their knowledge to align with the fact that horses “neigh.” Piaget described this process as achieving equilibrium—a balance between existing knowledge and new experiences. However, when new information disrupts this balance, disequilibrium occurs, prompting cognitive reorganization for equilibration.

Central to Piaget’s theory are his four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. These stages delineate the evolving cognitive capacities of individuals as they progress through childhood and adolescence. The sensorimotor stage, for instance, characterizes the early years of life where infants primarily rely on their senses and motor actions to explore and understand the world. As children mature, they transition to the preoperational stage, marked by the development of symbolic thinking and language skills. The concrete operational stage follows, where children can engage in logical thinking and apply it to concrete situations. Finally, the formal operational stage signifies the emergence of abstract thinking, enabling adolescents to contemplate hypothetical scenarios and engage in complex reasoning.

In summary, Piaget’s theory has significantly enriched our comprehension of cognitive development. His emphasis on children’s active role in constructing knowledge, the processes of assimilation and accommodation, and the progressive nature of cognitive stages has had a profound impact on the field of developmental psychology.

Sensorimotor period (birth to roughly 2 years of age) .

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development highlights the importance of the sensorimotor period, spanning from birth to approximately 2 years of age. During this phase, Piaget proposed that children construct knowledge through their sensory experiences and motor actions. He divided the sensorimotor period into six distinct substages, each characterized by unique cognitive achievements and advancements in understanding the world.

• Reflexes (0 to 1 months): In the earliest phase of life, infants possess innate reflexes that are initially uncoordinated but quickly become synchronized. These reflexes serve as the foundational basis for later cognitive development. Infants instinctively respond to stimuli, such as grasping objects placed in their palms or rooting for food.
• Primary Circular Reactions (1 to 4 months): As infants progress, they exhibit a basic level of intent in their behaviors. During this stage, accidental actions that lead to pleasurable outcomes prompt infants to repeat those actions purposefully. For instance, if a baby inadvertently brushes their lips with their hand and triggers the sucking reflex, they may intentionally place their thumb or finger in their mouth to recreate the pleasurable sensation. This marks the early formation of an infant’s interaction with their environment.
• Secondary Circular Reactions (4 to 8 months): Unlike the primary circular reactions that involve body movements, this substage shifts the focus to external objects. Infants begin to intentionally recreate events outside themselves. For example, if a baby shakes a toy with a rattle inside, producing an enjoyable sound, they will attempt to replicate the sound by shaking the toy again. Piaget saw this behavior as an indication of the infant’s growing interest in the world around them.
• Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions (a.k.a. Means-End Behavior; 8 to 12 months): This phase showcases a significant step in intentional behavior. Infants display goal-directed actions, such as moving an obstacle to reach a desired toy. A key cognitive achievement during this stage is the concept of object permanence—the realization that objects exist even when they are not in direct sight. Infants grasp the idea that a hidden object can be retrieved by removing a covering, demonstrating further development of cognitive schemes.
• Tertiary Circular Reactions (12 to 18 months): This stage portrays infants as little scientists, engaging in experimentation within their surroundings. Building on the intent established in the previous stage, infants show purposeful and combinational actions. They manipulate various objects to observe the outcomes, exploring cause-and-effect relationships. For instance, a child might drop different objects from their high chair to observe the different sounds they produce upon impact.
• Mental Representation (18 months to 2 years): In the final stage of the sensorimotor period, children continue to refine their cognitive schemes and demonstrate the ability to solve simple problems mentally. Symbolic thinking emerges as children engage in pretend play and display deferred imitation. For example, a child who comprehends the concept of sleeping may engage in make-believe by pretending to sleep, even “fooling” their parents into thinking they are actually asleep.

In essence, Piaget’s sensorimotor period highlights the intricate process through which infants transition from reflexive responses to intentional actions, gradually constructing mental representations of the world around them. This framework underscores the significance of sensory experiences and motor interactions in shaping early cognitive development.

Preoperational Period (2 to 7 Years)

The preoperational period, spanning from 2 to 7 years of age, marks a phase of rapid cognitive development in children. During this stage, children’s cognitive abilities expand significantly, allowing them to mentally represent their schemes and engage in thinking about objects and events that are not physically present. However, a notable limitation during this period is children’s egocentrism, which is characterized by their inability to adopt the perspective of others. Jean Piaget described three dimensions of egocentrism evident in children’s thinking during the preoperational period: perceptual, affective, and cognitive.

Perceptual egocentrism is observed when children believe that others perceive the world as they do. For instance, if a child sees a specific object, they may assume that others can also see that object from their viewpoint. Affective egocentrism reflects children’s challenges in understanding the emotions of others. They may find it difficult to comprehend that different people can have diverse feelings about the same situation. Cognitive egocentrism is most vividly illustrated by the concept of conservation. Piaget discovered that children in this stage lack the realization that altering an object’s size, shape, or location does not alter its quantity or volume (conservation).

Concrete Operational Period (7 to 11 Years)

The concrete operational period, spanning from 7 to 11 years of age, witnesses a significant shift in children’s cognitive abilities. Children become more adept at logical thinking and demonstrate the ability to conserve objects. Furthermore, they develop the capability to take others’ perspectives into account. Thinking during this stage becomes more organized and flexible compared to earlier stages. However, children’s cognitive processes remain grounded in the present, making it challenging for them to think in abstract or hypothetical terms.

Formal Operational Period (11 Years and Beyond)

In the formal operational period, typically beginning around age 11 and extending beyond adolescence, a new level of cognitive development emerges. Adolescents acquire the ability to think logically, flexibly, and abstractly. They also become capable of contemplating abstract concepts and hypothetical scenarios. One of the distinctive cognitive abilities of this stage is hypothetic-deductive reasoning. Adolescents can formulate a general theory encompassing potential factors influencing a situation and then derive specific hypotheses to test in a systematic manner.

Nonetheless, this stage is not without limitations, as Piaget introduced the concept of a new form of egocentrism that influences adolescent thinking. Although adolescents possess the capacity to understand others’ viewpoints, they often display self-centered tendencies. Adolescent egocentrism manifests in various ways, including the personal fable, imaginary audience, and invincibility fable.

The personal fable involves adolescents believing that their experiences are unique and unparalleled. This conviction can lead to the perception that no one can truly understand their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. The imaginary audience encompasses adolescents’ belief that others are as preoccupied with their appearance and actions as they are. Consequently, adolescents may become excessively self-conscious and engage in behaviors aimed at conforming to societal norms. Lastly, the invincibility fable involves adolescents assuming that they are invulnerable to risks or harm. This perspective can lead to engaging in risky behaviors, such as unprotected sex or reckless driving, fueled by a belief in their immunity to negative consequences.

The transition through these cognitive stages, from preoperational to concrete operational and finally to formal operational, marks the intricate journey of cognitive development. Each stage brings its own set of cognitive abilities and limitations, ultimately shaping the way children and adolescents perceive and interact with the world around them.

In the realm of understanding cognitive development, the contributions of Lev Vygotsky offer a complementary perspective to that of Jean Piaget. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development underscores the significance of social interaction in shaping a child’s cognitive growth. While Piaget’s theory emphasizes the child’s independent interaction with their environment, Vygotsky places a spotlight on the role of adults and peers in fostering cognitive development through social engagement.

Central to Vygotsky’s framework is the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which refers to the range of tasks that a child can perform with the assistance of a knowledgeable adult or peer, but not independently. This concept highlights the idea that children can achieve tasks beyond their current capabilities when guided by others. Successful interaction within the ZPD hinges on two pivotal factors.

The first factor is intersubjectivity, which involves the child and others collaborating on a task and reaching a shared understanding by its completion. During this process, adults must convey their knowledge in a manner that aligns with the child’s level of comprehension. This shared agreement signifies successful intersubjectivity.

The second factor is scaffolding, a process in which adults or skilled peers adjust the amount of assistance they provide to match the child’s developing competence. In the early stages of learning, adults may offer direct instruction and substantial guidance. As the child’s understanding deepens, the assistance is gradually withdrawn until the child can independently accomplish the task. This technique is akin to a parent guiding a child’s initial efforts to make their bed and gradually transitioning to providing helpful hints as the child becomes more adept.

Vygotsky also introduced the concept of private speech—self-directed speech that children employ to guide their thoughts and actions. In the early stages, children audibly talk themselves through tasks, like tying shoelaces. Research has indicated that private speech becomes more pronounced when tasks are challenging, errors occur, or uncertainty arises. As children grow, this externalized speech evolves into an internal thought process, underpinning their cognitive activities.

Furthermore, Vygotsky highlighted the interplay between language development and thinking processes. He posited that language and thought are intricately connected and that the development of language leads to profound shifts in cognitive functioning.

While Piaget’s theory emphasizes independent exploration and individual cognitive development, Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective accentuates the collaborative nature of learning and the influential role of social interactions in shaping cognitive growth. Both theorists offer valuable insights into the multifaceted journey of cognitive development, contributing to a richer understanding of how children and adolescents construct knowledge and understanding.

Language Development

The journey of language development follows a sequential trajectory that can be elucidated through a series of stages, each marked by distinct achievements and milestones. These stages provide a foundation for the comprehension of language development, with several prominent theories shedding light on its underlying mechanisms.

The inception of communication occurs in infancy through reflexive crying, an instinctive response that conveys messages of hunger, pain, or discomfort. As infants mature, they progress to cooing, which involves vowel-like sounds like “oo.” Around four months of age, they venture into babbling, combining consonants and vowels in strings, a precursor to their native language specialization.

The subsequent phase is characterized by one-word utterances, typically emerging around the age of one. These initial words, such as “mama” or “dada,” represent a fundamental leap in linguistic capability. This word acquisition initially unfolds gradually but soon accelerates in a phenomenon known as “fast mapping,” where connections between words and their referents occur rapidly, often without a full understanding of all potential word meanings.

Around two and a half years of age, children progress to the stage of two-word utterances. These early sentences, termed “telegraphic speech,” contain only essential words, omitting unnecessary ones. By ages three to five, children embrace basic adult sentence structure, demonstrating an understanding of syntax and becoming adept communicators. However, this stage also brings about errors like overregularization, where grammatical rules are misapplied to irregular words, such as saying “mouses” instead of “mice.”

Explaining this remarkable language acquisition process involves examining both nature and nurture influences. On the nurture side, learning theories like B. F. Skinner’s operant conditioning and Bandura’s social learning theory play a role. Operant conditioning highlights how parents reinforce sounds and early words through smiles and praise, while social learning theory emphasizes children’s imitation of their linguistic environment.

However, a purely nurture-based perspective falls short in explaining certain linguistic phenomena, such as irregular word forms like “goed.” To better understand language development, the nature side, characterized by inherent cognitive mechanisms, must also be considered. These mechanisms delve into the deeper intricacies of language acquisition.

Ultimately, the stages of language development, influenced by a delicate interplay of nature and nurture, illustrate the remarkable trajectory through which infants and children navigate the complexities of linguistic expression. These stages, alongside the insights provided by various theories, contribute to our comprehensive understanding of how humans acquire language and the intricate factors that drive this process.

Linguist Noam Chomsky’s influential perspective on language development centers around the concept of innate processes. Chomsky’s argument challenges the notion that language organization and syntactical rules are explicitly taught by parents and teachers. Despite this, children exhibit a grasp of basic syntax and attempt to apply grammatical rules, prompting Chomsky to propose an alternative explanation—the presence of an internal mechanism driving language acquisition. According to Chomsky, this mechanism is embodied in the form of a language acquisition device (LAD), an innate cognitive tool that enables children to naturally structure language in a grammatically coherent manner.

Within the framework of the LAD, Chomsky introduces the concept of universal grammar—a repository of grammatical rules that are applicable across languages. This idea implies that the ability to comprehend and manipulate linguistic structures is inherent, rather than the result of direct instruction. Steven Pinker, another influential linguist, echoes Chomsky’s viewpoint by asserting that the innate aspect of language lies not in the specifics of any one language, but in the innate capacity to arrange and generate language.

Nativist theorists like Chomsky and Pinker do acknowledge the role of environmental exposure in facilitating language development. They propose that while the innate process is triggered by exposure to language in the environment, it does not rely on explicit teaching or instruction by adults. This perspective contrasts with learning theories that emphasize conditioning and deliberate teaching by caregivers.

In the study of language development, most theorists and developmental psychologists recognize the intertwined contributions of both nature and nurture. The interplay between the innate processes, as postulated by nativists, and the environmental influences, such as conditioning and exposure, forms a dynamic and intricate framework for understanding the emergence of language in children. This multifaceted approach seeks to unravel the complexities of how language develops and how human beings inherently possess the capacity to comprehend and produce linguistic structures.

Personality and Social Development

The exploration of personality development has intrigued numerous theorists over time, with two prominent theories standing out for their comprehensive insights—Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic theory and Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory. These theories offer valuable perspectives on understanding personality differences and developmental trajectories. Additionally, the influences of temperament and attachment on personality development warrant special attention.

Sigmund Freud, an early pioneer in personality theory, proposed a framework consisting of five stages that elucidate the origins of personality development and individual differences. These stages revolve around the interplay of internal biological needs and interactions between children and their parents. Freud identified erogenous zones, specific bodily areas associated with libidinal energy and gratification, as pivotal aspects of each stage. He posited that appropriate gratification experiences during these stages were essential for healthy development, while deviations in gratification, either excessive or insufficient, could lead to fixation—a phenomenon where traits and behaviors linked to a particular stage manifest later in life. Freud’s conceptualization further incorporated three interconnected components of the mind: the id, driven by pleasure-seeking tendencies; the superego, an internal moral compass or conscience; and the ego, rooted in reality and tasked with reconciling the demands of the id and superego. While Freud’s theory encompasses more facets, these key elements are instrumental in comprehending his model of personality development.

Erik Erikson, another influential theorist, introduced the psychosocial theory, which accentuates the significance of social interactions and experiences in shaping personality development. Erikson proposed eight stages that span the entire lifespan, each marked by a unique psychosocial crisis or challenge. These stages involve a balance between a positive resolution and a negative outcome, and successful resolution fosters the acquisition of specific virtues and contributes to the evolving sense of self and identity. Erikson’s theory underscores the role of societal influences and personal interactions in personality formation, emphasizing the interplay between individual growth and social context.

Temperament and attachment are integral components influencing personality development. Temperament, encompassing individual behavioral tendencies and emotional reactivity, serves as an innate foundation upon which subsequent personality traits are built. Attachment, on the other hand, pertains to the emotional bond formed between infants and their primary caregivers, significantly influencing socioemotional development and interpersonal relationships later in life. Secure attachment experiences foster a sense of trust and security, facilitating healthy personality development, while insecure attachment patterns may give rise to maladaptive personality traits and difficulties in forming relationships.

As we delve into the intricacies of personality and social development, the multifaceted interplay of biological factors, environmental interactions, and personal experiences becomes evident. Both Freud’s psychodynamic theory and Erikson’s psychosocial theory offer valuable insights into these dynamics, shedding light on the complex journey of personality formation and growth across the lifespan.

Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic theory offers a distinctive perspective on the stages of personality development, emphasizing the role of unconscious desires and experiences. Freud proposed five psychosexual stages, each centered on a specific erogenous zone and corresponding pleasure-seeking behavior. These stages provide insight into the origins of personality traits, behaviors, and fixation tendencies. Here, we’ll delve into each stage:

• Oral Stage (Birth to 18 months): The oral stage centers on the mouth as the erogenous zone, with infants gaining pleasure through activities such as sucking and biting. A fixation at this stage can occur if a child’s needs are not properly met, leading to oral-fixation behaviors in adulthood. Examples include nail-biting, pen-chewing, over- or under-eating, and verbal aggression. Fixation characteristics may manifest as dependency, gullibility, and excessive optimism.
• Anal Stage (18 months to 3 years): During the anal stage, pleasure is linked to the retention and expulsion of feces, making potty training a significant milestone. Parental approaches during this phase can shape personality traits. Harsh training may lead to anal-retentive fixation, characterized by compulsiveness and attention to detail. Lenient training could result in anal-expulsive fixation, leading to disorganization and disregard for details.
• Phallic Stage (4 to 5 years): The phallic stage is marked by the genitals as the erogenous zone. Freud’s controversial theory suggests that children develop the Oedipal complex (for boys) and the Electra complex (for girls) during this stage. Boys experience sexual attraction to their mothers and fear castration anxiety from their fathers, leading to identification with the father. Girls develop penis envy and experience the Electra complex, resolving it by identifying with their mothers. Freud argued that this stage’s outcomes shape gender-based differences in morality.
• Latency Stage (6 to Puberty): The latency stage is a period of relative rest after the turbulent phallic stage. Sexual interests are suppressed, and the primary focus is on forming same-sex friendships. During this stage, Freud believed that children repress their sexual and aggressive impulses.
• Genital Stage (Puberty and Beyond): The genital stage emerges during puberty and is characterized by the reawakening of sexual desires. Individuals seek mature, healthy relationships, ultimately culminating in adult romantic partnerships.

Freud’s psychodynamic theory presents a complex framework in which personality development is shaped by the interplay of unconscious desires, fixation, and early experiences. While this theory has contributed valuable insights into the understanding of personality dynamics, it has also faced criticism for its lack of empirical evidence and overly deterministic views of human development.

Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory offers a comprehensive view of personality development that emphasizes the interplay between individual development and societal influences. Unlike Freud’s psychosexual stages, Erikson’s stages span the entire lifespan and focus on psychosocial crises that individuals confront as they grow. These crises emerge as conflicts between personal growth and societal expectations. Here are the stages relevant to childhood and adolescence:

• Basic Trust versus Mistrust (Birth to 1 year): In this stage, infants develop a sense of trust or mistrust based on their interactions with caregivers. If caregivers consistently meet the infant’s needs, a sense of trust is formed. However, inconsistent or unresponsive caregiving can lead to mistrust. The resulting ego strength is hope.
• Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt (1 to 3 years): Toddlers assert their independence and autonomy. If caregivers support this exploration and provide opportunities for decision-making, children develop a sense of autonomy. If caregivers are overly controlling or critical, children may feel shame and doubt. The resulting ego strength is will.
• Initiative versus Guilt (3 to 6 years): During this stage, children develop a sense of initiative and engage in imaginative play. Positive reinforcement of their explorations leads to initiative, while excessive restrictions can cause guilt. The resulting ego strength is purpose.
• Industry versus Inferiority (6 to 11 years): In middle childhood, children become increasingly aware of their social environment and are expected to contribute to it. Success in tasks and collaboration with others fosters a sense of industry, while feelings of inadequacy lead to inferiority. The resulting ego strength is competence.
• Identity versus Identity Confusion (Adolescence): Adolescence is marked by the search for identity and self-definition. Teens explore their values, beliefs, and future roles. Successful resolution results in a clear sense of identity, while confusion and uncertainty can lead to identity crisis. This stage sets the foundation for future intimate relationships. The resulting ego strength is fidelity.

Erikson’s theory emphasizes the importance of social interactions and the development of a coherent identity that guides future life decisions. It accounts for the dynamic interaction between personal growth and external pressures, such as family, peers, and societal expectations. While Erikson’s theory provides valuable insights into how social and individual factors shape personality development, critics have noted that it is less focused on unconscious processes and more influenced by cultural and social contexts.

James Marcia expanded upon Erik Erikson’s work on identity development in adolescence by proposing different identity statuses that adolescents may experience during their search for identity. These statuses reflect the degree of exploration and commitment an individual has made in terms of their values, beliefs, and roles. Marcia identified four identity statuses:

• Identity Diffusion: Adolescents in this status have not actively explored their identity options and have not committed to any specific beliefs or values. They may seem apathetic or confused about their future identity.
• Identity Foreclosure: Individuals in this status have committed to an identity without actively exploring other options. They adopt the identity defined by their parents, culture, or authority figures, often without questioning it.
• Identity Moratorium: Adolescents in this status are actively exploring various identity options but have not yet committed to one. They may be experiencing a period of questioning and exploration without a definitive conclusion.
• Identity Achievement: This status represents individuals who have actively explored different identity options and have made a commitment to a particular set of beliefs, values, and roles. They have gone through a process of self-discovery and reflection.

The concept of identity statuses highlights the diversity of experiences adolescents go through in their quest for identity and emphasizes that identity development is not a linear process.

In addition to identity development, temperament plays a significant role in shaping how children interact with their environment and influence their relationships with parents and others. Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess conducted research that led to the categorization of children’s temperament into three broad categories:

• Easy Children: These children are adaptable, have a positive mood, and approach new situations with ease.
• Slow-to-Warm-Up Children: These children are more cautious and take time to adapt to new situations. They may initially respond negatively to change but can eventually adjust with repeated exposure.
• Difficult Children: Children in this category have more irregular and intense reactions, are less adaptable to change, and may display inconsistent behavior patterns.

Temperament is believed to have a biological basis and can influence how children respond to their environment, interact with others, and approach new experiences. It’s important to note that these temperament categories provide a general framework and that individual children can exhibit a combination of characteristics from these categories.

Attachment theory, developed by John Bowlby and further studied by Mary Ainsworth, focuses on the emotional bond between a child and their caregiver, typically the parent. This attachment plays a crucial role in shaping a child’s socioemotional development and influences how they interact with others throughout their life.

Attachment theory is organized into several phases that describe the development of the attachment bond between a child and their caregiver:

• Preattachment (birth to 6 weeks): In this initial phase, infants are responsive to all people and do not yet show a distinct preference for specific individuals. Their behaviors are primarily instinctual and reflexive.
• Attachment in the Making (6 weeks to 6-8 months): Infants start to become more intentional in their behaviors. They become more selective in their social interactions and show preferences for certain individuals. Babies may exhibit behaviors like smiling, babbling, and crying more specifically in response to these preferred individuals.
• Clear-Cut Attachment (6-8 months to 18 months to 2 years): This phase is characterized by a stronger attachment to one primary caregiver. Infants develop separation anxiety when they are separated from this caregiver and experience relief when reunited. They also display stranger anxiety, showing fear and wariness toward unfamiliar adults.
• Reciprocal Relationships (18 months to 2 years and beyond): During this phase, the attachment bond becomes more interactive and reciprocal. The child not only seeks care and attention from the caregiver but also responds to the caregiver’s emotional cues. This marks the transition from a more one-sided attachment to a more mutual and emotionally connected relationship.

Attachment styles established during early childhood can have lasting effects on an individual’s social and emotional development. Ainsworth further classified attachment styles into categories such as secure attachment, anxious-ambivalent attachment, and avoidant attachment, which reflect different patterns of behavior in response to the caregiver’s presence and absence. Securely attached children tend to exhibit more positive socioemotional outcomes, while insecurely attached children may struggle with relationship difficulties and emotional regulation.

Attachment theory provides valuable insights into how early relationships impact various aspects of a child’s development, including their sense of security, self-esteem, and ability to form healthy relationships later in life.

Mary Ainsworth’s groundbreaking research on attachment led to the development of the “Strange Situation” procedure, which is a widely used assessment tool for identifying different attachment patterns in infants and young children. The Strange Situation involves a series of separations and reunions between a child and their caregiver in an unfamiliar setting. This procedure helps researchers understand the quality of the attachment relationship and how the child responds to the caregiver’s absence and return.

Based on her research using the Strange Situation, Ainsworth identified three primary attachment patterns:

• Secure Attachment: Infants with secure attachment show distress when their caregiver leaves the room, but they are easily comforted when the caregiver returns. These infants use their caregiver as a secure base to explore their environment. They actively seek proximity and contact with their caregiver and are generally responsive and cooperative. Securely attached children tend to have caregivers who are consistently responsive and sensitive to their needs.
• Insecure-Avoidant Attachment: Infants with insecure-avoidant attachment appear indifferent when their caregiver leaves the room and may avoid or ignore the caregiver upon their return. They do not show much preference for their caregiver over a stranger. These infants may have learned that their needs are not consistently met, leading them to develop a strategy of self-reliance and minimizing their emotional expressions.
• Insecure-Ambivalent Attachment: Infants with insecure-ambivalent attachment are very distressed when their caregiver leaves the room and are difficult to console when the caregiver returns. They display clingy and resistant behavior, often seeking close proximity but then resisting efforts to be comforted. These infants may have experienced inconsistent caregiving, leading to confusion and uncertainty about their caregiver’s responsiveness.

In addition to these primary attachment patterns, research has identified a fourth pattern known as disorganized attachment. Children with disorganized attachment exhibit contradictory behaviors, showing both avoidance and proximity-seeking behaviors in response to their caregiver. This attachment pattern is often associated with experiences of inconsistent and sometimes frightening caregiving.

The attachment patterns identified in infancy can have lasting effects on an individual’s social and emotional development. Securely attached individuals tend to have more positive relationships, better emotional regulation, and higher self-esteem, while those with insecure attachment patterns may struggle with forming and maintaining healthy relationships and managing emotions. These attachment patterns can also influence parenting styles and the parent-child attachment in the next generation.

Absolutely, you’ve highlighted some important developments and refinements in attachment theory. The addition of the “disorganized/disoriented” attachment category reflects the recognition that some children exhibit inconsistent and confusing behaviors in the Strange Situation, possibly indicating unresolved conflicts or confusion about their attachment figures.

It’s also significant that researchers have expanded their focus to include factors beyond just the mother-child relationship. The role of fathers in attachment relationships has gained more attention in recent years, challenging the historical emphasis on mothers as the primary caregivers. Research has shown that infants can indeed form secure attachments with their fathers, and the factors that contribute to a strong attachment bond are similar to those observed in the mother-child relationship. Sensitivity, responsiveness, and emotional availability on the part of the father play key roles in nurturing a secure attachment.

Additionally, the influence of daycare and cultural differences on attachment has been a growing area of research. Understanding how different caregiving environments and cultural norms impact attachment relationships provides a more comprehensive view of attachment dynamics across diverse contexts.

Attachment theory has greatly contributed to our understanding of how early relationships shape later social and emotional development. It emphasizes the significance of secure attachment bonds for healthy emotional development, relationships, and overall well-being throughout life.

Moral Development

The realm of moral development stands as a deeply intricate domain, intricately woven with the threads of the previously explored themes. Undoubtedly, the orchestration of physical maturation and cognitive growth serves as the bedrock upon which moral reasoning takes form. Our capacity for moral reflection is further articulated through the prism of language, enabling us to express and elucidate our ethical ruminations. Inextricably linked with this process, the contours of our personality and the tapestry of our social environment interweave to shape the very fabric of our moral convictions and the rationale behind our ethical choices.

Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan are two noted theorists in this area. Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, based largely on Piaget’s thoughts of moral reasoning, stems from his longitudinal research (i.e., research spanning several years with the same group of participants) with adolescent boys. To best understand how his participants morally reasoned, Kohlberg posed moral dilemmas that had no clear right or wrong answers, asking the participants what would be the right thing to do, and why. He was more interested in the reasoning behind participants’ answers than the answers themselves. Based on his research, Kohlberg developed a theory with three levels and six stages to explain moral reasoning development; he did not give specific age ranges for his stages and levels, but assumed that as we age, we become more sophisticated in our reasoning, and thus progress in an invariant sequence:

Preconventional level : Moral reasoning at this level generally is guided by external forces.

• Embarking on Stage 1, the Obedience Orientation , young individuals cast their gaze toward authority figures to discern the boundary between right and wrong. Employing punishment as a lodestar for moral deliberation, the premise is that an act deemed punishable is inherently wrong. For instance, when figures of authority such as parents or teachers categorically declare theft as morally reprehensible and tether it to punitive outcomes, children in this stage invariably internalize the belief that theft constitutes an illicit act. The act of stealing, when met with punishment, further reinforces its classification as morally improper.
• Advancing to Stage 2, the Instrumental Orientation , individuals pivot their moral compass to the realm of personal welfare, gain, and needs. Ethical judgments find their mooring in the calculus of reciprocity, wherein actions are measured by their capacity to directly benefit the self. For instance, a child’s rationale might crystallize around the notion that reporting a friend’s candy theft is not inherently wrong, given the benefit accrued from the shared candy. In this realm, personal advantage tilts the scales of ethical evaluation, offering a perspective where instrumental gains eclipse broader ethical considerations.

Conventional level : Progressing into the conventional level of moral reasoning, ethical contemplation becomes interwoven with the fabric of societal norms and expectations.

Advancing to Stage 3, the Interpersonal Norms stage , often referred to as the “good boy/good girl” stage, individuals pivot their moral judgments towards the perceptions of others. The drive to uphold one’s reputation and adhere to the expectations of their social circle becomes a fulcrum for discerning right from wrong. For instance, the perception that individuals who engage in stealing are socially branded as “bad” can mold the ethical compass of those in this stage, leading them to label stealing as inherently wrong. Nevertheless, this stance remains malleable in the face of specific contexts. For instance, if parents, propelled by dire circumstances, resort to stealing food for their hungry children, the ethical calculus might undergo a shift. In this light, the parents’ act might be viewed as justifiable within the framework of familial care, potentially challenging the unequivocal moral verdict on stealing.

Progressing to Stage 4, the Social Systems Morality stage , also known as the “Law and Order” stage, individuals anchored in this mode of reasoning hold firm to the belief that the societal framework is buttressed by laws that serve to preserve order and foster collective well-being. Breaking these laws, from their perspective, bears the potential to plunge society into chaos or anarchy.

Postconventional level : Entering the postconventional level, moral reasoning takes root in a personal moral framework, reflecting a heightened sense of individual ethics and principle.

Transitioning to Stage 5, known as the Social Contract stage, individuals harness principles at this level that uphold the notion that laws are conceived from a collective agreement aimed at advancing the welfare of society’s constituents. Yet, this stage acknowledges that when these laws deviate from fairness or disadvantage segments of society, there emerges a rationale for their reconsideration or, under certain circumstances, even their defiance.

Advancing to Stage 6, the Universal Ethical Principles stage, individuals navigate their moral compass guided by abstract ethical tenets such as justice and equality. Within this realm, they acknowledge the potential for their personal moral convictions to occasionally diverge from societal norms. Nonetheless, they assume ownership of their reasoning and beliefs, assuming a sense of accountability for aligning their actions with the ethical ideals they hold dear.

Kohlberg’s theory, while widely acknowledged and substantiated by his and others’ research, has been critiqued by scholars like Carol Gilligan for certain limitations. Gilligan points to the deficiency in Kohlberg’s sample, which exclusively consisted of male participants, as a notable shortcoming. Furthermore, Gilligan contends that Kohlberg’s theory predicates moral judgments on the concept of justice. However, she contends that while justice may serve as the central framework for moral reasoning among boys and men, women’s moral decision-making revolves around the principle of care.

In response to Kohlberg’s theory, Gilligan formulated a three-tier framework. In the preconventional stage, Gilligan highlights a focus on self-care, where decisions about right and wrong are influenced by self-preservation. Shifting to the conventional stage, women reorient their care and concern from themselves to others. Finally, in the postconventional stage, moral reasoning centers on an interdependent care for both self and others.

While research provides some evidence to support the idea that girls and women utilize a “care” paradigm in their ethical deliberations, it has also indicated that certain men also employ a similar “care” model, and conversely, some women utilize a “justice” model akin to Kohlberg’s proposal. Thus, it is apparent that gender alone may not comprehensively account for these divergent approaches to moral reasoning. Factors such as family upbringing may also contribute to the nuances in how we ascertain what is morally right or wrong.

Childhood and adolescence represent a crucial phase of development that significantly shapes our future as adults. Through the exploration of diverse topics, it becomes clear that these aspects of growth are interconnected rather than isolated. Their interplay profoundly impacts an individual’s developmental trajectory. It’s important to recognize that children and adolescents are distinct entities, not mere replicas of adults, making them intriguing subjects of study in their own right.

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Adolescent Development

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 06 December 2023
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• Alma L. Jimenez 10 ,
• Cornelio G. Banaag Jr 10 ,
• Angeline Monica A. Arcenas 10 &
• Larimer V. Hugo 10  

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This chapter describes adolescence as the transition period from childhood to adulthood characterized by complex biopsychosocial processes influenced by cross-cultural factors. Across cultures, as the adolescent transitions into adulthood, resolution of developmental milestones includes sexual maturation, identity consolidation, establishment of independence, autonomy, intimate relationships, and entry into higher education, vocation, or occupation. Biological, psychological, and social factors interact with epigenetic processes determining states of health and disease in adolescents. Allostatic load as a result of adverse life events may negatively impact development during this phase of development.

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Jimenez, A.L., Banaag, C.G., Arcenas, A.M.A., Hugo, L.V. (2023). Adolescent Development. In: Tasman, A., et al. Tasman’s Psychiatry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42825-9_106-1

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Child Growth and Development

(12 reviews)

Jennifer Paris

Antoinette Ricardo

Dawn Rymond

Alexa Johnson

Copyright Year: 2018

Last Update: 2019

Publisher: College of the Canyons

Language: English

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Reviewed by Mistie Potts, Assistant Professor, Manchester University on 11/22/22

This text covers some topics with more detail than necessary (e.g., detailing infant urination) yet it lacks comprehensiveness in a few areas that may need revision. For example, the text discusses issues with vaccines and offers a 2018 vaccine... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This text covers some topics with more detail than necessary (e.g., detailing infant urination) yet it lacks comprehensiveness in a few areas that may need revision. For example, the text discusses issues with vaccines and offers a 2018 vaccine schedule for infants. The text brushes over “commonly circulated concerns” regarding vaccines and dispels these with statements about the small number of antigens a body receives through vaccines versus the numerous antigens the body normally encounters. With changes in vaccines currently offered, shifting CDC viewpoints on recommendations, and changing requirements for vaccine regulations among vaccine producers, the authors will need to revisit this information to comprehensively address all recommended vaccines, potential risks, and side effects among other topics in the current zeitgeist of our world.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

At face level, the content shared within this book appears accurate. It would be a great task to individually check each in-text citation and determine relevance, credibility and accuracy. It is notable that many of the citations, although this text was updated in 2019, remain outdated. Authors could update many of the in-text citations for current references. For example, multiple in-text citations refer to the March of Dimes and many are dated from 2012 or 2015. To increase content accuracy, authors should consider revisiting their content and current citations to determine if these continue to be the most relevant sources or if revisions are necessary. Finally, readers could benefit from a reference list in this textbook. With multiple in-text citations throughout the book, it is surprising no reference list is provided.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

This text would be ideal for an introduction to child development course and could possibly be used in a high school dual credit or beginning undergraduate course or certificate program such as a CDA. The outdated citations and formatting in APA 6th edition cry out for updating. Putting those aside, the content provides a solid base for learners interested in pursuing educational domains/careers relevant to child development. Certain issues (i.e., romantic relationships in adolescence, sexual orientation, and vaccination) may need to be revisited and updated, or instructors using this text will need to include supplemental information to provide students with current research findings and changes in these areas.

Clarity rating: 4

The text reads like an encyclopedia entry. It provides bold print headers and brief definitions with a few examples. Sprinkled throughout the text are helpful photographs with captions describing the images. The words chosen in the text are relatable to most high school or undergraduate level readers and do not burden the reader with expert level academic vocabulary. The layout of the text and images is simple and repetitive with photographs complementing the text entries. This allows the reader to focus their concentration on comprehension rather than deciphering a more confusing format. An index where readers could go back and search for certain terms within the textbook would be helpful. Additionally, a glossary of key terms would add clarity to this textbook.

Consistency rating: 5

Chapters appear in a similar layout throughout the textbook. The reader can anticipate the flow of the text and easily identify important terms. Authors utilized familiar headings in each chapter providing consistency to the reader.

Modularity rating: 4

Given the repetitive structure and the layout of the topics by developmental issues (physical, social emotional) the book could be divided into sections or modules. It would be easier if infancy and fetal development were more clearly distinct and stages of infant development more clearly defined, however the book could still be approached in sections or modules.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The text is organized in a logical way when we consider our own developmental trajectories. For this reason, readers learning about these topics can easily relate to the flow of topics as they are presented throughout the book. However, when attempting to find certain topics, the reader must consider what part of development that topic may inhabit and then turn to the portion of the book aligned with that developmental issue. To ease the organization and improve readability as a reference book, authors could implement an index in the back of the book. With an index by topic, readers could quickly turn to pages covering specific topics of interest. Additionally, the text structure could be improved by providing some guiding questions or reflection prompts for readers. This would provide signals for readers to stop and think about their comprehension of the material and would also benefit instructors using this textbook in classroom settings.

Interface rating: 4

The online interface for this textbook did not hinder readability or comprehension of the text. All information including photographs, charts, and diagrams appeared to be clearly depicted within this interface. To ease reading this text online authors should create a live table of contents with bookmarks to the beginning of chapters. This book does not offer such links and therefore the reader must scroll through the pdf to find each chapter or topic.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

No grammatical errors were found in reviewing this textbook.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

Cultural diversity is represented throughout this text by way of the topics described and the images selected. The authors provide various perspectives that individuals or groups from multiple cultures may resonate with including parenting styles, developmental trajectories, sexuality, approaches to feeding infants, and the social emotional development of children. This text could expand in the realm of cultural diversity by addressing current issues regarding many of the hot topics in our society. Additionally, this textbook could include other types of cultural diversity aside from geographical location (e.g., religion-based or ability-based differences).

While this text lacks some of the features I would appreciate as an instructor (e.g., study guides, review questions, prompts for critical thinking/reflection) and it does not contain an index or glossary, it would be appropriate as an accessible resource for an introduction to child development. Students could easily access this text and find reliable and easily readable information to build basic content knowledge in this domain.

Reviewed by Caroline Taylor, Instructor, Virginia Tech on 12/30/21

Each chapter is comprehensively described and organized by the period of development. Although infancy and toddlerhood are grouped together, they are logically organized and discussed within each chapter. One helpful addition that would largely... read more

Each chapter is comprehensively described and organized by the period of development. Although infancy and toddlerhood are grouped together, they are logically organized and discussed within each chapter. One helpful addition that would largely contribute to the comprehensiveness is a glossary of terms at the end of the text.

From my reading, the content is accurate and unbiased. However, it is difficult to confidently respond due to a lack of references. It is sometimes clear where the information came from, but when I followed one link to a citation the link was to another textbook. There are many citations embedded within the text, but it would be beneficial (and helpful for further reading) to have a list of references at the end of each chapter. The references used within the text are also older, so implementing updated references would also enhance accuracy. If used for a course, instructors will need to supplement the textbook readings with other materials.

This text can be implemented for many semesters to come, though as previously discussed, further readings and updated materials can be used to supplement this text. It provides a good foundation for students to read prior to lectures.

Clarity rating: 5

This text is unique in its writing style for a textbook. It is written in a way that is easily accessible to students and is also engaging. The text doesn't overly use jargon or provide complex, long-winded examples. The examples used are clear and concise. Many key terms are in bold which is helpful to the reader.

For the terms that are in bold, it would be helpful to have a definition of the term listed separately on the page within the side margins, as well as include the definition in a glossary at the end.

Each period of development is consistently described by first addressing physical development, cognitive development, and then social-emotional development.

Modularity rating: 5

This text is easily divisible to assign to students. There were few (if any) large blocks of texts without subheadings, graphs, or images. This feature not only improves modularity but also promotes engagement with the reading.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The organization of the text flows logically. I appreciate the order of the topics, which are clearly described in the first chapter by each period of development. Although infancy and toddlerhood are grouped into one period of development, development is appropriately described for both infants and toddlers. Key theories are discussed for infants and toddlers and clearly presented for the appropriate age.

Interface rating: 5

There were no significant interface issues. No images or charts were distorted.

It would be helpful to the reader if the table of contents included a navigation option, but this doesn't detract from the overall interface.

I did not see any grammatical errors.

This text includes some cultural examples across each area of development, such as differences in first words, parenting styles, personalities, and attachments styles (to list a few). The photos included throughout the text are inclusive of various family styles, races, and ethnicities. This text could implement more cultural components, but does include some cultural examples. Again, instructors can supplement more cultural examples to bolster the reading.

This text is a great introductory text for students. The text is written in a fun, approachable way for students. Though the text is not as interactive (e.g., further reading suggestions, list of references, discussion points at the end of each chapter, etc.), this is a great resource to cover development that is open access.

Reviewed by Charlotte Wilinsky, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Holyoke Community College on 6/29/21

This text is very thorough in its coverage of child and adolescent development. Important theories and frameworks in developmental psychology are discussed in appropriate depth. There is no glossary of terms at the end of the text, but I do not... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

This text is very thorough in its coverage of child and adolescent development. Important theories and frameworks in developmental psychology are discussed in appropriate depth. There is no glossary of terms at the end of the text, but I do not think this really hurts its comprehensiveness.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The citations throughout the textbook help to ensure its accuracy. However, the text could benefit from additional references to recent empirical studies in the developmental field.

It seems as if updates to this textbook will be relatively easy and straightforward to implement given how well organized the text is and its numerous sections and subsections. For example, a recent narrative review was published on the effects of corporal punishment (Heilmann et al., 2021). The addition of a reference to this review, and other more recent work on spanking and other forms of corporal punishment, could serve to update the text's section on spanking (pp. 223-224; p. 418).

The text is very clear and easily understandable.

Consistency rating: 4

There do not appear to be any inconsistencies in the text. The lack of a glossary at the end of the text may be a limitation in this area, however, since glossaries can help with consistent use of language or clarify when different terms are used.

This textbook does an excellent job of dividing up and organizing its chapters. For example, chapters start with bulleted objectives and end with a bulleted conclusion section. Within each chapter, there are many headings and subheadings, making it easy for the reader to methodically read through the chapter or quickly identify a section of interest. This would also assist in assigning reading on specific topics. Additionally, the text is broken up by relevant photos, charts, graphs, and diagrams, depending on the topic being discussed.

This textbook takes a chronological approach. The broad developmental stages covered include, in order, birth and the newborn, infancy and toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Starting with the infancy and toddlerhood stage, physical, cognitive, and social emotional development are covered.

There are no interface issues with this textbook. It is easily accessible as a PDF file. Images are clear and there is no distortion apparent.

I did not notice any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

This text does a good job of including content relevant to different cultures and backgrounds. One example of this is in the "Cultural Influences on Parenting Styles" subsection (p. 222). Here the authors discuss how socioeconomic status and cultural background can affect parenting styles. Including references to specific studies could further strengthen this section, and, more broadly, additional specific examples grounded in research could help to fortify similar sections focused on cultural differences.

Overall, I think this is a terrific resource for a child and adolescent development course. It is user-friendly and comprehensive.

Reviewed by Lois Pribble, Lecturer, University of Oregon on 6/14/21

This book provides a really thorough overview of the different stages of development, key theories of child development and in-depth information about developmental domains. read more

This book provides a really thorough overview of the different stages of development, key theories of child development and in-depth information about developmental domains.

The book provides accurate information, emphasizes using data based on scientific research, and is stated in a non-biased fashion.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The book is relevant and provides up-to-date information. There are areas where updates will need to be made as research and practices change (e.g., autism information), but it is written in a way where updates should be easy to make as needed.

The book is clear and easy to read. It is well organized.

Good consistency in format and language.

It would be very easy to assign students certain chapters to read based on content such as theory, developmental stages, or developmental domains.

Very well organized.

Clear and easy to follow.

I did not find any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

General content related to culture was infused throughout the book. The pictures used were of children and families from a variety of cultures.

This book provides a very thorough introduction to child development, emphasizing child development theories, stages of development, and developmental domains.

Reviewed by Nancy Pynchon, Adjunct Faculty, Middlesex Community College on 4/14/21

Overall this textbook is comprehensive of all aspects of children's development. It provided a brief introduction to the different relevant theorists of childhood development . read more

Overall this textbook is comprehensive of all aspects of children's development. It provided a brief introduction to the different relevant theorists of childhood development .

Content Accuracy rating: 4

Most of the information is accurately written, there is some outdated references, for example: Many adults can remember being spanked as a child. This method of discipline continues to be endorsed by the majority of parents (Smith, 2012). It seems as though there may be more current research on parent's methods of discipline as this information is 10 years old. (page 223).

The content was current with the terminology used.

Easy to follow the references made in the chapters.

Each chapter covers the different stages of development and includes the theories of each stage with guided information for each age group.

The formatting of the book makes it reader friendly and easy to follow the content.

Very consistent from chapter to chapter.

Provided a lot of charts and references within each chapter.

Formatted and written concisely.

Included several different references to diversity in the chapters.

There was no glossary at the end of the book and there were no vignettes or reflective thinking scenarios in the chapters. Overall it was a well written book on child development which covered infancy through adolescents.

Reviewed by Deborah Murphy, Full Time Instructor, Rogue Community College on 1/11/21

The text is excellent for its content and presentation. The only criticism is that neither an index nor a glossary are provided. read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

The text is excellent for its content and presentation. The only criticism is that neither an index nor a glossary are provided.

The material seems very accurate and current. It is well written. It is very professionally done and is accessible to students.

This text addresses topics that will serve this field in positive ways that should be able to address the needs of students and instructors for the next several years.

Complex concepts are delivered accurately and are still accessible for students . Figures and tables complement the text . Terms are explained and are embedded in the text, not in a glossary. I do think indices and glossaries are helpful tools. Terminology is highlighted with bold fonts to accentuate definitions.

Yes the text is consistent in its format. As this is a text on Child Development it consistently addresses each developmental domain and then repeats the sequence for each age group in childhood. It is very logically presented.

Yes this text is definitely divisible. This text addresses development from conception to adolescents. For the community college course that my department wants to use it is very adaptable. Our course ends at middle school age development; our courses are offered on a quarter system. This text is adaptable for the content and our term time schedule.

This text book flows very clearly from Basic principles to Conception. It then divides each stage of development into Physical, Cognitive and Social Emotional development. Those concepts and information are then repeated for each stage of development. e.g. Infants and Toddler-hood, Early Childhood, and Middle Childhood. It is very clearly presented.

It is very professionally presented. It is quite attractive in its presentation .

I saw no errors

The text appears to be aware of being diverse and inclusive both in its content and its graphics. It discusses culture and represents a variety of family structures representing contemporary society.

It is wonderfully researched. It will serve our students well. It is comprehensive and constructed very well. I have enjoyed getting familiar with this text and am looking forward to using it with my students in this upcoming term. The authors have presented a valuable, well written book that will be an addition to our field. Their scholarly efforts are very apparent. All of this text earns high grades in my evaluation. My only criticism is, as mentioned above, is that there is not a glossary or index provided. All citations are embedded in the text.

Reviewed by Ida Weldon, Adjunct Professor, Bunker Hill Community College on 6/30/20

The overall comprehensiveness was strong. However, I do think some sections should have been discussed with more depth read more

The overall comprehensiveness was strong. However, I do think some sections should have been discussed with more depth

Most of the information was accurate. However, I think more references should have been provided to support some claims made in the text.

The material appeared to be relevant. However, it did not provide guidance for teachers in addressing topics of social justice, equality that most children will ask as they try to make sense of their environment.

The information was presented (use of language) that added to its understand-ability. However, I think more discussions and examples would be helpful.

The text appeared to be consistent. The purpose and intent of the text was understandable throughout.

The text can easily be divided into smaller reading sections or restructured to meet the needs of the professor.

The organization of the text adds to its consistency. However, some sections can be included in others decreasing the length of the text.

Interface issues were not visible.

The text appears to be free of grammatical errors.

While cultural differences are mentioned, more time can be given to helping teachers understand and create a culturally and ethnically focused curriculum.

The textbook provides a comprehensive summary of curriculum planing for preschool age children. However, very few chapters address infant/toddlers.

Reviewed by Veronica Harris, Adjunct Faculty, Northern Essex Community College on 6/28/20

This text explores child development from genetics, prenatal development and birth through adolescence. The text does not contain a glossary. However, the Index is clear. The topics are sequential. The text addresses the domains of physical,... read more

This text explores child development from genetics, prenatal development and birth through adolescence. The text does not contain a glossary. However, the Index is clear. The topics are sequential. The text addresses the domains of physical, cognitive and social emotional development. It is thorough and easy to read. The theories of development are inclusive to give the reader a broader understanding on how the domains of development are intertwined. The content is comprehensive, well - researched and sequential. Each chapter begins with the learning outcomes for the upcoming material and closes with an outline of the topics covered. Furthermore, a look into the next chapter is discussed.

The content is accurate, well - researched and unbiased. An historical context is provided putting content into perspective for the student. It appears to be unbiased.

Updated and accurate research is evidenced in the text. The text is written and organized in such a way that updates can be easily implemented. The author provides theoretical approaches in the psychological domains with examples along with real - life scenarios providing meaningful references invoking understanding by the student.

The text is written with clarity and is easily understood. The topics are sequential, comprehensive and and inclusive to all students. This content is presented in a cohesive, engaging, scholarly manner. The terminology used is appropriate to students studying Developmental Psychology spanning from birth through adolescents.

The book's approach to the content is consistent and well organized. . Theoretical contexts are presented throughout the text.

The text contains subheadings chunking the reading sections which can be assigned at various points throughout the course. The content flows seamlessly from one idea to the next. Written chronologically and subdividing each age span into the domains of psychology provides clarity without overwhelming the reader.

The book begins with an overview of child development. Next, the text is divided logically into chapters which focus on each developmental age span. The domains of each age span are addressed separately in subsequent chapters. Each chapter outlines the chapter objectives and ends with an outline of the topics covered and share an idea of what is to follow.

Pages load clearly and consistently without distortion of text, charts and tables. Navigating through the pages is met with ease.

The text is written with no grammatical or spelling errors.

The text did not present with biases or insensitivity to cultural differences. Photos are inclusive of various cultures.

The thoroughness, clarity and comprehensiveness promote an approach to Developmental Psychology that stands alongside the best of texts in this area. I am confident that this text encompasses all the required elements in this area.

Reviewed by Kathryn Frazier, Assistant Professor, Worcester State University on 6/23/20

This is a highly comprehensive, chronological text that covers genetics and conception through adolescence. All major topics and developmental milestones in each age range are given adequate space and consideration. The authors take care to... read more

This is a highly comprehensive, chronological text that covers genetics and conception through adolescence. All major topics and developmental milestones in each age range are given adequate space and consideration. The authors take care to summarize debates and controversies, when relevant and include a large amount of applied / practical material. For example, beyond infant growth patterns and motor milestone, the infancy/toddler chapters spend several pages on the mechanics of car seat safety, best practices for introducing solid foods (and the rationale), and common concerns like diaper rash. In addition to being generally useful information for students who are parents, or who may go on to be parents, this text takes care to contextualize the psychological research in the lived experiences of children and their parents. This is an approach that I find highly valuable. While the text does not contain an index, the search & find capacity of OER to make an index a deal-breaker for me.

The text includes accurate information that is well-sourced. Relevant debates, controversies and historical context is also provided throughout which results in a rich, balanced text.

This text provides an excellent summary of classic and updated developmental work. While the majority of the text is skewed toward dated, classic work, some updated research is included. Instructors may wish to supplement this text with more recent work, particularly that which includes diverse samples and specifically addresses topics of class, race, gender and sexual orientation (see comment below regarding cultural aspects).

The text is written in highly accessible language, free of jargon. Of particular value are the many author-generated tables which clearly organize and display critical information. The authors have also included many excellent figures, which reinforce and visually organize the information presented.

This text is consistent in its use of terminology. Balanced discussion of multiple theoretical frameworks are included throughout, with adequate space provided to address controversies and debates.

The text is clearly organized and structured. Each chapter is self-contained. In places where the authors do refer to prior or future chapters (something that I find helps students contextualize their reading), a complete discussion of the topic is included. While this may result in repetition for students reading the text from cover to cover, the repetition of some content is not so egregious that it outweighs the benefit of a flexible, modular textbook.

Excellent, clear organization. This text closely follows the organization of published textbooks that I have used in the past for both lifespan and child development. As this text follows a chronological format, a discussion of theory and methods, and genetics and prenatal growth is followed by sections devoted to a specific age range: infancy and toddlerhood, early childhood (preschool), middle childhood and adolescence. Each age range is further split into three chapters that address each developmental domain: physical, cognitive and social emotional development.

All text appears clearly and all images, tables and figures are positioned correctly and free of distortion.

The text contains no spelling or grammatical errors.

While this text provides adequate discussion of gender and cross-cultural influences on development, it is not sufficient. This is not a problem unique to this text, and is indeed a critique I have of all developmental textbooks. In particular, in my view this text does not adequately address the role of race, class or sexual orientation on development.

All in all, this is a comprehensive and well-written textbook that very closely follows the format of standard chronologically-organized child development textbooks. This is a fantastic alternative for those standard texts, with the added benefit of language that is more accessible, and content that is skewed toward practical applications.

Reviewed by Tony Philcox, Professor, Valencia College on 6/4/20

The subject of this book is Child Growth and Development and as such covers all areas and ideas appropriate for this subject. This book has an appropriate index. The author starts out with a comprehensive overview of Child Development in the... read more

The subject of this book is Child Growth and Development and as such covers all areas and ideas appropriate for this subject. This book has an appropriate index. The author starts out with a comprehensive overview of Child Development in the Introduction. The principles of development were delineated and were thoroughly presented in a very understandable way. Nine theories were presented which gave the reader an understanding of the many authors who have contributed to Child Development. A good backdrop to start a conversation. This book discusses the early beginnings starting with Conception, Hereditary and Prenatal stages which provides a foundation for the future developmental stages such as infancy, toddler, early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence. The three domains of developmental psychology – physical, cognitive and social emotional are entertained with each stage of development. This book is thoroughly researched and is written in a way to not overwhelm. Language is concise and easily understood.

This book is a very comprehensive and detailed account of Child Growth and Development. The author leaves no stone unturned. It has the essential elements addressed in each of the developmental stages. Thoroughly researched and well thought out. The content covered was accurate, error-free and unbiased.

The content is very relevant to the subject of Child Growth and Development. It is comprehensive and thoroughly researched. The author has included a number of relevant subjects that highlight the three domains of developmental psychology, physical, cognitive and social emotional. Topics are included that help the student see the relevancy of the theories being discussed. Any necessary updates along the way will be very easy and straightforward to insert.

The text is easily understood. From the very beginning of this book, the author has given the reader a very clear message that does not overwhelm but pulls the reader in for more information. The very first chapter sets a tone for what is to come and entices the reader to learn more. Well organized and jargon appropriate for students in a Developmental Psychology class.

This book has all the ingredients necessary to address Child Growth and Development. Even at the very beginning of the book the backdrop is set for future discussions on the stages of development. Theorists are mentioned and embellished throughout the book. A very consistent and organized approach.

This book has all the features you would want. There are textbooks that try to cover too much in one chapter. In this book the sections are clearly identified and divided into smaller and digestible parts so the reader can easily comprehend the topic under discussion. This book easily flows from one subject to the next. Blocks of information are being built, one brick on top of another as you move through the domains of development and the stages of development.

This book starts out with a comprehensive overview in the introduction to child development. From that point forward it is organized into the various stages of development and flows well. As mentioned previously the information is organized into building blocks as you move from one stage to the next.

The text does not contain any significant interface issued. There are no navigation problems. There is nothing that was detected that would distract or confuse the reader.

There are no grammatical errors that were identified.

This book was not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way.

This book is clearly a very comprehensive approach to Child Growth and Development. It contains all the essential ingredients that you would expect in a discussion on this subject. At the very outset this book went into detail on the principles of development and included all relevant theories. I was never left with wondering why certain topics were left out. This is undoubtedly a well written, organized and systematic approach to the subject.

Reviewed by Eleni Makris, Associate Professor, Northeastern Illinois University on 5/6/20

This book is organized by developmental stages (infancy, toddler, early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence). The book begins with an overview of conception and prenatal human development. An entire chapter is devoted to birth and... read more

This book is organized by developmental stages (infancy, toddler, early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence). The book begins with an overview of conception and prenatal human development. An entire chapter is devoted to birth and expectations of newborns. In addition, there is a consistency to each developmental stage. For infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence, the textbook covers physical development, cognitive development, and social emotional development for each stage. While some textbooks devote entire chapters to themes such as physical development, cognitive development, and social emotional development and write about how children change developmentally in each stage this book focuses on human stages of development. The book is written in clear language and is easy to understand.

There is so much information in this book that it is a very good overview of child development. The content is error-free and unbiased. In some spots it briefly introduces multicultural traditions, beliefs, and attitudes. It is accurate for the citations that have been provided. However, it could benefit from updating to research that has been done recently. I believe that if the instructor supplements this text with current peer-reviewed research and organizations that are implementing what the book explains, this book will serve as a strong source of information.

While the book covers a very broad range of topics, many times the citations have not been updated and are often times dated. The content and information that is provided is correct and accurate, but this text can certainly benefit from having the latest research added. It does, however, include a great many topics that serve to inform students well.

The text is very easy to understand. It is written in a way that first and second year college students will find easy to understand. It also introduces students to current child and adolescent behavior that is important to be understood on an academic level. It does this in a comprehensive and clear manner.

This book is very consistent. The chapters are arranged by developmental stage. Even within each chapter there is a consistency of theorists. For example, each chapter begins with Piaget, then moves to Vygotsky, etc. This allows for great consistency among chapters. If I as the instructor decide to have students write about Piaget and his development theories throughout the life span, students will easily know that they can find this information in the first few pages of each chapter.

Certainly instructors will find the modularity of this book easy. Within each chapter the topics are self-contained and extensive. As I read the textbook, I envisioned myself perhaps not assigning entire chapters but assigning specific topics/modules and pages that students can read. I believe the modules can be used as a strong foundational reading to introduce students to concepts and then have students read supplemental information from primary sources or journals to reinforce what they have read in the chapter.

The organization of the book is clear and flows nicely. From the table of context students understand how the book is organized. The textbook would be even stronger if there was a more detailed table of context which highlights what topics are covered within each of the chapter. There is so much information contained within each chapter that it would be very beneficial to both students and instructor to quickly see what content and topics are covered in each chapter.

The interface is fine and works well.

The text is free from grammatical errors.

While the textbook does introduce some multicultural differences and similarities, it does not delve deeply into multiracial and multiethnic issues within America. It also offers very little comment on differences that occur among urban, rural, and suburban experiences. In addition, while it does talk about maturation and sexuality, LGBTQ issues could be more prominent.

Overall I enjoyed this text and will strongly consider using it in my course. The focus is clearly on human development and has very little emphasis on education. However, I intend to supplement this text with additional readings and videos that will show concrete examples of the concepts which are introduced in the text. It is a strong and worthy alternative to high-priced textbooks.

Reviewed by Mohsin Ahmed Shaikh, Assistant Professor, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania on 9/5/19

The content extensively discusses various aspects of emotional, cognitive, physical and social development. Examples and case studies are really informative. Some of the areas that can be elaborated more are speech-language and hearing... read more

The content extensively discusses various aspects of emotional, cognitive, physical and social development. Examples and case studies are really informative. Some of the areas that can be elaborated more are speech-language and hearing development. Because these components contribute significantly in development of communication abilities and self-image.

Content covered is pretty accurate. I think the details impressive.

The content is relevant and is based on the established knowledge of the field.

Easy to read and follow.

The terminology used is consistent and appropriate.

I think of using various sections of this book in some of undergraduate and graduate classes.

The flow of the book is logical and easy to follow.

There are no interface issues. Images, charts and diagram are clear and easy to understand.

Well written

The text appropriate and do not use any culturally insensitive language.

I really like that this is a book with really good information which is available in open text book library.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Introduction to Child Development
• Chapter 2: Conception, Heredity, & Prenatal Development
• Chapter 3: Birth and the Newborn
• Chapter 4: Physical Development in Infancy & Toddlerhood
• Chapter 5: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
• Chapter 6: Social and Emotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
• Chapter 7: Physical Development in Early Childhood
• Chapter 8: Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Chapter 9: Social Emotional Development in Early Childhood
• Chapter 10: Middle Childhood - Physical Development
• Chapter 11: Middle Childhood – Cognitive Development
• Chapter 12: Middle Childhood - Social Emotional Development
• Chapter 13: Adolescence – Physical Development
• Chapter 14: Adolescence – Cognitive Development
• Chapter 15: Adolescence – Social Emotional Development

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Welcome to Child Growth and Development. This text is a presentation of how and why children grow, develop, and learn. We will look at how we change physically over time from conception through adolescence. We examine cognitive change, or how our ability to think and remember changes over the first 20 years or so of life. And we will look at how our emotions, psychological state, and social relationships change throughout childhood and adolescence.

About the Contributors

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Research on Adolescence in the Twenty-First Century

Robert crosnoe.

1 Department of Sociology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712

Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson

2 Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164-4020

Recent methodological advances have allowed empirical research on adolescence to do better justice to theoretical models. Organized by a life course framework, this review covers the state of contemporary research on adolescents' physical, psychological, interpersonal, and institutional pathways; how these pathways connect within primary ecological contexts; and how they relate to broader patterns of societal stratification and historical change. Looking forward, it also emphasizes three future challenges/opportunities, including efforts to illuminate biosocial processes, link adolescence to other life stages, and account for the influence of major social changes (e.g., the new media).

Introduction

First coined by Hall (1904) only a century ago, adolescence was “created” by the convergence of multiple trends, including labor and schooling laws, that extended dependency beyond childhood and delayed entry into adult roles ( Modell & Goodman 1990 ). Adolescence as a period of dependency and preparation for adulthood has since been reinforced through more recent social changes, including economic restructuring and changing cultural norms about parenting ( Goldin & Katz 2008 , Settersten et al. 2005 ). Research on adolescence has also changed dramatically. This review discusses recent developments in this literature, being cognizant of their historical underpinnings while focusing on the future. Given our background in the life course tradition, as well as the inherent importance of transitions, trajectories, and context to understanding this life stage, we use a life course framework to organize our review. Owing to space constraints, we focus primarily on American adolescents.

In his 1989 review, Dornbusch wrote that research on adolescence was turning from psychologists studying “individual adolescents carrying out their developmental tasks” (p. 233) to contextual approaches emphasizing transactions between adolescents and their environments. This trend has since intensified, reflecting refinements of theoretical models, including human ecology ( Bronfenbrenner & Morris 1998 ) and the life course paradigm ( Elder 1998 ). A central imagery of the latter, our focus here, is of lives as a tapestry of three threads—developmental trajectories (physical and psychological growth), social pathways (sequences of institutional roles and activities), and social convoys (continuity and change in interpersonal relations)—situated in settings of daily life, larger structures of society, and the broader sweep of history.

Unfortunately, studying this dynamic, multilayered model of adolescence has taxed methodological and data resources ( Elder & Giele 2009 ). Recently, however, data sets on children have aged into adolescence (e.g., Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth), and data sets on adolescents have aged into adulthood (e.g., National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, or Add Health). Data sets are also integrating biological, behavioral, and setting data. At the same time, significant advances in longitudinal and multilevel modeling have allowed researchers to capture individual and population trajectories and to identify person-context effects ( Bollen & Curran 2006 , Bryk et al. 2002 ). Of note is that qualitative and mixed methods research projects are also increasingly emphasizing context, longitudinal change, and the multiple strands of adolescent development ( Giordano et al. 2006 ).

In other words, sociologists are making progress on a more holistic understanding of adolescents in society. In reviewing this progress, we focus on each of the three main strands of the adolescent life course before turning to the ways in which their interweaving is embedded in ecological contexts and both reflects and contributes to population-level inequalities.

Three Threads in the Life Course Tapestry

Exhaustively reviewing recent research on the three main strands of the life course is impossible. As just one example, the United States has a high teen pregnancy rate that contributes to the overall rate of nonmarital fertility, and early parenthood relates to past and future socioeconomic disadvantages in complex ways ( Mollborn 2007 ). As a result, this topic could fill an entire review article, and in fact has ( Furstenberg 2003 ). Also regrettably left out are issues such as disordered eating and bullying. Consequently, this review should be viewed as an effort to put forward a limited set of illustrative examples of new ways to think about old issues.

Developmental Trajectories

Adolescence is a period of rapid change. This change is dramatically crystallized in the flood of hormonal activity and rapid physiological development that constitutes puberty ( Susman et al. 2003 ). Great psychological and emotional change also occurs during adolescence. In the years following puberty, adolescents are faced with the task of establishing their own identity separate from their parents, which may be stressful ( Kroger 2007 ). At the same time, rates of risky behavior (e.g., substance use, delinquency, sexual activity) also rise markedly, especially among boys ( Bachman et al. 2002 ). A hallmark of adolescence is that maturation can occur at different velocities in different domains of development, so that youth may look or feel like adults in some ways but not in others.

Beginning with puberty, a great deal of attention has been focused on pubertal timing, following earlier work outside the United States ( Stättin & Magnusson 1990 ). Primarily among girls, going through puberty earlier than the norm is associated with a host of adjustment problems, including risky sex and delinquency. Sociologists have elucidated many mechanisms underlying these patterns, which are not entirely hormonal or biological in nature. One concerns premature self- and other-perceptions of early maturers, especially girls, as adults. In other words, they are adult-like physically and, as a result, may engage in actions or put themselves in situations that are ahead of their emotional or cognitive capacities ( Cavanagh 2004 , Haynie 2003 ). Another mechanism is increased distress related to growing size in the context of strict norms about female body weight ( Ge et al. 2001 ). These socioemotional difficulties in early adolescence can then disrupt academic functioning ( Cavanagh et al. 2007 ). Pubertal timing, therefore, represents an intersection of biological, emotional, social, and institutional processes.

Turning to mental health, adolescence marks the emergence of gender differences in depression—with girls higher than boys—that persist for decades ( Hankin et al. 2007 ). Efforts to explain this trend have focused primarily on social psychological phenomena, including gender differences in self-concept, management of daily stressors, experiences of puberty, and the rigidity and enforcement of societal standards of appearance and behavior ( Martin 1996 , Rosenfield et al. 2000 ). A particularly insightful sociological approach to adolescent depression, regardless of gender, concerns how it is interpreted by others. For example, depression can be strongly stigmatized in social groups when it is perceived as mental illness as opposed to a health problem, leading depressed youth to be isolated from others just when they need more support ( Martin et al. 2007 ). Indeed, social responses to adolescent distress influence whether it can have long-term effects on other areas of life, including education ( McLeod & Fettes 2007 ). Thus, socialized perspectives on depression and other psychological constructs reveal insight into the complex dance between self and other that characterizes adolescence.

Identity development is another psychological process that has been studied from a variety of angles. The consensus is that it is a highly social process, with young people slowly integrating the different pieces of themselves that they come to understand through social interactions into a cohesive sense of who they are and where they fit in the world ( Kroger 2007 ). In the past two decades, considerable research has centered on the development of group-based identities. For example, racial identity taps into the significance and meaning attached to race within individuals' overall senses of self. According to work by Sellers and associates (1998) on African American youth, racial identity has four dimensions: ( a ) salience (how much race is part of one's self-concept), ( b ) centrality (whether one defines him or herself through race), ( c ) regard (the degree of positive or negative feelings about one's race), and ( d ) ideology (beliefs about how someone of a certain race should act). Across minority groups, these dimensions tend to increase as adolescence unfolds and are strongly related to mental health ( Mandara et al. 2009 , Umaña-Taylor et al. 2009 ). For the most part, the benefits of racial identity are strongest when minority adolescents have reached the achieved stage of identity development, meaning that they have committed to a particular identity after exploring what it means and what alternative identities might be possible ( Seaton et al. 2006 ). Similar research has been done on sexual identity, tracing the gradual process by which adolescents come to see themselves as homosexual and the role that this process plays in healthy development ( Russell & Sigler-Andrews 2003 ).

As for risky behavior, understanding why adolescents become more reckless even as they develop critical thinking skills has long been a major activity of adolescence researchers. One explanation is that adolescence is a time of heightened sensitivity to social influences and greater propensity toward emotional stimulation. These developmental changes have traditionally been viewed as by-products of identity development, but recent neurological research is shedding new light on this phenomenon ( Dahl & Spear 2004 ). Specifically, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies suggest that increased risky behavior during adolescence reflects different rates of growth in the brain's socioemotional and cognitive control systems. After puberty, dopamine receptors increase rapidly in regions that control sensation-seeking, which encourages behaviors that bring some emotional or sensory reward ( Steinberg 2008 ). Peer approval is one such reward, and ample evidence indicates that engaging in some level of dangerous behavior can elicit peer esteem and popularity ( Allen et al. 2005 , Kreager & Staff 2009 ). Importantly, structural changes of equivalent magnitude do not occur in the prefrontal cortex, which controls cognition, until adolescents approach young adulthood. That enhanced self-regulation skills tend to come after the increased propensity toward sensation-seeking helps to explain the increase in risky behavior that characterizes the years between the end of childhood and the start of adulthood ( Dahl & Spear 2004 , Steinberg 2008 ). Clearly, other factors are also at work, including changing cultural norms about permissible behavior and increasing opportunities for engaging in certain behaviors, but neurological development is certainly a piece of the puzzle.

As is evident even from this very selective discussion, adolescent development crosses many different psychological, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral domains. As a result, understanding one domain often requires consideration of others.

Social Pathways

Beyond the family, two key institutions structure the social pathways of adolescence. Beginning with schools, sociologists have traditionally studied the organization of high schools via academic tracks (e.g., vocational, college preparatory). As formal tracking has been largely dismantled ( Lucas 2001 ), new organizational schemas have been identified, including patterns of course-taking, critical courses (e.g., advanced math), and course trajectories ( Gamoran & Hannigan 2000 , McFarland 2006 , Riegle-Crumb 2006 ). Math is a clear example, as it is highly structured and strongly predicts educational and occupational attainment ( Adelman 2006 , Frank et al. 2008 , Riegle-Crumb 2006 ). Case studies have yielded new insights on the implications of curricular structure. McFarland (2006) , for example, examined student flow across math courses in two high schools, one characterized by five math trajectories with fewer lower-ability courses over time, and the other with a branching tree structure in which students move from a single trunk into four eventual trajectories of increasing differentiation. In each structure, specific courses represent critical junctions between trajectories and in math persistence altogether.

Thus, students' school pathways are far more complex than the traditional view of tracking suggests. Studying these pathways also reveals new insights into gender differences in education. Girls have been surpassing boys in most academic domains in secondary and postsecondary education for some time, especially among African Americans. Research on coursework trajectories suggests that girls have now also closed the gap with boys in math and science in terms of the course credits they accrue in high school. However, despite their advantage in college enrollment and graduation ( Buchman & DiPrete 2006 ), they remain underrepresented in these curricula in college ( Riegle-Crumb 2006 ).

Studies in the past decade have also emphasized the changing role of higher education in adolescents' lives. Expectations to earn four-year and graduate degrees have risen dramatically, faster than actual attainment ( Jacob & Wilder 2010 , Reynolds et al. 2006 ). In line with a “college for all” norm ( Rosenbaum 2001 ), expectations to complete college have become less tied to social class and previous achievement ( Goyette 2008 , Reynolds et al. 2006 , Schneider & Stevenson 1999 ). More than 80% of high school seniors in 2008 reported that they would probably or definitely earn a four-year college degree ( Bachman et al. 2009 ). Some of the least educationally ambitious students may have dropped out of school before senior year and, therefore, would be absent from such statistics, but educational expectations are actually even higher when measured at eighth or tenth grade instead ( Goyette 2008 , Jacob & Wilder 2010 ). The rise in expectations to earn a college degree has been even steeper among girls, who now expect BAs at higher rates than boys, with little difference within gender between blacks and whites ( Jacob & Wilder 2010 ).

Commonly cited explanations for rising educational expectations include ( a ) an increase in the earnings payoff to college (versus high school) graduation; ( b ) expanding higher education options, including online degrees and community colleges; and ( c ) trends in the educational attainment of parents ( Berg 2007 , Goldin & Katz 2008 , Goyette 2008 , Schneider & Stevenson 1999 ). Regarding the latter, the relative risk aversion thesis suggests that adolescents strive for at least as much education as their parents have. As parents' average education levels rise across cohorts, therefore, so do adolescents' educational expectations ( Breen & Goldthorpe 1997 ).

Paid work is another institution shaping adolescence, with nearly all high school students employed during the school year at some point while in high school ( Apel et al. 2007 , Mortimer 2003 , National Research Council 1998 ). Building on foundational studies from the 1980s and 1990s, recent research has elucidated the mix of risks and benefits of paid work for adolescents. Although adolescent work often starts earlier, most studies focus on high school, when employment is more likely to occur in the formal sector and for longer hours. Moreover, school-year employment continues to garner the most attention, despite higher rates of summer employment ( Mortimer 2003 , Perreira et al. 2007 ). These foci reflect concerns about potentially competing demands of school and employment, key institutions that structure the social pathways of adolescence. The question is whether (or under what conditions) employment facilitates educational attainment and builds human capital useful later in the labor market or whether employment, especially working 20 h or more per week, can distract from academic pursuits and foster various problem behaviors, including delinquency and substance use ( Lee & Staff 2007 , McMorris & Uggen 2000 , Mortimer 2003 , Paternoster et al. 2003 ).

In the past two decades, a major activity has been in understanding the variable meaning and consequence of paid work in adolescence. For example, the outcomes linked to work hours depend on the goal of working, including saving for college and supporting the self or family ( Marsh 1991 , Newman 1996 ). Recent evidence indicates that work can promote educational attainment among those with low academic promise ( Staff & Mortimer 2007 ) and among poor and/or minority students ( Entwisle et al. 2005 ). For example, teenagers in Newman's (1999) ethnography of fast food workers often rejected the delinquency of peers in choosing to work, and their jobs brought them coworkers and supervisors that supported and rewarded their educational pursuits. Along these same lines, Lee & Staff (2007) compared adolescents who work intensively and those who do not do so but who share similar preexisting background characteristics. They found no effect on dropout among adolescents with backgrounds indicative of a high propensity to work intensively. These students tended to be from socioeconomically disadvantaged families and have weaker school performance. Additional studies indicate that the association between intensive employment and substance use is largely limited to whites ( Johnson 2004 ) and that intensive employment can actually help curb substance use and delinquency for adolescents with earlier histories of these problem behaviors ( Apel et al. 2007 ).

More effort also has been devoted to promoting causal inference in research on adolescent employment. Both spuriousness and bidirectionality are concerns in studies of work hour effects on adolescent behavior. Longitudinal studies adjusting for known covariates, including lagged measures of the outcome, often indicate that that preexisting differences account for many observed effects ( Schoenhals et al. 1998 , Warren et al. 2000 ). Links to substance use and some academic outcomes, however, persist ( McMorris & Uggen 2000 , Mortimer & Johnson 1998 , Paternoster et al. 2003 , Schoenhals et al. 1998 ). Other techniques, such as fixed and random effects models and propensity score matching, have revealed no evidence of work hour effects on adolescent behavior or effects only on adolescents with low or moderate propensities to work ( Lee & Staff 2007 , Paternoster et al. 2003 ), but they have been applied to a limited set of behavioral dimensions to date.

Thus, research is moving toward a clearer picture of how developmental, educational, human capital, and behavioral outcomes are linked to employment in adolescence. The same can be said of studies on other social pathways of adolescents (e.g., academic pathways).

Social Convoys

Adolescence is a time of both quantitative and qualitative change in the matrix of social relationships. In particular, the push and pull between parents and peers has been a dominant theme of research on adolescence for years.

Over time, the normative break with parents in adolescence has been reconceptualized as a renegotiation of parent and child roles, not disengagement. In other words, adolescents may spend less time with, and seek more autonomy from, parents, but they typically do so in the context of stable strong connections and parental influence ( Larson et al. 1996 ). Similar trends extend to other family relationships (e.g., with siblings and grandparents), which may loosen more in terms of shared time than in emotional bonds ( Crouter et al. 2004 , King et al. 2003 ).

The idea of parent-adolescent renegotiation has led to new ways of thinking about oft-studied issues. One of the best examples concerns parental monitoring. The general consensus has long been that adolescents engage in fewer problem behaviors when their parents keep close track of what they do and with whom they associate, in part because monitoring constrains opportunities to engage in such behaviors and in part because it helps to develop adolescent self-control ( Browning et al. 2005 , Hay 2006 ). Yet, Stättin & Kerr (2000) have argued that the most common indicator of parental monitoring—parental knowledge about adolescents' activities and peers—may be an effect of adolescent behavior more than a cause. In other words, well-behaved adolescents share their lives with their parents, creating the appearance of monitoring being behaviorally protective. More likely, this link is reciprocal—monitoring promoting prosocial behavior that, in turn, increases parent-adolescent relationship quality, adolescents' openness to parental monitoring, and adolescents' willingness to self-disclose to parents ( Fletcher et al. 2004 , Yau et al. 2009 ). This debate has driven home the need to think of adolescents' developmental trajectories and social convoys as intertwined over time.

Along these same lines, adolescents are increasingly viewed as eliciting parenting, not just being shaped by it. For example, changes in U.S. antipoverty policy that emphasize the role of fathers have brought attention to nonresident fathers ( Furstenberg 2007 ). Although the assumption is that having involved fathers is good for adolescents, this link partially reflects the tendency for nonresident fathers to be more involved in the lives of well-adjusted adolescents ( Hawkins et al. 2007 ). As another example, the normative increase in parent-child conflict during adolescence is less pronounced for second- or later-born children, as parents learn what to expect from their first-born children ( Shanahan et al. 2007 ). Another line of research that views both sides of the parent-adolescent relationship concerns the degree to which the characteristics and behaviors of parents and adolescents are aligned. Consider that religious mismatches within the family (e.g., religious mother and nonreligious adolescent, or vice versa) appear to engender adolescent problem behavior ( Pearce & Haynie 2004 ). Approaching parent-adolescent relationships as evolving, two-sided, and mutually influential, therefore, is crucial.

Of course, peers continue to be a primary focus of research on adolescence. Much of this research concerns how friends influence each other and how adolescents select into different kinds of friendships, but more attention is now being paid to the larger peer groupings in which these friendships are embedded. For example, boys are at greater risk for emotional distress when they are members of networks that are large and cohesive, but girls are at greater risk in networks that are large and noncohesive. This gendered pattern reflects differences in the interpersonal styles of girls and boys ( Falci & McNeely 2009 ). As another example, friendships tend to have greater influence on adolescent delinquency when they are embedded in dense networks ( Haynie 2001 ). Many social and institutional settings, such as schools and neighborhoods, can also be thought of as peer contexts, in that they organize the friendship market and serve as a center of youth culture ( Harding 2009 ). Peer relations and dynamics within such contexts may be better characterized by qualitative groupings of youth (e.g., crowds) as opposed to quantitatively measurable collectives (e.g., networks). Indeed, many meaningful peer groups are fluid but matter because they provide common identity and serve as the practical universe of potential friends ( Akerlof & Kranton 2002 , Brown & Klute 2003 ). Barber and associates (2001) , for example, used the archetypal characters from the movie The Breakfast Club (e.g., the jock, the rebel, the princess) as a way of organizing data collection on such peer crowds. Importantly, interpersonal processes that occur within larger bands of peers seem to do as much, if not more, to predict the positive and negative mental health and educational outcomes of adolescents than intimate friendships, especially in the long term.

Historically, scholars studied another key peer relation—romantic relationships—in terms of major developmental tasks (e.g., preparation for adult relationships), leading to a focus on their benefits ( Shulman & Collins 1998 ). Later, risks took the spotlight, including links of girls' dating with depression, stress, and abuse, and more attention was paid to the consequences of stricter norms about appropriate dating (and sexual) behavior for girls ( Hagan & Foster 2001 , Joyner & Udry 2000 , Kreager & Staff 2009 ). Increasingly, however, scholars have recognized that adolescent romance may be developmentally positive or negative depending on the characteristics of the partners, the quality of the relationship, and the context in which it occurs. For example, romantic relationships may foster early sexual activity but also reduce the psychological strain of sex and increase contraceptive use. They may be especially important as buffers against the potential harm of weak bonds with parents or as a stand-ins for close friends ( Giordano et al. 2006 , Manlove et al. 2007 , McCarthy & Casey 2008 ). Importantly, although boys were long thought to be less oriented to and affected by romance, emerging evidence suggests that boys may have equally strong ties to their partners as girls and be more influenced by them. Along with their lower confidence in their romantic skills, these qualities might leave boys vulnerable emotionally to the vicissitudes of adolescent romance ( Giordano et al. 2006 ).

An emerging task is to add a wider variety of extrafamilial and other familial relationships to this traditional focus on parents and peers. Taking such a holistic view of overlapping relationships as they evolve is the best way to capture the concept of social convoys.

The Social Embeddedness of Adolescence

As alluded to throughout the prior discussion, the three main strands of the life course play out—and come together—within social contexts, ranging from small primary and secondary groups (e.g., families) to larger societal institutions (e.g., schools) to macro-level social structures, such as stratification systems based on gender, race, and class. Here, we highlight some recent explorations of this social embeddedness of adolescence.

The Ecological Contexts of Adolescence

Because adolescents have limited mobility, neighborhoods can powerfully structure their lives physically and socially. As a result, studies of neighborhood effects have proliferated in recent years, aided by neighborhood data in specific locales (e.g., Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, L.A. Family and Neighborhood Survey), on the national level (e.g., Add Health), and through demonstration projects moving low-income families to new communities (e.g., the Moving to Opportunity, or MTO, experiment), as well as by qualitative studies of neighborhoods and communities. Most of these studies focus on neighborhood disadvantage and adolescent risk-taking ( Bellair & Roscigno 2000 , Browning et al. 2005 , Dance 2002 , Harding 2003 , Kling et al. 2007 ).

Motivating much of this research is Wilson's (1996) perspective on spatially concentrated disadvantage, which is thought to disrupt networks of social capital that socialize and supervise youth and to hinder the effectiveness of local institutions (e.g., schools, churches) and informal networks in providing social control. Contemporary scholars have sought to identify the mechanisms involved in these processes. For example, Browning and associates (2005) reported that adolescents in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty experienced sexual onset earlier than others but that higher neighborhood collective efficacy delayed sexual onset, at least among adolescents experiencing lower levels of parental monitoring. These findings suggest conditional effects between neighborhood conditions and family functioning, appearing to contradict prior studies downplaying the possibility of multiplicative contextual influences ( Cook et al. 2002 ). Importantly, studies such as another by Browning and associates (2008) raise the issue of rates of risky sex in turn affecting the concentration of STD risk in neighborhoods, with individuals shaping context. Such micro-to-macro examples are rare but need more attention.

As in all examinations of contextual effects, causality has been a concern in neighborhood research. Browning and associates (2005) have argued that findings varying by level of neighborhood exposure suggest true effects. In line with this argument, Harding (2003) reported that neighborhood poverty effects on adolescents persisted when propensity score matching was employed. He also noted that controlling for individual-level factors may obscure real neighborhood effects if they are affected by neighborhood features themselves, a point echoed by Chuang and associates (2005) in arguing that parents may adjust their parenting based on neighborhood conditions. Indeed, instead of isolating neighborhood effects by controlling individual, economic, and family factors, Bellair & Roscigno (2000) have advocated for viewing labor market opportunities as preceding neighborhood disadvantage, family income, and adolescent attachments, all of which affect adolescent behavior. In other words, instead of controlling for family income, family structure, and adolescents' attachments to family, school, and peers to evaluate the link between local labor market conditions and delinquency, they map the effects of local labor market conditions on delinquency through its effects on family income and structure and adolescents' attachments.

With an experimental design, MTO revealed compelling findings about the implications of switching from low-income to middle-income neighborhoods for adolescents. Interestingly, the benefits of such moves were limited to girls, including improvements in mental health and decreases in delinquency. The qualitative components of the experiment suggested several mechanisms underlying these gendered effects, including girls' greater freedom from sexual fears, boys' (especially minority boys') greater difficulty integrating into new peer networks, and boys' continued strong ties to peers from their former communities ( Clampet-Lundquist et al. 2006 , Kling et al. 2007 ). Outside MTO, other qualitative studies of minority youth have detailed the gendered dilemma of youth adaptation to neighborhood disadvantage, especially crime. Girls must live up to feminized social expectations of them while trying to survive often violent conditions, and boys must develop fearsome personae that protect them on the streets but may disadvantage them in other contexts ( Dance 2002 , Jones 2010 ).

Another major ecological setting of adolescence is the school, where young people spend a large proportion of their waking hours. Scholars continue to decipher the effects of the organizational structure of schools (e.g., size, sector, and racial and socioeconomic composition) on student outcomes (see Arum 2000 for a recent review). Yet, the past decade has witnessed considerably more interest in the normative and social climate of schools, as captured by the rates of behaviors and social characteristics in the student body as a whole. These aggregated aspects of the student body tap into the value systems and opportunity structures to which adolescents are exposed on a daily basis, socializing them as well as affecting their ability to act on or against their own proclivities ( Crosnoe 2011 ). For example, adolescents attending schools in which a high proportion of their fellow students come from single-parent homes transition to first sex earlier than others, as this feature of the student body indicates reduced parental supervision of adolescents and their peers and also speaks to normative understandings of sexual relationships and families among students ( Harris et al. 2002 ). As another example, the average body size of students in a school sets the standard of comparison for adolescents' self-evaluations, affecting whether their own body size has implications for their socioemotional functioning ( Crosnoe 2011 ). As a final example, behavioral patterns in the student body as a whole can constrain or strengthen close friends' similarities on substance use ( Cleveland & Wiebe 2003 ). The peer culture of the school, therefore, provides opportunities that condition selection and socialization processes. Importantly, schools do not just expose students to a student body, they also organize peer subsets within the student body through activity and curricular offerings. Consider that the aforementioned Breakfast Club groups ( Barber et al. 2001 ) often arise from extracurricular activities. Moreover, Frank and associates (2008) used school transcripts to identify adolescents sharing the same social and academic space in school, peer groups that were significantly related to student outcomes.

As for the connection between neighborhoods and schools, ethnographic work has been especially insightful. For example, several studies have illuminated the unique challenges faced by working class and low-income African American youth, especially boys, as they simultaneously navigate their neighborhoods and their schools with very different sets of racialized expectations for youth. For such boys, the tough and seemingly defiant posture that they develop among peers in their neighborhoods is often misconstrued and viewed negatively by the middle-class personnel in their schools, leading to academic marginalization and fueling pernicious ideas about the oppositional culture of minority youth ( Dance 2002 , Carter 2006 ).

The point of this neighborhood and school research is that ecological settings create social networks and contexts in which the powerful peer and family processes of adolescence operate. Thus, going beyond structural dimensions of such settings to capture social processes is important.

Adolescence and Social Stratification

The adolescent population is quite diverse in terms of race/ethnicity, social class, and other markers of social location. Especially among sociologists, such diversity has motivated a great deal of research concerning the ways that adolescents' experiences are both a product of and contributor to major systems of social stratification ( Morgan 2005 ).

In part because adolescence is a relatively healthy period in the life course, major health disparities are less common and consistent during this stage compared with others ( Crockett & Peterson 1993 ). Indeed, adolescents from historically disadvantaged minority groups often are similar to or lower than whites in rates of many risky health behaviors, such as drinking ( Harris et al. 2006 ). Yet, the recent rise in obesity has also been problematic from a long-term health perspective, particularly for African American and Latino/a youth ( Ogden et al. 2010 ). Thus, adolescence may play a positive and negative role in race/ethnic disparities across the life course.

On a structural level, school segregation continues to be an issue of great interest ( Rothstein 2004 ). Studies of school composition suggest that racial desegregation has academic benefits for both white and non-white students by exposing them to different ways of thinking and by leading to greater equity in school resources. Yet, students may also feel lowered senses of belonging and perceive more discrimination in diverse schools ( Goldsmith 2004 , Johnson et al. 2001 , Rumberger & Palardy 2005 ). Progress in school desegregation has also often come with increased within-school segregation ( Mickelson 2001 ). Recently, Parents Involved , in which the Supreme Court curtailed use of race in school assignment, has shifted attention from race to socioeconomic status. Efforts to socioeconomically desegregate schools, however, also demonstrate a mixture of benefits and risks, with research suggesting that academic gains might be accompanied by psychosocial problems and that socioeconomically integrating schools would not alter levels of racial segregation ( Crosnoe 2009 , Reardon et al. 2006 ).

On an interpersonal level, Ogbu's (1997) oppositional culture thesis—which, among other things, argues that African American and Latino/a peers de-emphasize achievement and equate it with acting white—has continued to generate debate. Quantitative examinations have provided little evidence of this phenomenon ( Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey 1998 , Harris 2006 ). Mixed methods examinations have suggested that it does occur occasionally but with some important caveats: ( a ) It is rooted in schools' long-term misunderstanding of minority group culture, and ( b ) it is not racialized but instead happens in youth culture more generally, in ways that are manifested differently by race and class ( Carter 2006 , Tyson et al. 2005 ). In total, research on oppositional culture has probably done less to unpack race/ethnic achievement gaps than it has to illuminate the nexus of youth culture and schooling.

For the most part, research on socioeconomic disparities has continued to focus on socioeconomic disadvantage (e.g., poverty), especially after the contentious public debate about welfare reform ( Gennetian et al. 2008 ). Much of this research suggests that poverty is clearly detrimental to adolescents but perhaps less so than it is for children ( Duncan et al. 1998 ). At the same time, the past decade has also witnessed significant advances in our understanding of socioeconomic advantage. Lareau's (2004) work has been enormously influential. This research has demonstrated that middle-class parents tend to follow an approach to parenting, concerted cultivation, that prioritizes providing children cognitively and socially stimulating activities at home and in formal organizations that develop skills, enhance their senses of entitlement, and teach them how to work institutional systems. Such parenting is so well aligned with the American educational system that it gives their children a competitive edge in school. Initially, Lareau focused on elementary school, but her basic insights have been replicated in studies of adolescence ( Crosnoe & Huston 2007 , Kim & Schneider 2005 ). Moreover, Lareau's recent follow-up of her sample in young adulthood revealed that parenting-related socioeconomic advantages persisted into adolescence and beyond.

Turning to immigration, traditional assimilation perspectives posited improved outcomes for the descendants of immigrants compared with immigrants themselves. Yet, newer research suggests that the foreign- and U.S.-born children of immigrants outperform third-plus-generation youth, despite higher levels of socioeconomic disadvantage among immigrants. Evidence of this immigrant paradox is more consistent among adolescents than children ( Glick & Hohmann-Marriott 2007 , Kao 1999 , Portes & Rumbaut 2001 , Suarez-Orozco et al. 2009 ). This age difference could reflect adolescents' greater time to adapt to American schools and culture. It could also reflect biases in high school data sets, as immigrants from many regions are more likely to drop out of or bypass school ( Oropesa & Landale 2009 ). Perhaps more importantly, evidence of the immigrant paradox varies widely according to national origin, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. For example, adolescents whose parents emigrated from Asia best illustrate the immigrant paradox, at least in the academic realm. Asia is a region in which migration is positively selective on education and income, but, beyond socioeconomic status, Asian immigrant parents tend to have high standards of academic success, go to great lengths to secure educational opportunities for adolescents, and are highly planful (especially financially) about education ( Kao 2004 , Zhou 2009 ). This diversity in immigrant outcomes has supported theoretical reconceptualizations, such as segmented assimilation ( Portes & Zhou 1993 ), contending that the outcomes of assimilation depend on the context in which it occurs.

Of course, the adolescent population is stratified by factors beyond race and family background that also shape trajectories into adulthood. Two examples are obesity and homosexuality. Because of the stigma of obesity in American culture, obese youth are at heightened risk for psychosocial difficulties, which appear to disrupt their educational trajectories ( Crosnoe 2011 ). Similarly, same-sex-attracted youth often face strong social sanctions during high school that can filter into multiple domains, including academic progress ( Pearson et al. 2007 , Russell & Joyner 2001 ). In both cases, adolescents' characteristics position them on a social hierarchy to create short-term problems with long-term consequences. These stratifying processes are similar to gender, race, class, and immigration in that their significance in adolescence may create and reinforce unequal life chances.

New Directions for Research on Adolescence

Attempts by sociologists and other scholars over the past two decades to answer many of the tough questions about adolescence have raised additional questions. Having looked back, therefore, we now look forward. Given the space allowed, we have decided to focus on three specific future directions that touch on particularly provocative and timely debates and discussions in the field.

Biosocial Processes

In recent years, the integration of biomarkers with psychological and social data has helped empirical activity catch up with developmental theory. The sociological value of this activity is not in establishing genetic effects on adolescent behavior but instead in understanding the interplay of genes and environment at work in adolescent behavior ( Guo et al. 2008 ).

Understanding latent genetic influences has been aided by the creation of sibling samples, which allow assessments of sibling similarity in behavioral or other outcomes across sibling pairs of different degrees of genetic relatedness. Analyses of data from one such sample, the Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development project, have elucidated the ways in which genetic traits select adolescents into different relationships and elicit different kinds of parenting. They have also demonstrated how the experiences that siblings have outside the home differentiate them on developmental outcomes, despite their genetic relatedness ( Reiss et al. 2000 ). Research on Add Health's diverse sibling pairs subsample has been particularly insightful about variability in shared environment and observed heritability of behaviors across social settings ( Boardman et al. 2008 ). For example, adolescent aggression is genetically influenced in both socioeconomically advantaged and disadvantaged communities, but the effects of shared environments (e.g., social influences experienced by both siblings) are significantly stronger in disadvantaged communities ( Cleveland 2003 ).

Turning to specific genetic influences, the collection of genetic data in behavioral studies has encouraged deeper exploration of gene-environment interactions. For example, Caspi and associates (2003) , drawing on biological and psychosocial data from New Zealand, reported that stressful life events had a larger impact on depression among youth with short alleles of the 5-HTT promoter polymorphism, which reduces efficiency of serotonin reuptake in the brain. Research by Guo and associates (2008) with the genetic data in Add Health demonstrated that the significance for delinquency of DRD2 alleles, which reduce efficiencies in the dopaminergetic system, is weaker in families with well-organized routines. Such studies push for a transactional view of biology, development, and environment.

Particularly important are genetically informed studies comparing adolescence with other life stages. For example, Dick and associates (2006) , working with genetic and psychosocial data from the United States, reported that the presence of a gene-regulating neurotransmitters, GABRA2, was associated with conduct disorder in adolescence and then with alcohol use in young adulthood. Thus, a genetic predisposition toward risky behavior is manifested differently across stages. A sociological interpretation is that entry into new settings across the transition from adolescence to adulthood might account for such changes.

As for other biomarkers, cortisol is a central hormone in stress response. Because cortisol levels tend to decline over the day, flatter diurnal patterns may signal health risks through the overactivation of physiological stress response ( Susman 2006 ). Efforts to integrate saliva samples and time diaries have revealed that minority youth report higher levels of chronic stress and demonstrate flatter cortisol patterns across the day than whites. Thus, identifying biological mechanisms underlying links between environmental stress and adolescent health may shed light on the role of adolescence in health disparities ( DeSantis et al. 2007 ). Similarly, immunological processes provide a window into environmental effects on youth. For example, McDade (2001) has combined samples of Epstein-Barr virus antibodies with lifestyle data. This work indicates that the stress that adolescents feel from modernization in developing countries is manifested in reduced immune functioning. Like neuroscience, this biomarker research is more common outside sociology, but it touches on core sociological questions, such as the effects of social integration on life chances, thereby representing a growth area for sociologists.

The nature versus nurture debate, therefore, seems to be dying. Indeed, research on adolescence is turning to the synergistic interplay between nature and nurture. Sociologists interested in adolescence have a significant role to play in uncovering the complexities of this interplay moving forward.

Linking Life Stages

Adolescence is better understood when it is viewed within the full life course, and we are now well poised to theorize and empirically evaluate linkages between adolescence and other life stages ( Johnson et al. 2011 ). As noted in the opening section of this review, advances in longitudinal sampling and modeling have facilitated asking and answering questions that involve processes unfolding over time and across contexts. At least in some domains (e.g., education, work), scholars of adolescence are accustomed to thinking about how adolescent experiences affect adult life. Both looking back to childhood and looking forward to adulthood, however, will enable us to elucidate the role of adolescence in the life course.

For example, initial curricular placements and academic achievement in high school are recognized as important to concurrent and future well-being. Yet, the past decade has also witnessed greater emphasis on understanding proximate and distal factors involved in producing varying levels of high school achievement. By following Baltimore schoolchildren from first grade into early adulthood, Alexander and associates (2007) were able to capture the full educational career and, in the process, identify critical periods. Socioeconomic disparities in academic progress at the start of high school were traced back to corresponding disparities in place at the start of first grade and to summer learning differences by socioeconomic status during the elementary school years. These ninth grade differences were then linked to curricular track, high school completion, and college attendance. Their interpretation emphasized how foundational the skills are that are learned in the early years of schooling and the ways in which the in-school and out-of-school settings and experiences that stratify early learning can have lasting, even accumulating, consequences for the life course. Exclusive focus on the adolescent years, and particularly the high school years, misses these processes set in motion much earlier and likely obscures the best points of intervention ( Heckman 2006 ).

As another example, pubertal timing may be a conduit in the connection between disadvantage in childhood and adulthood. Consider that family adversity is among the myriad biological and environmental factors accelerating pubertal timing ( Belsky et al. 2007 ). Cavanagh and associates (2007) have reported that early pubertal timing during middle school is linked to lower grades and the likelihood of course failure at the start of high school, and that as a result, high school completion and the grades of those who graduate are also affected. By stepping back to view longer-term processes, we see additional mechanisms through which family disadvantage impacts children's success in adolescence and adulthood, operating via biological and social processes, as well as their complex interactions.

Finally, charting individual trajectories over time provides important context for understanding what is observed in adolescence. The influential differentiation between life course persistence and adolescence desistance in criminal behavior is one example ( Moffitt 1993 ). Another concerns adolescent substance use, which is embedded within a variety of long-term trajectories that have distinct meaning and consequence. Following cohorts of adolescents in the Monitoring the Future Surveys into adulthood, Schulenberg and associates (2005) linked different patterns of substance use to the pathways through which adolescents transition into adulthood. Levels of substance use in adolescence anticipated the configuration of role transitions young people experienced in the years immediately following, but were also shaped by them. Young people who worked and did not attend school during these years binge drank more frequently during high school. Those who moved away from home for college were less frequent binge drinkers in high school but quickly caught up. These patterns suggest the varied settings and conditions that different adult statuses bring but also the potential for psychosocial preparation for these statuses during adolescence.

The life course paradigm emphasizes that development is lifelong and that no life stage can be understood in isolation. These examples highlight the advances that can be made if we rise to the challenge posed in this life course principle.

Social Change

Of course, linkages among life stages are also shaped by broader changes in the structure of society. Economic restructuring, for example, is dramatically affecting education and employment in young adulthood and beyond, and we need to better understand what this means for adolescents. Changes in the relative size of the manufacturing and service sectors have occurred in such a way as to reduce the availability of jobs with benefits, increase the income premium of higher education, and create greater fluidity between jobs ( Goldin & Katz 2008 ). Furthermore, Fullerton & Wallace (2007) characterized a set of interrelated changes occurring since the 1970s, including declining unionization, downsizing, growing use of contingent labor, and organizational restructuring as a “flexible turn in U.S. labor relations (p. 201),” which has eroded workers' perceptions of job security. Such changes are increasing the importance of adolescents' educational experiences in the status attainment process, thereby magnifying the significance of all of the factors discussed in this review that matter to these experiences.

In this context, the process of becoming adult has clearly changed, with scholars suggesting that adolescence has been extended to older ages or even that a new life stage should be recognized ( Settersten et al. 2005 ). Demands for and returns to education have risen, and relatedly, the period of dependency and semi-autonomy has lengthened. We know young people are staying in school longer, more often combining employment with higher education, and marrying later ( Bernhardt et al. 2001 , Fitzpatrick & Turner 2007 , U.S. Census Bureau 2006 ). Although race/ethnic and socioeconomic variability in these patterns has long been recognized ( Settersten et al. 2005 ), we are only just beginning to address a number of other important questions related to these broad social changes, including what they mean for the achievement of social and financial autonomy and relationships with others, including parents, and what we need to equip adolescents with in order for them to successfully navigate the transition to adulthood.

Two major collaborative efforts have laid an important foundation for understanding the implications of these social changes for adolescence. The first is the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and Public Policy ( Settersten et al. 2005 ). It has reported, among other things, that parents, especially those with more resources, increasingly support their children through the transition to adulthood financially and otherwise. About one-third of 18–34 year olds in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics received cash support from their parents, at an average of just over $3,400 per year ( Schoeni & Ross 2005 ). This and other forms of ongoing material assistance (e.g., support of higher education pursuits, allowing children to remain in the home, assistance in establishing independent households, providing childcare) may be yet another way in which parents' level of education and income can affect the status attainment of their children. The second effort is the Society for Research on Adolescence's Study Group on Adolescence in the Twenty-First Century ( Larson et al. 2002 ). One of its reports has argued that changes in family size, structure, and relationships; increased participation in school and after-school activities; and the advent of the Internet have created new opportunities for adolescents to develop more flexible social skills and capacities to move between diverse social worlds. It also notes, however, that those from families in poverty and those in elite families are more deprived when it comes to the social experience that builds these skills.

Another major social change concerns the transformation of social interaction though new media and technologies. The Pew Internet and American Life Project has reported that, in 2009, 75% of 12–17 year olds had cell phones and 93% went online ( Lenhart et al. 2010 ). The report also indicated that 76% of families with adolescents now had broadband access at home. Adolescents also go online via cell phones and portable gaming devices, in addition to computers at home. These technologies offer new opportunities for leisure, shopping, and staying in touch with others, as well as broader access to information and support. Roughly one-third of adolescents in the Pew study who went online used the Internet to gather information on health, dieting, or physical fitness, and 17% looked online for information about sensitive health topics, such as those related to drug use, mental health, and sex ( Lenhart et al. 2010 ).

Importantly, the Internet can also be thought of as a new kind of peer context. A recent study of 800 American youth revealed that, for most youth, new media technologies are used primarily to maintain and extend friendship networks ( Ito et al. 2010 ). Moreover, the Internet provides opportunities for socially isolated youth to connect with others in meaningful ways while also enabling the peer cultures of high school—including negative dimensions, such as bullying and gossiping—to follow young people home ( Crosnoe 2011 , Raskauskas & Stoltz 2007 ). Thus, new media represent a potential context of resource and risk related to peers.

Other potential risks ranging from driving accidents related to texting or talking on cell phones to exposure to questionable online content or social interactions (e.g., pornography, gambling, sexual solicitation) have concerned parents, educators, and lawmakers. Debates continue over whether risks can also accrue from the potentially sensitive or identifying information, including pictures and videos, adolescents post online about themselves and one another, or whether this is a healthy part of adolescents' self-expression and identity exploration. Nearly three-quarters of online youth use a social networking Web site such as Facebook or MySpace ( Lenhart et al. 2010 ). A recent content analysis of teenagers' MySpace pages indicated that 40% of adolescent users restricted access to their pages to identified friends. Yet, 10% of adolescent users who did not restrict access posted their full name, and many more listed their hometowns and the name of their schools, which could be used to identify them ( Hinduja & Patchin 2008 ).

Relevant empirical evidence about these concerns, however, is rare, and the topic is notably absent from the top sociological publishing outlets. Yet, sociologists have much to contribute, as adolescents' use of new media raises important questions about social networks, personal relationships, and identity development. What are the implications of cell phone use or online communication for parental monitoring and peer interactions? Do electronic interactions replace or complement face-to-face interactions? Do online venues provide a safe or dangerous place for identity work? As an example highlighting the potential work to be done, Blais and associates (2008) reported that Internet activity was related to changes in the quality of best friendships and romantic relationships over the course of a year among Canadian adolescents. Specifically, use of instant messaging, which occurs with known others, enhanced these relationships, but visits to chat rooms, which primarily involve communicating with strangers, were associated with worsening relationship quality over time. As these findings suggest, we will need to be specific about the types of media being used when we attempt to understand their implications for today's adolescents.

As is evident from this review, the rich sociological tradition of research on adolescence has continued into the new century. Still, the sociology of adolescence may be at something of a crossroads. The mapping of the human genome and the increasing sophistication of brain imaging are reshaping the scientific agenda in ways that, at first glance, do not tap into the traditional strengths of sociologists. At the same time, the renewed interest in childhood as a critical period—generated by findings that early interventions bring greater long-term returns to investments than those targeting adolescence ( Heckman 2006 )—has shifted attention to earlier stages. Another way of looking at these developments, however, is that they are opportunities. Indeed, sociologists are well-positioned to demonstrate how biological processes cannot be understood absent a firm sociological understanding of the environment in which they play out over time, explain how the long reach of childhood is channeled through adolescence, and identify ways in which adolescence produces turning points and deflections in the life course.

Summary Points

• Research on adolescence has moved in a sociological direction by emphasizing the role of context in shaping adolescents' lives and the link between adolescent development and societal inequality, fueled in part by recent advances in data collection and methodology.
• Early childhood experiences are very important to long-term health, educational, and behavioral trajectories, but adolescent experiences play key roles in this process by magnifying or deflecting children's trajectories.
• Many of the major developmental trajectories of adolescence, including those related to puberty, risky behavior, academic achievement, health, and identity development, reflect a complex interplay of biology, personal agency, and environment.
• Adolescents' navigation of institutional systems, such as school and work, have become increasingly complex and interrelated, with high school coursework more consequential to long-term outcomes in the globalized economy and paid work during adolescence becoming more common and potentially either risky or beneficial for educational attainment depending on motivation, background, and academic competence.
• Adolescents tend to spend less time with parents and other relatives and seek more autonomy while becoming more immersed in expanding peer networks, including romantic networks, but they typically do so while maintaining strong emotional ties to their families.
• Although much of the research on school and neighborhood effects on adolescent behavior has focused on the structural features of these contexts, more attention is being paid to the ways in which they organize peer groups that differ widely in terms of norms, values, and behavioral opportunities, as well as the ways families affect and respond within them.
• Gender, race, social class, and immigration stratify adolescents' lives, with poor and/or minority youth particularly vulnerable in the educational system, through a variety of structural inequalities and interpersonal processes, but immigrant youth often demonstrate a high level of resilience in the face of similar risks.

Acknowledgments

Support for R.C. came from a faculty scholar award from the William T. Grant Foundation, as well as a center grant to the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24 HD042849; PI: Mark Hayward). The authors thank Anna Thornton for her help with this review.

Disclosure Statement : The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

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• Second Opinion

Cognitive Development in the Teen Years

What is cognitive development.

Cognitive development means the growth of a child’s ability to think and reason. This growth happens differently from ages 6 to 12, and from ages 12 to 18.

Children ages 6 to 12 years old develop the ability to think in concrete ways. These are called concrete operations. These things are called concrete because they’re done around objects and events. This includes knowing how to:

Combine (add)

Separate (subtract or divide)

Order (alphabetize and sort)

Transform objects and actions (change things, such as 5 pennies = 1 nickel)

Ages 12 to 18 is called adolescence. Kids and teens in this age group do more complex thinking. This type of thinking is also known as formal logical operations. This includes the ability to:

Do abstract thinking. This means thinking about possibilities.

Reason from known principles. This means forming own new ideas or questions.

Consider many points of view. This means to compare or debate ideas or opinions.

Think about the process of thinking. This means being aware of the act of thought processes.

How cognitive growth happens during the teen years

From ages 12 to 18, children grow in the way they think. They move from concrete thinking to formal logical operations. It’s important to note that:

Each child moves ahead at their own rate in their ability to think in more complex ways.

Each child develops their own view of the world.

Some children may be able to use logical operations in schoolwork long before they can use them for personal problems.

When emotional issues come up, they can cause problems with a child’s ability to think in complex ways.

The ability to consider possibilities and facts may affect decision-making. This can happen in either positive or negative ways.

Types of cognitive growth through the years

A child in early adolescence:

Uses more complex thinking focused on personal decision-making in school and at home

Begins to show use of formal logical operations in schoolwork

Begins to question authority and society's standards

Begins to form and speak his or her own thoughts and views on many topics. You may hear your child talk about which sports or groups he or she prefers, what kinds of personal appearance is attractive, and what parental rules should be changed.

A child in middle adolescence:

Has some experience in using more complex thinking processes

Expands thinking to include more philosophical and futuristic concerns

Often questions more extensively

Often analyzes more extensively

Thinks about and begins to form his or her own code of ethics (for example, What do I think is right?)

Thinks about different possibilities and begins to develop own identity (for example, Who am I? )

Thinks about and begins to systematically consider possible future goals (for example, What do I want? )

Thinks about and begins to make his or her own plans

Begins to think long-term

Uses systematic thinking and begins to influence relationships with others

A child in late adolescence:

Uses complex thinking to focus on less self-centered concepts and personal decision-making

Has increased thoughts about more global concepts, such as justice, history, politics, and patriotism

Often develops idealistic views on specific topics or concerns

May debate and develop intolerance of opposing views

Begins to focus thinking on making career decisions

Begins to focus thinking on their emerging role in adult society

How you can encourage healthy cognitive growth

To help encourage positive and healthy cognitive growth in your teen, you can:

Include him or her in discussions about a variety of topics, issues, and current events.

Encourage your child to share ideas and thoughts with you.

Encourage your teen to think independently and develop his or her own ideas.

Help your child in setting goals.

Challenge him or her to think about possibilities for the future.

Compliment and praise your teen for well-thought-out decisions.

Help him or her in re-evaluating poorly made decisions.

If you have concerns about your child's cognitive development, talk with your child's healthcare provider. 

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• Summary And Conclusion

Summary and Conclusion

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Adolescence is an amazing period of growth spanning the ages of 12-24 years old. Youth enter this developmental stage with the body and mind of a child, and then exit 10-12 years later, with the body and mind of an adult. This article examined the physical, cognitive, emotional, social, moral, and sexual dimensions of adolescent development. While these individual areas of development were discussed separately by necessity, it was emphasized there is a strong inter-relationship among these various aspects of development. Furthermore, it was emphasized that there is a great deal of individual variation within the normal developmental process. Individual youth may reach developmental milestones at ages that are different from averages presented in this article, and yet these youth would still be considered "normal." Caregivers were advised to consult a health care professional if they have concerns about their child's developmental progress in any of these areas.

Physically , adolescents grow to reach their adult height, and their bodies begin to resemble adult bodies in size, shape, and body composition. Moreover, they become capable of sexual reproduction.

, adolescent thinking skills rapidly advance as they enter Piaget's stage of formal operations . Youth are now able to think in abstract terms so that they can conceptualize theoretical ideas, moving beyond the limitations of concrete information. Youth begin analyze problems in a more logical and scientific manner. This ability to think abstractly and analytically simultaneously promotes their social, emotional, and moral development. As their brain continues to develop , youths' capacity for memorization expands as the brain develops more sophisticated methods of organizing information, allowing for more rapid and accurate information storage and subsequent retrieval. However, the brain's frontal lobe is not fully developed until the very end of adolescence. The frontal lobe of the brain enables humans to inhibit primitive sexual or emotional impulses by using rationale thought to override these impulses. The incomplete development of the frontal lobe means that adolescents will continue to struggle to make wise and thoughtful decisions in the presence of powerful emotional, social, or sexual pressures.

Emotionally , adolescents encounter many new experiences that challenge their ability to cope with a broad array of intense emotions. Youth must learn how to handle stressful situations that trigger powerful emotions without harming or hurting themselves, or other people. Once youth have learned to identify their emotions, and the source of their emotional reactions, they must then learn healthy ways to cope with situations that cause strong emotional reactions. When this learning is completed, youth will have developed emotional efficacy ; a landmark skill that enables them to be successful in their future careers, and to enjoy meaningful relationships with others.

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Emotional maturity is closely tied to the knowledge of oneself, and one's values. This self-identity develops and solidifies during adolescence. Erik Erikson and James Marcia both proposed theories of identity development and these theories were reviewed. Despite theoretical differences, both theorists agree some youth will develop a clear set of values and beliefs through experimentation with different identities, and an examination of their values. Other youth will not advance this far. These youth will either continue to question their values; or, they may not examine their values at all. Some youth are so disadvantaged they do not have opportunities to explore values beyond mere survival.

Socially , as youths' need for independence increases, their primary social support shifts away from their families, and toward their peers . Because of the increased importance of peer relationships, youth are especially sensitive to peer pressure (meaning, to conform to the standards of the peer group ). By late adolescence youth will ordinarily re-establish close relationships with their families, provided these relationships were positive to begin with. Youth also create more meaningful and productive relationships with other people outside their circle of family and friends; e.g., bosses, coaches, teachers, co-workers, and other acquaintances. Romantic relationships begin to flourish during this developmental phase . In early adolescence these connections may be of a more flirtatious nature, and may bloom and fade rather quickly. However, by late adolescence, many of these relationships become more stable, mature, and emotionally intimate.

Moral development naturally progresses as mental and emotional maturity improves. Youths' understanding of right and wrong becomes more sophisticated and nuanced. Both Piaget' s and Kohlberg's theories of moral development were reviewed, but Kohlberg's theory has been more strongly supported by the research. According to Kohlberg's theory, some youth will eventually base their moral decisions on a set of ethical principles that surpass existing laws or rules. Other youth will remain primarily concerned with rules, laws, and fairness.

Sexual development was described as a complex merger of physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and moral development. During this time youth solidify their gender identity as masculine, feminine, or transgendered . Youth will also become aware of their sexual orientation which refers to a pattern of attraction to others, not sexual behavior. Youth will begin to realize they are primarily attracted to the opposite gender (straight), the same gender (gay or lesbian), both genders (bisexual), or still uncertain (questioning). During early adolescence most teens become curious about sex, but any sexual behavior is usually limited to masturbation. However, by middle to late adolescence, many teens begin to experiment with various sexual behaviors via masturbation, partners, or both. Because of the brain's incomplete development youth are at risk for making poor or risky decisions regarding their sexuality. Ultimately youth must determine what type of sexual behavior is acceptable to them, and under what circumstances. These decisions are best made in advance of the need to make them.

In conclusion, adolescent youth experience monumental changes in every single aspect of their lives as they make the transition from childhood into adulthood. The purpose of this article was to provide parents and other caregivers the foundational information needed to recognize and to appreciate the normal developmental progression of adolescents. Therefore, this article was primarily descriptive in nature. However, the process of adolescent development can become quite challenging and sometime overwhelming for both youth and their families. The next article in this series will build upon this foundation to provide parents and other caregivers concrete advice and practical solutions to common problems that arise during adolescence. Armed with this information, caregivers will feel more confident and successful as they guide their child through these often confusing and difficult years. 

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• Academic Effects of After-School Programs
• Adolescent Emotional Development
• Adolescent Moral Development
• Adolescent Physical Development
• Adolescent Sexual Development
• Adolescent Social Development
• Allowing Children More Autonomy
• An Overview of Adolescent Development
• Body Piercing
• Bullying in Early Adolescence: The Role of the Peer Group
• Bullying in Schools
• Child & Adolescent Development: Overview
• Child & Adolescent Development: Puberty
• Child Development Overview Summary
• Common Nutritional Challenges for Teenagers: Adolescent Obesity
• Common Nutritional Challenges for Teenagers: Eating Disorders and Unhealthy Dieting
• Computers and Young Children
• Discipline and Guidance: Older Adolescents and Young Adults (18 Years and Older)
• Emotional Self-Efficacy
• Introduction to Puberty
• John Bowlby
• Menstruation, Wet Dreams and Related Subjects
• MET/CBT: Treatment of Adolescent Substance Abuse
• Middle to Late Adolescence (ages 15 to 22): The Age of Romance
• Parental Guidelines to Promote Physical Activity in Teens
• Parenting Teens: Discipline, Love, Rules & Expectations
• Parents and Teenagers: Always Battling?
• Primary Physical Changes Associated With Puberty
• Psychological Testing: Stanford-Binet IQ Test
• Self-Identity and Values
• Skipping A Year: When Retention Is Recommended, What Should Parents Do?
• Social Pressures Influence Mood and Behavior
• Tattoos and Body Piercing
• Teenage Caloric Requirements
• The Development of Adolescent Sexuality
• The Development of Gender Identity
• The Maturing Adolescent Brain
• The Transition to Middle School
• Video Games and Children
• Warning Signs
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder
• Mens Health
• What Is Addiction?
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• What Causes Addiction?
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• ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
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• Depression: Major Depression & Unipolar Varieties
• Eating Disorders
• Childhood Mental Disorders And Illnesses
• Dissociative Disorders
• Impulse Control Disorders
• Internet Addiction And Media Issues
• Intellectual Disabilities
• Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Schizophrenia
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• Tourettes And Other Tic Disorders
• Physical Mental Illness Flipbook
• Suicide Rates Vector Map
• Alzheimers Disease And Other Cognitive Disorders
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
• Colds And Flu
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• Child Development And Parenting: Infants
• Child Development And Parenting: Early Childhood
• Sexuality & Sexual Problems
• Homosexuality & Bisexuality
• Aging & Geriatrics
• Death & Dying
• Physical Development: Motor Development
• Vygotsky's Social Developmental Emphasis
• Bullying & Peer Abuse
• Family And Relationship Issues
• Grief And Bereavement

Analysis of Childhood and Adolescent Development

Introduction.

Study of child and adolescent development can help in a variety of ways. This includes understanding the health implications affecting these categories and subsequent development of appropriate programs to cater for their health. In addition, it can help the development of appropriate education curriculum and child care programs that goes hand in hand with the knowledge on their development. For instance, constructivist theory of learning was developed on the basis of the Piaget writings (Huitt, 2003). The knowledge can also aid the development of appropriate parenting skills and related advisory programs.

Research has dwelled on the exploration of individual development and it seems that while some agree that there are various stages of development where each stage is characterized by fair stability, others hold the view that individual development takes place in a smooth and continuous form. The proponents of the idea that children are smoothly and continuously developing posit that children add new skills and grow steadily and at uniform speed-physical, emotional, social and psychologically. Proponents of the idea that children grow in stages view that children develop capabilities and experiences specific to certain ages. Despite these ideas, there is reason to believe that children develop certain capabilities at certain predictable times.

Various theories have been developed relating to childhood development. Such include the psychosexual stage theory by Freud, psychosocial stage theory developed by Erikson and cognitive development theory by Piaget among others. Apart from positing that all children underwent various phases in the sexual development (where gratification is derived from various parts of the body), Freud came up with three characteristics of individuals, the Id, Ego and the Super-Ego. The latter three characterized the conscious and unconscious development aspects of the child. The Id described the child urge for gratification, which is also selfish, unconscious and instinctual. The Ego represented the realistic and possible urge for gratification, while the Super-ego represented the values and rules acquired from outside world. The Id represented unconscious and immediate urge for gratification, which would be fought by the Super-ego in conjunction with the Ego.

A child develops a state of consciousness which would fight with the concepts of what is right and what is wrong. The responsibility of the development of this state was attached to the Super-ego (Oswalt, 2008).

Erikson developed the psychosocial theory which postulates that there are various psychosocial stages occurring in chronological order, each experienced at specific time of life, in which people mentally and psychologically acquired beliefs and became adjusted to their environments. These stages for example, included trust versus mistrust which is encountered when children are born to when they are about 1 year. Other stages focus on development of shame, doubt, guilt, inferiority, intimacy, isolation, confusion, integrity and despair (Oswalt, 2008).

Childhood and Adolescence Development: Impact of the Interaction of cognitive, physical, and psychosocial

Research has identified that although every child is special in the way they develop, there are general patterns followed by all children as they grow from day 1. Research indicates that all children experience growth in various aspects such as social, cognitive, emotional and physical development. These aspects take place at the same time during various phases, meaning that at any specific stage, children are growing socially, psychologically and emotionally at a go. As they develop, children grow in size and weight. At puberty, children experience a physical change.

Children experience various physical exercises as they grow, including the ability to craw, walk and craw, among others. Psychological development is characterized by the taking in and processing of information as they grow. Children learn how to remember important things, solve problems, and respond to the information rendered to them by the environment. The physical activities in children appear to be influenced by brain development. Impaired brain development as a result of biological factors may stimulate delayed physical and cognitive development in both children and adolescents.

According to Piaget, movement from one cognitive development stage to the next was facilitated or influenced by biological development. This has been supported by other research (Renner, et al., 1976) for various stages of development such as sensorimotor and preoperational stages. Kuhn, Langer, Kohlberg & Haan (1977) reveal that some adolescents may not move to next stages of formal operations cognitive development as they mature biologically (cited in Huitt, 2003). In order to attain the formal operations stage, most adolescents will require specific environments even when maturation establishes a basis for this development.

Social and emotional growth and development is characterized by development of skills for interacting with others, forming friends, playing, handling and recognizing enemies, as well as working with others. Social development also is characterized by children identifying their emotions and feelings, as well as those feelings and emotions displayed or possessed by others. Emotional development is characterized by recognizing different types of emotions and developing skills to handle these emotions.

Children also learn what is wrong and what is right as they grow up, and as a result, they shape their identity and morality. In addition, children also acquire a sense of self-esteem as they go through the various stages of development. Sexual development is characterized by the knowledge of their sexual and gender identity, knowledge of sexual working of the body, responding to sexual urge, and balancing between sexual needs and appropriate behavior (Oswalt, 2008).

Adolescence development is a stage which requires support of the growing young adults, from families and other social communities. Like childhood development, people can engage in risky behavior at their adolescence, resulting in distorted adolescence and adulthood. Adolescence is where people experience final stages of brain development, usually from 20 years and completing at 25 years of age. Brain maturity completes with the development of prefrontal cortex.

This part of brain is known to govern the superior activities of reasoning, controlling impulses, as well as guiding advanced thought. It is likely that adolescents will engage in risky behavior as they respond to changes in their physical, emotional and social aspects. Various mental and other functions are affected as a result of changing of brain neurotransmitters at adolescent. For instance, problem-solving capabilities, concentration and memory may be affected as a result of changes being realized on the dopamine, a brain neurotransmitter. Adolescents will likely involve themselves in high risky behavior and stimulation in such of the excitement levels they experienced at childhood, because at adolescents, they are no longer thrilled by things which thrilled them at childhood.

During the adolescent stage, people are likely to rely on emotional parts of their brains for decision making. This is because they have not yet fully acquired a developed frontal region of the brain (Coalition for Juvenile Justice, n.d.).

Age 0-2 years

This stage is referred to as infancy. Development is signaled by growth in size and weight, although more is happening in the psychological, emotional and cognitive aspects of growth. Physical development is characterized by developing the abilities to crawl, walk and run. The physical development is associated with the development of sensory and mental aspects.

This stage was referred to as the Sensorimotor by Piaget. During this stage, the child interacts with its environment using its senses and learns about the same environment. Children will at this stage learn to speak, make movements and make sense out of things. They can receive and respond to stimuli according to the senses, hence, they are able to respond to pain, touch, hearing, feel hungry, and respond to soothing. It appears that this reception and respond to stimuli is mostly unconscious. The experience gained through the response to the environment through the senses plays an important role to learning about the environment. The sense of seeing is not well developed in children like other senses. Children have a visual acuity of 20/600 and see far objects as dark and shadowy (Oswalt, 2008).

They are able to differentiate their mother’s breast milk and milk from a different source. They can differentiate between bitter, sour and sweet things, and prefer sweet things at birth. At between 1-6 months, children start having a taste for saltier things and eat solid food. They develop individual preferences for tastes latter on through experience of different foods.

Piaget explored into the subject on how children develop and think, and his work has remained influential for research and practice (see also Donaldson, 1984; Satterly, 1987; and Wood, 1998). According to Piaget, children use reflex at the age of 0-1 months and have limited cognitive ability (CliffNotes, 2011). During 1-4 months of age, children engage in behaviors which have specific results. Children are likely to normally repeat these behaviors in order to acquire similar results, and at 4-8 months, they are likely to explore how the environment is impacted by their behaviors. Behaviors that are purposive and goal-directed are portrayed at age 8-12 months of age.

Children recognize that there is existence of out-of-site objects as they try to search hidden objects at ‘object permanence’ stage (from about 9 months of age). Cause-and-effect relationships begin at about 12-18 months (Atherton, 2011). Representational thought begin to appear at 18-24 months of age as toddlers start internalization of objects. At this stage, it is possible to call specific items by specific names (CliffNotes, 2011). Children at this age are likely to adapt and assimilate their behavior to situational requirements.

According to Erikson’s psychosocial stage model, children at this age learn to trust those who provide for all their basic needs. However, they have the ability to develop mistrust for their caregivers and those around them. They learn to trust those who love and care for them. This is an important aspect of child development because it determines how a child develops a positive self-image, develops love for others as well as develops strong relationships with others.

Children develop mistrust if they are not well provided for at this stage. It is this aspect which would make them learns to question their caregivers and learn that other people will not always be there to take care of their needs (Oswalt, 2008). This stage is characterized by overdependence to parents and care givers. This is a difference between abnormal and normal child development at this stage. Children are therefore, also likely to develop antisocial behaviors due to mistrust and poor self-image.

At infancy, children interact with their parents and cope with contact of the mother and nature. They are able to internalize the type of image their mother displays, for example; either good or bad while having an eye contact with their mother. In addition, abnormal development may spur damaged relationships with others. At latter stages, problems with bondage and separation are likely to stir borderline personality disorder where children hate themselves and others too (CliffNotes, 2011). Children are able to form the difference between self and object while they are adjusting to separation and loss. Normal development helps the child accept good and bad sides of the mother and that of itself too. Abnormal development means they are not able to accept between good and bad. In addition, they are incapable of separating concept of good self or a bad mother.

Children at this age are acquiring receptive language, and their brain development determines their physical activities. By the end of the first year of age, children are uttering single words. Psychologically, children develop traits and states from birth. Their response to environment and physical activity is partly influenced by this personal development. Sigmund posited that infants are egocentric at this age.

According to the psychosexual stage theory by Freud, children at this age would focus on pleasures derived from sucking and biting. Children would also be expected to develop unconscious and instinctual urges for gratification. Such gratification desire would not only be selfish in nature, but also immediate (Oswalt, 2008). Children at this age have not learned any rules and respond unconsciously to the environmental stimuli.

At abnormal development, children are likely to adopt various abnormal behaviors during the oral stage, which are centered on the mouth. Dfixation behaviors are likely to result at the oral phase when too much stimulation occurs at the mouth. These behaviors are likely to be indicated at adulthood, e.g. smoking, overeating and drinking.

11-15 years

Teenage development is characterized by physical changes in appearance as well as cognitive, emotional and psychological changes. At 12, children are at their genital stage posited by Freud. Puberty is triggered by female and male hormones. At puberty, children are experiencing the beginning of sexual maturity. Girls and boys are ready for sexual reproduction at the end of the stage, at normal development, while this does not happen for abnormal development. Physically, the experience development of their body as a result of production of hormones (primary and secondary sex characteristics fro example, develop).

Timing of puberty is influenced by health, genetic and environment factors. Male and female hormones are produced. Physically, the group realizes an increase in weight and height. Other physical characteristics include growth of hips, breasts becoming larger and increasing size of uterus in girls, while for boys, deepening of voice, enlargement of sexual organs, broadening of shoulders, and growth of hair in armpits is realized. Menstruation also begins at this age for girls. Normal and abnormal development is likely to be differentiated by biological ability/inability to produce the responsible hormones, for instance.

At this age, children are experiencing to think abstractly and deductively as compared to concrete thinking at childhood. They are able to test hypothesis, adjust to problems, look out for answers, and come up with conclusions about matters. Brain development influences their physical activity and life experimentations. They are able to acquire lessons for critical reasoning skills as evidenced at school. They are capable of developing componential, experiential and contextual intelligence. Normal development means that they are able to acquire these skills successfully, while problems may result in the way they process information and apply this information to solve various problems. The latter case result to abnormal development.

Psychologically, the adolescents are prepared to work and love as they approach maturity. Individuality is developed at this stage, though problems may result with damaged self identity, according to Erikson). They learn to identify career, college and parties, and shaping a personal role in the society. Their physical aggression against authority is depicted by emotional and sexual fluctuations as a result of hormonal changes. They are able to define the boundaries of existing relationships. Normal development means that they must be capable of managing these emotions and relationships. Abnormal development means they become aggressive and spur conflicts at home and school. Adolescents at this stage feel they need independence from parents and to become more responsible. During this stage, children continue with sexual orientation, and conflicts may continue effects of homosexuality behavior begun in early childhood stages. Adolescents are looking for gratification of their desires at this age and may form short-term relationships. Abnormal development occurs as a result of low self-esteem, insecurity, and hostility, which may result to promiscuity at adolescent. This behavior may also be caused by dependence and immaturity. Sexual gratification is normally through petting and masturbation rather than sexual intercourse. Irresponsible behavior means that they may acquire unplanned pregnancies and sexually acquired diseases through sexual intercourses (CliffNotes, 2011).

Atherton, S. (2011). Learning and teaching: Piaget’s developmental theory. Web.

CliffNotes. (2011). Cognitive development: Age 0-2. 2011. CliffNotes. Web.

Coalition for Juvenile Justice. (n.d.). Adolescent brain development & juvenile justice fact. Coalition for Juvenile Justice. Web.

Donaldson, M. (1984). Children’s minds . London: Fontana.

Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2003). Piaget’s theory of cognitive development .

Kuhn, D., Langer, J., Kohlberg, L., & Haan, N. S. (1977). The development of formal operations. in logical and moral judgment. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 95 , 97-188.

Oswalt, A. (2008). Child & adolescent development: Overview. Web.

Renner, J., Stafford, D., Lawson, A., McKinnon, J., Friot, E., & Kellogg, D. (1976). Research, teaching, and learning with the Piaget model . Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Satterly, D. (1987). Piaget and Education. In R. Gregory. (Ed.), The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wood, D. (1998). How Children Think and Learn (2nd edition). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

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3 Life Span Development: Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood

Cindy L. Juntunen, Department of Counseling Psychology and Community Services, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND

Stephanie San Miguel Bauman, Department of Psychology, Washington State University, Tri-Cities, WA

• Published: 21 November 2012
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This chapter examines human development in the context of multiple identities. It begins with an exploration of the complexity of human development through the lens of ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), as augmented by multicultural and feminist psychology (Gilligan, 1982, 1996; Hurtado, 2010; Neville & Mobley, 2001; Yakushko, Davidson, & Williams, 2009). The roles of resilience and empowerment in development are then presented in the context of social identities. The remainder of the chapter explores important developmental concerns across the life span, including physical, emotional, social, and cognitive and academic/vocational development. Across each of these life domains, the specific contributions of feminist multicultural counseling psychology perspectives are identified, with an emphasis on fostering positive development throughout the life span.

Human development is often conceptualized as a relatively orderly and predictable progression through stages of growth and change. Major developmental theorists, including Piaget (1926), Erikson (1964), and Kohlberg (1963), have addressed the ways in which people develop cognitively, socially, and morally. These “classic” theories do not explicitly address the role of culture or gender, but instead were generalized to women and other cultures from the experience of primarily White and male humans. Feminist psychologists, including Carol Gilligan (1982) and the scholars at the Stone Center (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, & Surrey, 1991 ), challenged these generalizations and noted the qualitatively different importance of relationship and interpersonal connection in the development of women and girls. In turn, early feminist psychology has been criticized as being primarily Eurocentric and was subsequently challenged by scholars focusing on the implications of multiple identities and the unique experiences of girls and women of color (Landrine, 1995 ; Russo & Landrine, 2010 ).

Both feminist and multicultural psychology scholars have pointed out significant limitations in the classic developmental theories. Despite their origin in the experience of White males, developmental theories do provide an important basis for understanding human development from a feminist multicultural perspective. For example, although it is criticized for being both andro- and ethnocentric, the biopsychosocial framework proposed by Erikson (1964) provides a significant foundation for most postmodern and feminist perspectives on development because it envisions development as a process that is lifelong and shaped by an individual’s participation in multiple social relationships (Sorell & Montgomery, 2001 ). However, early theories did little to integrate or address the development of social identity, which refers to the sense of being emotionally connected to a socially and politically identified group (Hurtado, 2010 ). Such social identities evolve in a meaningful sociopolitical context, or environment, in which the individual develops.

Many recent developmental theories attend more closely to sociocontextual factors, emphasizing the relational nature of the interaction between individual and environment (Lerner, 2002 , 2006 ); the importance of understanding development in the context of environmental factors (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006 ); and the interaction of culture, individual perceptions, and social policy on development (Spencer, 2006 ). In fact, the emphasis on the interaction of the individual and his or her social context has become a hallmark of developmental research over the last 25 years (Lerner & Steinberg, 2009 a). This increasing emphasis on social context has contributed to “understanding how development, at any point across the life span, involves the relations of diverse and active individuals and diverse, active, and multitiered ecologies” (Lerner & Steinberg, 2009 b, p. 9).

When human development is conceptualized as a function of person-context interaction, the groundwork is laid to examine the influence of social systems on individual development, as well as the impact of the individual on social systems. The feminist multicultural perspective, which utilizes the analysis and critique of social hierarchies and norms, allows a deeper understanding of the impact of social identity and social context. Specifically, feminist multicultural theory directly and fundamentally considers the intersectionality (Hurtado, 2010 ) of multiple identities in the development of a given individual.

In this chapter, we examine human development in the context of multiple identities. We begin with an exploration of the complexity of human development through the lens of ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1977 ; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006 ), building on expansions by multicultural counseling psychology (Neville & Mobley, 2001 ) and feminist psychology (Yakushko, Davidson, & Williams, 2009 ). (See Ancis and Davidson, chapter 4 of this volume, for additional discussion of the ecological model.) We then discuss the role of resilience and empowerment in development in the context of social identities. In the remainder of the chapter, we explore important developmental concerns across the life span, including physical, emotional, social, and cognitive and academic/vocational development. Across each of these life domains, we identify the specific contributions of feminist multicultural counseling psychology perspectives, with an emphasis on fostering positive development throughout the life span.

Development in the Context of Multiple Identities

Richard Lerner (2006) has argued that early developmental psychology theories, which assumed uniform and permanent change, viewed diversity factors as sources of deviation or deficit from optimal development. In contrast, contemporary developmental science is a multidisciplinary area of study that significantly extends early theories of developmental psychology. Importantly, contemporary theories embrace a systems framework with an appreciation for diversity, both intra-individual change and inter-individual differences, in the development process. Diversity is also recognized as a key part of the systems in which change occurs (Lerner, 2006 ).

Models within counseling psychology, specifically feminist and multicultural models, expand on this appreciation of diversity by articulating the ways in which individuals develop social identities. Discussed more thoroughly in a later chapter (Fischer and DeBord, chapter 5 of this volume), social identity development models provide important insights into the process by which people come to understand themselves in the context of their ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, social class, and other identities. Human development is made more complex by the recognition that social identities are fluid and evolve at least partially independently of each other, at different times, as individuals encounter new situations across different environments. This is recognized in several locational feminisms (Enns, 2010 ) as “acknowledge[ing] the messy and complex nature of constructing healthy identities (p. 336).” In the framework of ecological systems theory, “development is a function of forces emanating from multiple settings and from the relations among these settings” (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006 , p. 817).

Bronfenbrenner (1977, 1993) conceptualized an ecological system consisting of four major subsystems, which interact to influence human development. These subsystems include (a) the microsystem, which consists of the interpersonal interactions that occur in a given setting such as home, school, work, or social group; (b) the mesosystem, in which two or more microsystem environments interact, such as the relationship between work and home; (c) the exosystem, which consists of social structures and linkages that indirectly impact individuals, such as community resources or neighborhood characteristics; and (d) the macrosystem, which is most distal from the individual and includes norms and values of the larger society.

Bronfenbrenner’s model has been adapted to specifically address multicultural counseling psychology processes (Neville & Mobley, 2001 ). Although the authors were focusing on counseling and training in their proposal of the Ecological Model of Multicultural Counseling Psychology Processes (EMMCPP), the constructs they used are readily adaptable to examining human development from a perspective in which culture is an integral influence on human behavior. Neville and Mobley also incorporated the individual as a system within the ecological framework, resulting in five interacting systems that influence human development.

The complexity of human identity has been explored in the Identity Salience Model (ISM; Yakushko, Davidson, & Williams, 2009 ), which is also anchored in Bronfenbrenner’s model of development. Responding to the criticism that both multiculturalism and feminism have been marginalized in psychology because of their lack of intersectionality (Silverstein, 2006 ), Yakushko and colleagues applied ecological theory to the psychotherapy process, explicitly identifiying the ways in which multiple identities might have greater or less salience in the psychotherapy relationship. The ISM also provides promising application for research and theory development beyond psychotherapy (Allen, 2010 ). Both the ISM and EMMCPP provide a clear link between ecological development theory, counseling psychology tenets, feminism, and multiculturalism. Together, these ideas support a comprehensive framework for understanding the complexity of human development across multiple domains and identities.

Illustrative Case Example: Mikayla

Within the core system of the individual exist multiple social identities, each of which develop and change at different points in time. Imagine the case of Mikayla, a biracial female of divorced parents, currently living with her father and his male partner. Mikayla’s mother is Latina and her father and stepfather are both White, of European descent. Mikayla has no known physical or mental disabilities. She and all of her parents identify as Catholic, and they live in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Mikayla’s family is considered “well-to-do” by community standards, although her parents do not flaunt their wealth. As she grows into adolescence and young adulthood, Mikayla dates both males and females, and eventually identifies as bisexual.

Mikayla’s earliest identity may be defined primarily by genetic and heritability factors, such as sex, race, and temperament. However, as she grows and has more social interactions, Mikayla’s understanding of her own identity will likely change numerous times. Given the diversity of her family, she may have some understanding of her social identities from a fairly young age, but that cannot be assumed. Nor will these identities stay constant, as she will continuously be influencing and influenced by her social environment. Her identity may change as she encounters a sexist event in middle school (microsystem-individual interaction); might evolve again as she becomes aware of the impact of her family’s social class on the way in which teachers respond to her in high school (mesosystem-microsystem-individual interaction); may again change as a young adult when she begins to question the role of sexual orientation and laws about same-sex marriage in her selection of a life partner (exosystem-individual interaction); and may be altered when a woman is elected president of the United States or when the Catholic Church votes to ordain gay priests (macrosystem). Each of these potential system interactions may be enacted in different ways at different points of the life span, as Mikayla becomes a member of the workforce, becomes a parent or chooses not to do so, accesses the health care system, moves out of the workforce, and potentially enters a community living environment as an older adult.

In each of these, and myriad other instances, Mikayla’s development is significantly influenced by the ecological systems in which she lives. However, these environments also influence and are influenced by her social identities, which are numerous and vary in salience depending on the situation at hand (Yakushko et al., 2009 ). The reality of these multiple identities can serve as an exemplar of three core concepts of multicultural feminist theory—intersectionality, self-reflexivity, and accountability (Hurtado, 2010 ).

The intersection of Mikayla’s multiple identities strongly influences her process of development, even though a specific aspect of her identity may be more salient at a given moment, such as gender identity in the face of a sexist event. Her understanding of herself in new situations is constantly informed by her recognition (or lack of recognition) of other social identities. Given that these intersecting identities may be at various levels of awareness for Mikayla, this process can produce stress as well as renewed understanding, and the internal conflicts that emerge can either inhibit or promote development. For example, Mikayla’s resiliency, or the ability to foster resiliency through empowerment, can provide her with the opportunity to thrive or flourish, following such challenges (O’Leary & Bhaju, 2006 ).

In general, self-reflexivity refers to having an image or representation of one’s self. Through a feminist multicultural lens, this includes understanding one’s self in the context of a social structure that includes oppression and privilege (Hurtado, 2010 ). It is important to attend to the reality that individuals are likely to experience social locations in which they both experience oppression and contribute to oppression. Mikayla may experience gender oppression in the context of a sexist or null (Betz, 1989 ) environment, and may simultaneously be a member of the dominant group if she “passes” as White, is assumed to be heterosexual, or is able to afford a higher education. As Mikayla develops, self-reflexivity will help her become increasingly aware of the system of privilege and oppression, as well as her own position as privileged or oppressed, or both.

Further, Mikayla is impacted by and is impacting the social environment in which she lives, learns, works, and relates to others. As a member of social groups, she becomes accountable to the well-being of others, as well as herself. “Accountability assumes that the self is not constituted in the individual; rather it is encased in a body that is socially connected” (Hurtado, 2010 , p. 36). As she recognizes her own place in the social environment, and the relationship between community well-being and her own well-being, Mikayla may become empowered to contribute to social change. For example, Mikayla may become more aware and intolerant of homophobia on a national level (exosystem and macrosystem), and more specifically to the lack of response by high school administration and teachers when homophobic slurs are made (microsystem). This awareness could then lead to Mikayla and her father’s efforts to establish a gay student association in her high school (individual-microsystem-exosystem interaction).

In this thumbnail sketch of a case example, only a small number of Mikayla’s possible identities are acknowledged, and the complexity of her environment is only briefly realized. Yet even within this simplistic scenario, the factors that can either inhibit or promote Mikayla’s development are numerous. As pointed out by Lerner (2006), traditional theories of development may have pointed to several sources of risk in Mikayla’s development related to factors of social identity: her biracial identity, her father’s sexual orientation, her gender, and her religious identity may all have been viewed as potential contributors to Mikayla deviating from successful human development. In contrast, a multicultural feminist perspective on Mikayla’s developmental context highlights the potential for strengths to emerge from these same factors, and particularly highlights the value of empowerment and resilience as Mikayla encounters challenges in her ecological system.

Resilience and Empowerment

The variability of social contexts and the complexity inherent in intersectional identities present numerous sources of both strain and strength across the life span. Inevitably, individuals encounter stressors and sources of adversity that have the potential to enhance or impair human development. Whether or not an individual is able to respond effectively to such stressors is often attributed to resiliency, as a personality trait, or resilience, the process of adapting to adverse situations (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000 ). Enhancing the individual’s ability to respond to adversity can be achieved through feminist empowerment-focused interventions (O’Leary & Bhaju, 2006 ). Both resilience and empowerment are consistent with the strengths-based, contextually informed, life span development approach of counseling psychology, as exemplified by the work of the Society of Counseling Psychology Section for the Advancement of Women (Whalen, Fowler-Lese, Barber, Williams, Judge, Nilsson, & Shibazaki, 2004 ).

The construct of resilience began to receive serious attention in the psychological literature several decades ago, primarily in its application to understanding positive and negative outcomes among groups of at-risk children (Garmezy, 1993 ; Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990 ; Rutter, 1987 ). Several models of resilience have been proposed, varying in terms of the relationship between stressors and adaptation. The compensatory model (Garmezy, Masten, & Tellegen, 1984 ) proposes that compensatory factors (which can take many forms, such as positive attitude, spiritual beliefs, or problem-solving approach to barriers) neutralize the potential negative impact of stressors. In contrast, the challenge model views moderate stressors as potentially enhancing adaptation (Garmezy et al., 1984 ) as the individual learns from successfully meeting the challenge. The protective factor model (Garmezy et al., 1984 ) proposes that protective factors can moderate the influence of risk factors to reduce the likelihood of a negative outcome. The reserve capacity model (Gallo & Matthews, 2003 ) proposes that sociocultural and contextual factors will influence the availability or amount of resources (be they tangible, interpersonal, intrapersonal, or culture-specific) available to either promote or protect health in the face of adversity.

Similarities across these models are apparent when one considers the functions of resilience, which cut across models. These functions, as identified by Rutter (1987), include reducing the impact of risk factors; reducing negative chain reactions; helping to establish and maintain self-identity and self-efficacy; and enhancing opportunities. Through these functions, resilience has significant influence on the interaction of subsystems within the ecological system of human development.

The existence of several models of resilience does highlight an ongoing challenge in clearly defining the term. Resilience as a psychological construct is perhaps most widely understood as a “dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity” (Luthar et al., 2000 , p. 543). The explicit inclusion of contextual factors in this definition provides several opportunities for intersection with feminist multicultural perspectives, as does the implicit rejection of pathological and deficit models (O’Leary & Bhaju, 2006 ). Clauss-Ehlers (2008) noted that “significant differences in the experience of childhood stressors when socioeconomic variables are considered further suggests that overcoming adversity (i.e., resilience) needs to move beyond a mere focus on individual traits to incorporate the ecological context” (p. 209). Drawing from sociology and ecology, as well as cross-cultural psychology, Ungar (2010) recently defined resilience as “the capacity of individuals to access resources that enhance their well-being and the capacity of their physical and social ecologies to make those resources available in meaningful ways” (p. 6). With this expansion, Ungar clearly locates resilience in the interaction of the individual, the exosystem of community, and potentially the macrosystem of the larger society.

Resilience in a Feminist Multicultural Framework

Until quite recently, studies of the development of children in racial/ethnic minority groups tended to focus on negative outcomes and deficiency models (Coll et al., 1996 ). Consistent with the increasing attention to diversity among developmental theories in general (Lerner & Sternberg, 2009 b), current research in resiliency also attends more closely to specific diversity factors as they relate to positive outcomes. The specific contributions of culture to the development of resilience and coping have been explored in a model of cultural resilience developed through the work of Clauss-Ehlers (2003, 2004, 2008) and her colleagues (Clauss-Ehlers, Yang, & Chen, 2006 ). Cultural resilience includes “a developmental trajectory within a cultural matrix composed of norms, family structure, and peer relationships” (Clauss-Ehlers, 2008 , p. 198).

Cultural resilience is supported by empirical evidence that cultural resources, including cultural beliefs, family ties, and social support, are related to resilience among Latino youth (Clauss-Ehlers & Levi, 2002 ) and adults (Gallo, Penedo, de los Monteros, & Arguelles, 2009 ), African American girls (Belgrave, Chase-Vaughn, Gray, Addison, & Cherry, 2000 ), and culturally diverse college women (Clauss-Ehlers et al., 2006 ). Among diverse college women, Clauss-Ehlers and colleagues (2006) found that a strong engagement with ethnic and gender identity predicted greater resilience in response to stressors, including those related to racial or gender discrimination. In another diverse sample of college women, Clauss-Ehlers (2008) found that sociocultural support, including specific cultural traditions and attributes, was predictive of adaptive coping (or resilience).

The cultural resilience model articulated in developmental psychology is congruent with a counseling psychology emphasis on strengths-based counseling, which assumes, among several other key propositions, that (a) strength is the outcome of a process that includes struggle with adversity; (b) all strengths are based in culture; and (c) that race, class, and gender are integral parts of all experience, including counseling interactions (Smith, 2006 ). Specifically, Smith has posited that “cross-cultural counseling should focus on clients’ cultural and individual strengths rather than on the victimizing effects of racial or ethnic discrimination” (p. 17). In order to meet this goal, Smith proposes ten steps to strengths-based counseling, which include instilling hope, using a solution-oriented framework, empowering clients, and building resilience.

This emphasis on strengths is not intended to overlook the realities of social disparity in the larger cultural context. As Vera and Shin (2006) noted in their response to Smith, health disparities and differences in academic and vocational achievement that disadvantage lower-income people of color may well be due to social context. The authors go on to note that several social toxins, including poverty, limited adult supervision, excessive exposure to television, and limited connection to community, need to be addressed at the environmental, rather than individual, level. They suggest that counseling psychologists can take a more active stand in influencing public policy and advocating for families. Engaging in community outreach and prevention strategies, as well as educating families so that they can advocate for themselves, are all ways of influencing the exo-, meso- and metasystems in which children and families develop. This call to action echoes Bauman (2002), who pointed out the need to intervene at the levels of the environment, the community, the school, and the family in order to foster resilience in children.

While Smith (2006), Vera and Shin (2006), and Bauman (2002) focus their interventions on different levels of the ecological system, their strategies share a common focus on the interaction of the individual with his or her sociopolitical experience. All of them point to the need for counseling psychologists to engage with the larger political and ecological experience of clients, and all describe strategies that empower the client, be that an individual, a family, or a community, to make positive changes.

Empowerment

Empowerment is a key principle of feminist therapeutic approaches, and it plays an important role in the feminist multicultural framework (Cattaneo & Chapman, 2010 ). It is deeply rooted in social justice efforts, as reflected in McWhirter’s 1991 definition:

The process by which people, organizations or groups who are powerless (a) become aware of the power dynamics at work in their life context, (b) develop the skills and capacity for gaining some reasonable control over their lives, (c) exercise this control without infringing upon the rights of others and (d) support the empowerment of others in their community. (p. 224)

As a therapeutic intervention, empowerment involves helping the individual develop a sense of control over his or her own thoughts, behavior, feelings, and development (Worell & Remer, 2003 ). Empowerment interventions provide a route to resilience and eventual positive outcomes for individuals who do not inherently identify or utilize the resources that are available to them. Specifically, if an individual who encounters adversity does not know how to access resources to respond to that adversity, empowerment therapy provides interventions to help the individual both recognize and obtain the necessary resources to respond, be they internal or external. Ultimately, the use of empowerment interventions are expected to lead to overcoming adversity, developing resilience, and thriving through positive adaptation (O’Leary & Bhaju, 2006 ).

“Empowerment” is a popular term that has only recently been systematically located in a model and defined as a complex process by Cattaneo and Chapman (2010), who define empowerment as:

an iterative process in which a person who lacks power sets a personally meaningful goal oriented toward increasing power, takes action toward that goal, and observes and reflects on the impact of this action, drawing on his or her evolving self-efficacy, knowledge and competence related to the goal. Social context influences all sex process components and the links among them. (p. 647)

A full exploration of this complex definition is beyond the scope of this chapter. However, several key components of this definition resonate with the feminist multicultural perspective and will be relevant throughout the exploration of developmental stages. Of particular importance is the emphasis on recognizing the impact of action taken, which implies that there is change in the individual’s social influence as well as intrapsychic change (Cattaneo & Chapman). Further, the social context is explicitly acknowledged as influencing the presence of and access to power. Finally, the emphasis on taking action, recognizing the impact of that action, and drawing on self-efficacy to move forward are all relevant to the process of human change and development, and are inherently part of the growth of individuals from infancy to older adulthood.

Childhood and Adolescence

One way to tell the story of a life consists of using a life span development approach and tracing developmental connections from infancy through childhood and adolescence to adulthood (Miller, 2006 ). Thus, to understand child and adolescent development from a feminist multicultural perspective, Erikson’s (1964) stages of psychosocial development provide a helpful starting point. Sorell and Montgomery (2001) explain, “Erikson proposed that people know who they are through participation in particularized sociohistorical contexts, and the ways in which self-definitions are composed vary across the life span as bodies grow and age and social opportunities, expectations, and responsibilities grow and change” (p. 102). In each of Erikson’s stages, the individual faces a particular “crisis” or developmental task. These crises or developmental tasks come to the forefront because of not only changing characteristics of the person, such as biological maturation or deterioration and advancing or declining cognitive skills, but also changing attitudes, behaviors, and expectations of others. For school-age children, these developmental tasks include building a sense of industry as a precursor to a sense of competence. For adolescents, Erikson’s primary developmental task is developing a sense of identity. Notably, Erikson’s lack of focus on the role of relationships in earlier development has been challenged by Carol Gilligan (1982) and other psychologists who emphasize the centrality of the capacity and desire for relationships to women’s development and human development in general (Impett, Sorsoli, Schooler, Henson, & Tolman, 2008 ).

As previously mentioned, a feminist multicultural perspective draws on the foundation provided by Erikson’s life span development approach yet also considers sociocultural factors and the interaction between the individual and the environment. For children and adolescents, the transactional nature of multiple systems undoubtedly affects development (Masten, 2003 ). Ecological models like Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) take into account that youth are nested in families, and families are nested in communities and other systems (Wyche, 2006 ). Dire economic circumstances, political chaos, or a restricted range of beliefs, roles, and activities may adversely impact development and the opportunity to develop a personal sense of identity (Sorell & Montgomery, 2001 ). In contrast, families, schools, and communities characterized by caring and support, high expectations, and members’ active involvement are protective factors for children. Benard (1991) asserts, “It is only at this intersystem level—and only through intersystem collaboration within our communities—that we can build a broad enough, intense enough network of protection for all children and families” (pp. 19–20).

Physical Development

Many noteworthy physical changes occur during childhood and adolescence. From preschool to school years, improvements in gross motor coordination appear. These changes are followed by refinement in fine motor development and eye-hand coordination (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). With adolescence comes puberty, the process of sexual maturation, as well as a growth spurt, a rapid increase in size. Puberty takes an average of three to four years to complete. The dramatic physical changes in adolescence tend to begin and end about two years earlier for girls than for boys. There is, however, wide variation among individuals. For example, puberty can happen in as little as 18 months for some girls or can take up to five years for other girls (Piran & Ross, 2006 ).

By adolescence, some areas of the brain, such as those dealing with motor control and eye-hand coordination, are well-developed. However, other areas, including those in the highest regions of the brain, continue to grow during puberty. Consequently, even when much of the adolescent body has matured into an adult form, the adolescent brain functions differently from an adult brain. Skills like organizing ideas, devising strategies, and managing impulses are not fully developed because the frontal lobes, more specifically the prefrontal cortex, are not fully formed (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ).

During adolescence, it is crucial to promote optimal physical development by way of diet, exercise, and social coping skills. It is equally important to prevent risk behaviors, including drug use, unprotected sex, and violence (Abreu & Newcomb, 2002 ). Given the timing of adolescence of girls relative to boys, girls are more likely than boys to simultaneously face the physical changes and the transition to middle school or junior high (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). In addition, it can be challenging for girls to go through puberty due to adverse social forces such as sexual harassment, dating violence, objectification of women’s bodies, prejudicial treatment, and discrimination (Piran & Ross, 2006 ). Indeed, while physical appearance is a concern for both adolescent males and females, the standards for women are relatively more strict, so girls may risk more sanctions for violations (Travis, 2006 ).

It is important to note that the resources necessary for healthy physical development are not equally accessible to all children and families. For example, correlates of poverty in children include inefficient cardiovascular functioning (Evans & Kim, 2007 ), decreased likelihood of receiving childhood immunization vaccinations (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007), and increased likelihood of obesity (Chen & Escarce, 2010 ). Families with limited access to resources are less likely to be able to afford healthy, organic, or even lean foods, and more likely to have diets that include heavily processed foods. Attending to the intersection of social class and the dietary resources available in the community is critical to understanding potential differences in physical development.

Emotional Development

Emotions such as fear, sadness, happiness, anger, and surprise aid human survival, motivate behavior, serve as a mechanism of communication, and facilitate decision making. The ability to identify and express feelings is one component of social competency that aids healthy development, resilience in the face of risk factors, and overall well-being (Bierman, 2004 ; Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ; Werner, 1990 ). Interventions designed to foster emotional development often focus on self-esteem. Self-esteem is a person’s evaluation of her or his attributes. Moreover, it is the positive or negative emotional valence associated with those attributes. Global self-esteem reflects an individual’s perception of personal strengths and limitations considered relative to competent performance in areas of personal importance. This is true during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. In other words, if a child performs poorly in athletics, the negative impact on self-esteem is greater if sports are important to the youth and less adverse if sports are unimportant. Consequently, a child or adolescent could experience high overall self-esteem even if she or he displays low competence in specific areas. It has been hypothesized that marginalized groups have lower global self-esteem than mainstream groups due to internalization of discriminatory appraisals. Current developmental research, however, does not support this unequivocally. Although findings may vary from individual to individual and group to group, in general, strong racial or ethnic identity is correlated positively with global self-esteem (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ).

Self-esteem tends to decline somewhat during middle childhood and early adolescence because children recognize, often for the first time, that they may fall short in comparison to others. A small, but consistently observed gender difference in self-esteem favors males in late childhood and early adolescence (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). Nonetheless, recent studies have shown that many girls show a steady increase in self-esteem after the age of 13 over the course of adolescence and young adulthood. For example, Impett and colleagues (2008) assessed adolescent girls’ tendencies to silence their own thoughts and feelings. They found that congruence between what girls felt, thought, and did in relational contexts (i.e., relationship authenticity) distinguished girls who experienced an increase in self-esteem during adolescence from those who did not. For the girls in the study, self-esteem was tied to the ability to bring themselves fully and authentically into their relationships with others. This is consistent with feminist psychologists’ assertion that relationship authenticity is central to self-esteem and well-being. In Impett and colleagues’ study, relationship authenticity predicted increases in self-esteem after ethnicity was taken into account.

Social Development

From their earliest moments, people are social. Babies actively create an attachment system through behaviors that keep a caregiver close or elicit caregiving. Examples of such behaviors include clinging, sucking, and smiling. Attachment systems are essential for social development; they provide ongoing protection and nurture emotional bonds (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). For children, feeling a sense of belongingness is a need and may be established not only at home with primary caregivers, but also in the context of other microsystems such as school and community groups. A youth’s sense of belonging reflects a personally felt, active engagement with, and psychological connection to a group (Baskin, Wampold, Quintana, & Enright, 2010 ).

Relational capacity or social competency serves as a source of strength and resiliency (Brabeck & Brabeck, 2006 ; Werner, 1990 ). Specific skills associated with social competency across different social situations include social participation (joining peers and being comfortable in peer contexts), emotional understanding (identifying and expressing feelings), pro-social behavior (being cooperative), self-control, communication skills, fair play (being a good sport), and social problem-solving skills (Bierman, 2004 ). A child or adolescent who masters social competency is better equipped to contribute to the well-being of self and others. Thus, social competency facilitates accountability, which is, as discussed earlier, one of the core concepts of multicultural feminist therapy (Hurtado, 2010 ). A related cognitive-developmental milestone is when children can de-center their thinking, understand that the self and each other person has a perspective, and grasp that the perspectives of self and others may differ (Miller, 2006 ). In other words, the multicultural feminist core concept of self-reflexivity becomes a possibility (Hurtado, 2010 ). Notably, to be consistent with an ecological model of development, when there are issues in regard to social development, intervention should include not only individual children, but also the peers with whom they are most likely to interact.

In their classic book, The Psychology of Sex Differences , Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) concluded that aggression was the only area within social behavior for which sex differences are fairly well-established. Since then, meta-analyses have found that physical aggression with an onset during toddlerhood is more typical of boys, while relational aggression with an onset during middle childhood is more typical of girls (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). However, counter to common sex stereotypes, girls have not been found to be more dependent, sociable, or pro-social than boys. According to Bem’s gender schema theory (1975, 1983) children’s self-concepts become sex-typed when they limit their choices and regulate their behavior to conform to cultural definitions of femaleness or maleness. As a result, Bem encouraged moving beyond gender as a way of responding to the world. Werner (1990) found that during the middle childhood years, resilient youngsters possess a broad spectrum of skills, rather than limiting themselves to behavior governed by traditional gender stereotypes. For instance, resilient girls display autonomy and independence, while resilient boys tend to be emotionally expressive, socially perceptive, and nurturing. Gilligan (1996) emphasized the importance of relationship to human development, and suggested that the fluid interaction of resilience and vulnerability to others fosters development for both boys and girls.

As children grow into adolescents, peers have increasing and significant influence. In early adolescence, friends are often chosen due to similarity in behaviors, attitudes, and identities. In later adolescence, individual differences among peers are more common. Meanwhile, adolescents may spend less time at home and may try to negotiate a more egalitarian relationship in the family context (Piran & Ross, 2006 ). Parents and caregivers, however, remain an important microsystem. For example, parental warmth or responsiveness is associated with adolescents’ self-confidence and social competence, while parental control is associated with adolescents’ own ability to exert self-control. Through high levels of monitoring and involvement, adults also may positively influence adolescents’ choice of peers (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ).

The complicated nature of the relationships between adolescents, peers, and parents is reflected in the risk and mediating factors related to bullying behaviors. Using an ecological model, Barboza and colleagues (2009) elucidated the ways in which gender, race, social support, parental relationships, teacher relationships, school climate, and school-parent interactions can influence whether or not adolescents participate in or are victims of bullying behavior. Specifically, they found that students who perceive the school atmosphere as unwelcoming, unfair, and unpleasant were more likely to bully. The authors also found that Asian American and African American students were significantly less likely to bully than White students. An important follow-up question, consistent with a feminist multicultural perspective, would be to examine the extent to which discrimination might contribute to social climate factors and increase the likelihood of bullying in a school system. A rash of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adolescent suicides in the United States in late 2010 drew national attention to this question, as it increased public awareness of the tragic cost of homophobia and bullying based on sexual orientation (Crary, 2010 ).

Cognitive and Academic/Vocational Development

Piaget’s broad framework for describing and explaining cognitive development is one of the grand psychological theories of the twentieth century (Sorell & Montgomery, 2001 ). Although the specifics of Piaget’s cognitive stages of development have been the subject of debate, his general characterizations of children’s abilities are useful. Piaget’s assertion that the human mind constructs knowledge is an underlying assumption of much of the current research on cognitive development. As they interact with the environment, children try to fit new information into an existing knowledge structure or an organized way of thinking through the process of assimilation. Then, children engage in the process of accommodation, in which they modify the existing knowledge in order to achieve a better match or fit to the environment (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). Piaget’s focus on human agency and learning is compatible with feminist pedagogy because both see students as active learners and teachers as facilitators of self-directed learning (Miller, 2006 ).

From the perspective of Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development, significant events for children and adolescents include things of an academic or vocational nature (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). Significant events for children aged 6 to 12 years include learning important academic skills and comparing favorably to peers in the school context. In turn, significant events for adolescents moving toward adulthood include making choices about vocational goals as they strive to establish a sense of identity. The future orientation required to make such choices is something that an adolescent is cognitively capable of doing (Gordon, 1996 ).

Consistent with a feminist multicultural perspective, counselors and psychologists who work in school settings must watch for and remove barriers to student learning and academic/vocational development. Such barriers include low educator expectations and attitudes, biased curriculum, and other inequities that prevent students from experiencing an environment conducive to learning and achieving at high levels. Advocacy in the school setting takes many forms, including empowering students to become leaders and helping families to navigate the bureaucracy of the school system and to access its resources (Chen-Hayes, Miller, Bailey, Getch, & Erford, 2011 ).

Although key aspects of physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development each have been highlighted in turn, it is crucial to remember that these factors all come into play and interact when individuals of any age navigate daily life and make decisions. As a case in point, Gordon (1996) examined the prevention of early pregnancy at an inner-city high school and found that many of the participants desired pregnancies; that they preferred single parenthood to traditional family structure; and that they experienced low academic skills and poverty prior to pregnancy. For some, getting pregnant was seen as an intentional decision with a desirable outcome. Thus, a prevention program for sexually active teens who want children would need to focus on helping adolescents develop other alternatives to early childbearing. Meanwhile, a prevention program for adolescents who do not want children would focus more on the provision of knowledge about reproduction and contraception. In short, the more carefully and comprehensively we consider cognitive, social/psychological, and cultural social factors, the better positioned we are to understand and assist children and adolescents.

Young Adulthood

Historically, research on the transition to adulthood focused on the timing and transitions of “markers” of an adult status, like completing school, beginning full-time work, getting married, and becoming a parent (Aronson, 2008 ). In contrast, the work of Arnett (1997) demonstrated that individuals rely less on the attainment of such life markers and more on intangible, psychological indicators of adulthood, including accepting the consequences of one’s actions, making decisions independent of parents or other influences, and becoming financially independent. Viewing adulthood as social construction, Aronson’s (2008) research on young women’s transition from adolescence to young adulthood revealed how objective transitions, such as marriage, which are often used in life course research, are neither subjectively relevant nor universally applicable. After interviewing 42 young women who were part of the Youth Development Study, Aronson commented, “Young women make sense of their lives through perspectives absorbed from the women’s movement. They expect to have fulfilling jobs, support themselves economically, develop their own identities, raise children alone if necessary, and pursue their own goals even when they are in relationships with men. Feminism, in this context, is lived through women’s everyday experiences” (pp. 77–78). Some of the young women whom Aronson interviewed incorporated feminist attitudes in their lives through a self-reliant and self-sufficient approach; by “living feminism,” the young women crafted their life pathways.

Notably, the majority of girls navigate the transition from girlhood to womanhood with success (Currie, Kelly, & Pomerantz, 2006 ). Piran and Ross (2006) identified factors that contribute to a positive transition from girlhood to womanhood, such as a sense of physical safety, equitable treatment at home and at school, positive peer and adolescent and adult relationships, and participation in empowering experiences.

The period from about age 18 to 25 may be described as a time of emerging adulthood. Sometime between age 18 and 30, all biological systems reach peak potential. Within that time frame, some systems peak early, such as muscle strength, flexibility, speed of movement, and response. Other systems peak later, such as abilities dependent on control (e.g., arm-hand steadiness, precision, and stamina) and performance dependent on cognitive factors like strategy use. Good habits that help maintain peak or near peak functioning include eating a healthy diet, regularly exercising, not smoking, and refraining from excessive drug and alcohol use (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ).

Erikson identified two developmental tasks as essential for adulthood adjustment: establishing and strengthening bonds with significant others; and becoming a productive worker. For young adults, the development of intimacy may be reflected in a willingness to commit to affiliations and partnerships with the positive outcome of love (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). Erikson’s theory has been criticized for having an androcentric bias because, in line with a tradition male trajectory, it emphasizes independence over connectedness (Sorell & Montgomery, 2001 ). Sorell and Montgomery asserted that male and female development can be conceptualized as involving different psychosocial trajectories without considering either gender deviant or inferior. In turn, Langdale (1986) asserted that both men and women possess the capacity to develop independence and agency, as well as the capacity to develop relationality and connectedness.

As gendered beings in a gendered society, males and females face different circumstances and expectations and thus tend to balance independence and connectedness differently. Individual people also differ in the degree to which they are relational. Psychologists are encouraged to facilitate the development of both communal and agentic traits in their clients (Brabeck & Brabeck, 2006 ). Compared to individuals who adopt more traditional gender-role behaviors, individuals who can function in situations requiring agentic, instrumental behaviors as well as situations needing communal, expressive, and emotionally nurturing behaviors are more likely to have relatively high self-esteem, self-confidence, and low depression (Worell, 2006 ).

The emphasis on gender differences in committed or intimate relationships has contributed to a socially constructed tendency to overlook the experience of same-sex couples forming relationships in young adulthood. While forming attachments that lead to marriage is seen as a fundamental step in young adult development, the same process of attachment for gay and lesbian couples can be viewed as atypical or even psychologically immature (Roisman, Clausell, Holland, Fortuna, & Elieff, 2008 ). However, empirical evidence suggests that committed gay and lesbian couples do not differ from married heterosexual couples in terms of their relationship quality or their interactions in conflict resolution (Roisman et al., 2008 ). This is consistent with extensive research on gay families, which suggests that the children of gay parents experience stability and positive outcomes similar to those of the children of heterosexual parents (American Psychological Association [APA], 2005).

Closely tied to emotional development is social development. Two ways of conceptualizing adult social development are the nuclear family tradition and the peer/romantic tradition (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). The nuclear family tradition examines the degree to which a person’s earliest attachments to primary caregivers endure throughout life and how these earliest attachments affect the quality of caregiving provided to the next generation. Consistent with this tradition, young adults develop working models of relationships that allow them to process information about people and to respond quickly. Problems arise if people behave in current relationships in ways that were adaptive in past relationships under very different circumstances. Thus, the challenge is to accommodate to the realities of current relationships.

In contrast, the peer/romantic tradition focuses on the peer attachments of young adults and whether partners have a positive sense of themselves and others, expect others to be available and supportive, and are comfortable with both intimacy and autonomy. Research on adult relationships reveals that women and men define romantic relationships similarly, with the most essential features being trust, caring, honesty, and respect (Brabeck & Brabeck, 2006 ).

Although it is often overlooked in psychological literature, the role of friendship is also important in adult development. For example, in a study of young adult college students, discussing negative events with an ambivalent friend contributed to higher blood pressure and higher heart rates than discussion with a supportive friend (Holt-Lunstad, Uchino, Smith, & Hicks, 2007 ), suggesting that the quality of friendships may have an effect on physical well-being.

There is some debate as to whether additional thinking skills emerge during young adulthood or whether existing abilities are simply sharpened and honed so that thinking becomes more relativistic. What is certain is that in young adulthood, individuals increasingly face circumstances in which the “right answer” is not pre-established and varies with the circumstances and the perspective of the problem solver. Ill-defined or ill-structured problems include choices regarding educational and career paths. Thus, the ability to stand back and use relative judgment is a major achievement in intellectual development (Schaie & Willis, 2000 ).

Whether or not young adults pursue college, they share similar goals and face some common expectations of work as a microsystem. College and non-college youth see good pay, opportunities for advancement, and the chance to contribute to society as highly desirable characteristics of a job (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). After studying the requirements for success in the twenty-first century workplace, Achieve, Inc. (2004), concluded that the knowledge and skills needed for success in the workplace are essentially the same as those needed for success in a post-secondary setting. Entry-level jobs require analytic and literary skills. Problem-solving skills and the ability to work in a team are also essential. Despite common goals and expectations of college and non-college youth, the reality is that education is a key predictor of educational success and career advancement. Thus, an education that ends with high school often limits options and opportunities (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010 ). This reality is of particular importance in the context of an educational macrosystem that continues to be differentially accessed by people of color. For example, the US Department of Education reports that high school dropout rates differ significantly by race: 4.4% of Asian/Pacific Islander, 4.8% of White, 9.9% of African American, 14.6% of American Indian, and 18.3% of Hispanic 16–24-year-olds were not enrolled in or completing a high school credential in 2008 (U.S. Department of Education, 2010a). Among youth who completed high school, 49.2% of White youth, 40% of African American youth, and 36.7% of Hispanic youth were enrolled in a degree-granting institution in 2008 (U.S. Department of Education, 2010b).

Young adulthood contributes to a person’s social location, which in turn influences his or her understanding of self. Miller (2006) comments, “Specifically, each phase opens up new possible experiences, denies access to other experiences and constrains how experiences are understood, in part because people enter different social institutions and cultural discourses in each phase” (p. 446). Ideas from Piaget can inform efforts to explain how a young adult might come to understand the new academic or vocational experiences and, in the process, develop an identity. In line with Piagetian theory, a student or worker initially comes to understand a new experience in terms of what he or she already knows. If this current knowledge system cannot successfully make sense of the educational or employment experience, then she or he experiences conflict or disequilibrium. At that point, the individual actively tries to develop a new level of understanding of school or work that resolves any contradictory beliefs. Equilibrium is experienced after a more complex level of understanding of the academic or vocational experience is attained. The cycle will begin again as this new level of understanding proves partial and imperfect. Continued learning and change are inevitable because the person’s new cognitive structure makes him or her aware of other novel aspects of life that must be understood. By coming to understand multiple new experiences over time, she or he gradually constructs a new identity that acknowledges the intersection of an academic or vocational identity with race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, and other selves. Reflecting on this identity development, Miller (2006) asserts, “Over time certain aspects of self become stronger and more prevalent, and others diminish. Thus, a self, identity, ability or skill is multiple, fluid and ever changing; the balance simply shifts” (p. 462).

Middle Adulthood

Perhaps because many early developmental theories attached such great importance to the tasks of childhood, adolescence, and relationship formation, limited attention has been paid to midlife and later adult development (Valsiner, 2006 ). Erikson did address development across the life span, but his proposals about the developmental crises of adulthood have not been widely explored or researched. One recent and notable exception is a study of two midlife adult cohorts, which tested Erikson’s assumptions and concluded that personality continues to develop into and throughout midlife (Whitbourne, Sneed, & Sayer, 2009 ). This study is consistent with the recent interest in midlife development apparent in the emergence of life span development (Baltes, 1987 ; Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006 ) and life course development (Elder & Shanahan, 2006 ). Certainly the rich literature on the intersection of vocational and family demands (Schultheiss, 2006 ), examined by counseling psychologists over several decades, has addressed some aspects of midlife development. Finally, a series of research lines have been launched using the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), data collected in the mid-1990s by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Brim, Ryff, & Kessler, 2004 ). While these developments suggest that more attention is being paid to midlife, it continues to be overlooked relative to other stages of life span development.

A closer examination suggests that midlife is frequently a period of life filled with transitions in work, family, relational, and health arenas. Lachman (2004) notes, “Middle-aged adults are linked to the welfare of others, including children, parents, coworkers, other family members, and friends…. At the same time, they are addressing their own needs for meaningful work (paid or unpaid), health and well-being” (pp. 306–307). This tension between caring for others, while also undergoing significant transitions, results in midlife being a dynamic and complex phase of the life cycle. Women continue to assume many of these caregiving tasks, in both their roles as mothers and daughters (Tronto, 1993 ). Among collective cultures, caregiving burdens in midlife are also more likely to be significant, as there is a greater likelihood that aging parents or grandparents will be cared for by family members than in dominant White culture. For example, Latino families in the United States are less likely to use formal caregiving resources and are more likely to assume care of older family members, with that care often being assumed by women in the family (Ibarra, 2003 ). The interplay of gender and culture therefore has the potential to have a significant impact on midlife development, although this is again the subject of very limited investigation.

Physical changes in midlife are often viewed negatively and as harbingers to old age. In a culture that is generally identified as youth-oriented, even the earliest signs of age can be viewed as cause for anxiety and worry (Etaugh & Bridges, 2006 ). A single day of television commercials demonstrates the intense fear of wrinkles, age spots, and sagging skin that is being suggested to the average U.S. citizen. In that context, common middle-age changes such as weight gain and decreased physical activity can be ominous.

Concerns about health and physical conditions are likely to be intensified among adults who are uncertain of access to health care, an area in which social identity contributes to meaningful discrepancies. Midlife women are less likely to have access to health care than older women or men of either age group, and are more likely to report delays in receiving health care, even after controlling for access to insurance (Ng & Scholle, 2010 ). Disparities can also be found in the effectiveness of health care received, with Black and Hispanic midlife adults (ages 45–65) receiving less effective care than Whites of the same age group (Ng & Scholle).

Midlife physical changes related to sexuality are also notable. Normative physical changes, such as menopause and decreased fertility, are also common in midlife, particularly among women. Men’s sexual activity and satisfaction may decrease in the presence of health concerns during midlife, as illness can have a disproportionately high impact on male sexual functioning (Carpenter, Nathanson, & Kim, 2009 ). While menopause may be viewed as a loss, research has also found that some midlife women experience it as an opportunity for increased freedom in sexual activity (Rossi, 1994 ). Although the experiences of midlife women of color have been generally under-studied (Etaugh & Bridges, 2006 ), there is some evidence that ethnicity influences the experience of menopause. Specifically, in a qualitative study of 38 women living in Britain, Wray (2007) found that women of color were less likely to think of menopause as an event or condition requiring medical attention than White women. In the words of one participant, “We don’t let it stop us doing anything … we ignore it” (Wray, 2007 , p. 39). This attitude is consistent with feminist perspectives on menopause, which suggest that treating it as a medical event contributes to the stigmatization of women’s physical selves.

Although some physical changes at midlife are viewed negatively, it is also important to note that many midlife adults remain very physically active and maintain good health (Etaugh & Bridges, 2006 ). For example, Finn (2000) notes that women “view midlife as a time of positive change” and are “not willing to let peri-menopausal symptoms disrupt their lives” (p. 354).

Erikson (1964) identified the primary task of midlife as generativity, the need to care for and give back to the next generation. Current research, drawing on a sample of MIDUS participants, demonstrates that generativity does predict psychological well-being (Rothrauff & Cooney, 2008 ). Interestingly, no differences were detected between parents and non-parents, suggesting that well-being is associated with caring for the next generation, whether or not that generation is one’s own offspring.

Psychological well-being has also been examined in the context of discrimination and sense of control (Jang, Chiriboga, & Small, 2008 ). Based on a sample of approximately 1,500 from the MIDUS database, the authors concluded that perceived discrimination has a negative impact on psychological well-being, but that this effect can be mediated by a sense of control. Participants with a higher sense of control experienced less impact of perceived discrimination, and those with lower sense of control experienced greater negative affect.

Discrimination has also been connected to psychological well-being among lesbian, gay, and bisexual midlife adults. Also drawing from the MIDUS sample, self-identification as LGB was predictive of lower levels of eudaimonic psychological well-being (Riggle, Rostosky, & Danner, 2009 ), defined as a sense of personal growth, purpose, meaning, and self-actualization. In this same study, women with less education also had lower levels of well-being. Racial/ethnic minority members, however, had higher levels of eudaimonic psychological well-being. The authors posit that the protective factor of community and family support contributes to this higher level of well-being, and suggest that LGB individuals have less overt community support and so may have less protection from perceived discrimination.

These three studies highlight the important impact of social identity and contextual factors on psychological well-being and emotional development. The impact of discrimination, along with the presence or lack of protective factors moderating that discrimination, may determine emotional health in midlife.

Changing social relationships are perhaps among the most significant transitions in midlife. Changes in child, parent, grandparent, spousal, and work relationships are all likely to occur during midlife, bringing with them a multitude of emotions, challenges, and opportunities (Kogan & Vacha-Haase, 2002 ). As midlife adults adjust to their changing roles in these relationships, they may also be juggling the demands of multiple roles, many of which are changing simultaneously. Although a thorough exploration of all of these potential role changes is beyond the scope of this chapter, a few issues of particular salience are highlighted. For example, it is very likely that midlife adults will be caring for family members in multiple generations.

By the mid-1980s, the need to care for aging parents was identified as a “normative family stress” experience (Brody, 1985 ) for many midlife individuals. As more and more older adults live longer and develop chronic rather than acute illnesses, the ranks of midlife adults in the “sandwich generation” (Raphael & Schlesinger, 1993 ) has grown significantly in the first decade of the twenty-first century. While this experience may be normative, it is important not to overlook its stressful aspects. Social support can be particularly important in midlife (Lachman, 2004 ), helping adults manage the multiple responsibilities they have. Further, the lack of social support can increase stress and contribute to illness (Lachman).

Relationships with children also change during midlife. Midlife parents are not a homogenous group, as their family may include young children, adolescents, or young adults leaving or returning to the family home (Lachman). Negotiating the changing expectations in child-parent relationships as children mature can present midlife adults with significant challenges, and these challenges can be intensified for parents who are also preparing their children to deal with life stressors such as discrimination or limited financial resources. Of particular relevance in the current period of economic downturn, many midlife adults are negotiating living arrangements with their adult children who are staying in or returning to the family home into their twenties and beyond. This interaction of the family microsystem and the macrosystem represented by the economy then becomes a source of interpersonal stress that most parents have not anticipated; the financial security that many people hope to achieve during midlife may be delayed as a result.

Intimate and couple relationships can also experience significant change during midlife, at least partly in response to the additional tension placed on couples by the changes in other family relationships. As men and women enter midlife, their expectations regarding gender roles may change. This is particularly likely to occur if work roles are also changing, especially if partners are unequally engaged in or advancing at work. Especially for heterosexual couples, the continuing gender inequity in the workplace and the division of labor at home continue to present very different challenges for men and women (Kossek & Lambert, 2005 ). Divorce is also fairly common at midlife, and can result in significant change in economic resources and social status (Smock, Manning, & Gupta, 1999 ). However, divorce can also be viewed as a positive change, particularly if the marriage relationship has been abusive or restrictive in some way (Rice, 2003 ). In fact, empowerment to leave such relationships is a significant intervention consistent with feminist theory.

Cognitive and Vocational/Academic Development

Midlife adults who have access to work and educational settings are likely to make valuable cognitive contributions, as they hold important positions in the family and work environments (Lachman, 2004 ). However, it is important not to overlook the contributions of adults who have not had access to experiences that contribute to cognitive development. Research on cognitive development among adults with lower incomes, for example, is quite limited (Hendrie et al., 2006 ).

This lack of research is inconsistent with the reality that many non-dominant cultures place high values on the wisdom of midlife and older adults (Assmann, 1994 ). The discrepancy between measuring cognitive development and wisdom is an example of how the dominant culture influences which research questions are pursued and ultimately disseminated. From a feminist multicultural perspective, the wisdom of midlife and older adults is as valuable as memory and processing speed.

Career development is more fully explored elsewhere in this volume (see chapters 14 and 15 ), so will be only briefly addressed as a developmental issue. In the original life span approach to career development, Super (1990) identified midlife as a period of maintenance, during which time the worker is primarily focused on keeping his or her skills updated to meet job requirements and to obtain advancement. Most of the career development “action” is seen in the earlier stages leading up to having an established career. However, given the significant career changes and flexibility of most workers (Savickas, 2002 ), at least in the United States, this period of maintenance can no longer be seen as static. Numerous career transitions, both planned and unplanned, can occur during midlife, with both positive and negative outcomes (Juntunen, Wegner, & Matthews, 2002 ). Beyond transitions from one job or kind of work to another, midlife adults might also experience a re-commitment to their careers. In fact, Bejian and Salomone (1995) proposed career renewal as a stage worthy of further consideration. Little has been done to follow up on this suggestion empirically, but as attention to midlife development increases, this will be a fruitful area of further study.

Older Adulthood

There is general recognition of the need to attend to the unique issues encountered in older adulthood, if for no other reason than the fact that the percentage of older adults is growing in response to the aging of the Baby Boomer generation. Across psychology, there is increased awareness of the unique issues encountered by older adults, as evidenced by documents such as the American Psychological Association Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Older Adults (APA, 2003 ). However, the research and theoretical literature in counseling psychology does not convey a clear commitment to issues encountered by older adults. The inclusion of chapters in landmark books such as the Handbook of Counseling Psychology have called for greater involvement, and have outlined ways in which counseling psychology can contribute to an understanding of aging through the lens of normative development and adaptation (Hill, Thorn, & Packard, 2000 ). These opportunities are supported by the fact that there are perspectives on aging that are consistent with the strengths-based approach supported in counseling psychology and feminist multicultural theory, such as successful aging (Rowe & Kahn, 1997 ) and active aging, a policy framework developed by the World Health Organization 2001.

Despite these opportunities for intersection, there is “disturbingly little representation of older adults” (Werth, Kopera-Frye, Blevins, & Bossick, 2003 , p. 803) in the two major journals of counseling psychology. This is certainly inconsistent with the life span focus that is central to the counseling psychology identity, and suggests that our understanding of the developmental needs of older adults may be limited. Given that studies of healthy, active, or successful aging are much less common than studies of age-related decline (Hendrie et al., 2006 ), this lack of attention by counseling psychology and feminist multicultural theorists is particularly unfortunate. It may, in fact, contribute to the perception that aging is primarily a time of decline and support the idea “that ‘successful aging’ should be distinguished from ‘normal aging’” (Hendrie et al., p. 14).

The emphasis on decline has been refuted by feminist scholars, such as Antonucci, Blieszner, and Denmark (2010), who note that most older Americans remain healthy well into old age and also perceive their own health to be good or better. These authors suggest that the negative stereotypes related to aging (ageism) contribute to the perception that age is associated with ill health, as well as related factors such as sexual activity or interest. It is important to acknowledge that such stereotypes could also be at play among researchers, including psychologists, who make the decisions about which areas of behavior or functioning to examine.

In the Report of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Cognitive and Emotional Health Project, Hendrie and colleagues (2006) reviewed 96 published studies that were longitudinal in nature, included samples of at least N = 500 who were 65 years and older, and focused on cognitive or emotional health. They found that poor physical health, including chronic illness, disability, and cardiovascular concerns including hypertension, contributed to both poor cognitive health and poor emotional health. The authors also caution that very few large-scale longitudinal studies have examined questions related to healthy or positive physical development in late adulthood, although there is the capacity to do so with the large databases that exist.

In one notable exception to the emphasis on age-related decline, Bowling (2008) interviewed 279 adults age 65 and older about their perceptions of the construct of active aging. The most common response was maintaining physical health and physical function, including physical exercise, endorsed by 43% of the sample. This was followed by leisure and social activities (34%), mental functioning (18%), and social relationships (15%). Importantly, participants rated physical functioning as equally important, whether they were themselves physically fit or not. This may suggest that frail elders are not aging actively, in their own perception, and could also suggest that these perceptions are influenced by stereotypes that place significant salience on physical functioning over other aspects of active aging.

Emotional well-being among older adults is related to several sociocultural factors, as well as to indicators of physical and cognitive health. Hendrie and colleagues (2006) found that there was a strong relationship between emotional and cognitive well-being, suggesting either a bidirectional relationship or the possibility that both are affected by some common process. Several contextual factors appear to function as protective factors for emotional well-being, including higher levels of education, higher socioeconomic status, and greater social support (Hendrie et al.). Social engagement has also been shown to be related to psychological well-being among older adults living in assisted living facilities (Park, 2009 ).

Risk factors for emotional well-being include chronic illness, cardiovascular disease, and a history of mood concerns, including depression and anxiety (Hendrie et al.). There is also some evidence that personality traits influence health-related quality of life. Specifically, neuroticism (as measured by the NEO Five Factor Inventory) contributes to lower self-assessment of health-related quality of life among older adults (Chapman, Duberstein, & Lyness, 2007 ).

Understanding social development, and specifically the changes in social relationships, is particularly important for older adults. Social relationships change significantly as partners, family, and friends die, and as grief becomes a part of the lived experience. The lower life expectancy of men means that, as they grow older, heterosexual women are less likely to be married, as they tend to re-partner less than men following widowhood or the end of relationships. Specifically, the U.S. Census Bureau (2009) reports that 41% of women 65 and older are widowed, compared to 13% of men. However, women are also more likely to have close friends and to rely heavily on social networks. For example, evidence suggests that contacts with social networks increases throughout the first three years following widowhood, and then returns to pre-widowhood levels (Guiaux, Tilburg, & Van Groenou, 2007 ). Such positive social relationships may serve as a protective factor against stigmatization due to marginalized social identities (Antonucci et al., 2010 ).

Stigma is also related to social well-being among older LGB adults. Specifically, in a study of Dutch LGB adults aged 55 to 85 years, Kuyper and Fokkema (2010) found that minority stress contributes significantly to the experience of loneliness. Not surprisingly, less loneliness was experienced by participants with steady partners, who had good physical health and high levels of self-esteem. Importantly, the presence of an LGB network also served as a protective factor against loneliness. Past experiences with prejudice and expectations of prejudice from others, including caregivers, contributed to greater feelings of loneliness.

It is also critical to note that much of the literature on aging and relationships is also influenced by assumptions that death, dying, and isolation are the primary areas of concern. However, in a review of literature focused on marriage and aging, several studies found that marital satisfaction and sexual relationships are widely experienced among older adults (Melton, Hersen, Van Sickle, & Van Hasselt, 1995 ). These authors also noted that there is a significant need for more research in the sexual relationships of older adults, but little has been examined in the 15 years since that call.

The use of social media among older adults is also an area that is significantly understudied by counseling psychology. It is estimated that 46% of adults 65 and older use the Internet (Pew Research Center, August, 2010), and the number of older adult users of social media sites, such as Facebook, is growing more quickly than any other age group (Madden, 2010 ). Older adults reported that they were increasingly likely to use social media for three major reasons: to reconnect with people from their past, to find online support for managing chronic disease, and to stay involved with other generations, particularly grandchildren (Madden, 2010 ). This increased use of new technology to support social development is another example of older adulthood having the potential to be a time of renewal, rather than decline.

Hendrie and colleagues (2006) found consistent support for the protective factor of education in cognitive health among older adults. This may be due to the role of education in developing a “cognitive reserve” (p. 22). It may also be that education is representative of other protective factors, such as socioeconomic resources and healthier contextual environments. Other protective factors include social engagement, social support, self-efficacy, and cultural factors.

Beyond cognitive ability, some researchers have considered the relationship between age and wisdom, defined as consisting of cognitive reflective and affective dimensions. Specifically, wisdom includes the search for a deeper truth, the ability to engage in self-examination, self-awareness, and self-insight, and the ability to feel greater compassionate love for others (Ardelt, 2003 , 2010 ). In a study that compared older adults to college students, Ardelt (2010) found that older adults with a college education scored higher on a three-dimensional wisdom scale than young adults, and concluded that wisdom may increase over time due to learning from life experiences, at least among those with the opportunity and motivation to pursue wisdom. These findings acknowledge both the potential benefit of age in cognitive development, and the importance of contextual factors that support the development of wisdom.

The ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner) provides a culturally and contextually informed perspective on the complexities of human development. In the preceding pages, we have attempted to infuse feminist multicultural analysis of key developmental issues, including the role of resilience and empowerment, an emphasis on social support and networks, and a recognition of the stress related to identity and sociocultural status. It is important to note that there is significantly more empirical and theoretical support for this infusion when discussing childhood and adolescence. However, a feminist multicultural understanding of development in adulthood remains relatively limited.

Future Directions

There is a significant need for feminist multicultural counseling psychologists to attend more fully to the psychological well-being, relational needs, and optimal functioning of older adults.

The cross-cutting impact of socioeconomic status on most domains of development needs to be more fully addressed and integrated into feminist multicultural research.

The role of sexual orientation is only sporadically considered in developmental research. This is an area in which culturally competent counseling psychology researchers could make a significant and systematic impact, by considering the interaction of identity development models with other developmental processes.

Analyzing development from a strengths-based model of counseling psychology can contribute to increased recognition of positive development over time, which would potentially mitigate some of the bias toward decline present in current aging literature.

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Middle Childhood and Adolescent Development Essay

Introduction, relationships during middle childhood and adolescence, egocentrism in adolescents, pressures that adolescents face.

The development of an individual highly relies on factors that originate from the surrounding environment. According to Vygotsky’s social development theory, the environment around an individual determines his/her physical and mental development especially through social interaction (Lightbrown and Spada, 2006).

Therefore, the influence that an individual receives from his/her peers and other individuals within a given social setting will ultimately influence the development of his/her character. Therefore, positive peer interaction is usually advocated for during the middle childhood and adolescent stages of development to ensure that an individual develops a character that is socially and morally acceptable (Berger, 2008).

Studies that have specifically focused on the middle childhood stage of development have revealed that peer interaction, friendship, and acceptance are critical factors that determine the level of development in an individual. However, during the adolescent stage, individuals tend to develop an egocentric behavior where they only think about themselves and how other people perceive them. This phenomenon brings about conflicting interests with their school, family members, friends, and future aspirations.

While reacting to these conflicting ideas, adolescents tend to become rebellious and their level of motivation highly declines hence increasing their chances of becoming victims of peer pressure and drug and substance abuse. This paper will thus expound on the relationships an individual faces during middle childhood and adolescence, examine the concept of adolescent egocentrism, and finally focus on the pressure faced by adolescents.

A child starts to develop a relationship with the people who surround him/her from birth. However, this relationship gradually changes as the child develops. By middle childhood, an individual starts to develop preferences especially in peer relationships.

According to Oak (2000), children tend to interact more and develop friendships with peers of the same gender who they have the similar interests and share a relatively similar background. Consequently, the acceptance into a peer group is important. However, for a child to avoid engaging into delinquent behaviors, he/she should develop positive a friendship with his/her peers. Finally, children tend to be egocentric at this stage. They thus tend to compete with their peers on grounds such as classroom grades.

As individuals progress into the adolescent stage, they usually experience progressive changes in their relationship. Peer relationships, for instance, dominate the relationship of individuals at this stage. The groups that adolescents form at this stage also comprise of members who share similar interests.

However, unlike in the middle childhood stage where the peer groups mainly had same sex members, inter gender relationships usually develop at this stage. It is during adolescence that people start dating and to some extent, engage in sexual activity (Blume, 2006). Egocentrism is usually common at this stage especially because image and identity plays a significant role in the cognitive development of an individual by influencing their self-concept, psychological, and emotional traits.

It is common for an individual to change friends at this stage due to the image factor but the friendships that are developed at this stage might also last for an extended period of time into adulthood. Peer influence at this stage is also strong but with greater consequences as compared to the prior stage since a negative influence might lead to activities such as drug and substance abuse, violence, crime, and so on. The acceptance of an individual into these peer groups also has a lot of emotional and psychological significance.

Being left out of these groups usually diminishes the self-esteem of an individual leading to adverse effects that are mainly characterized by a rebellious character. Therefore, parents are usually advised to maintain close relationships with their adolescent children to motivate and encourage as a means of shaping their behaviors into morally accepted characters and to build their self-esteem (Oak, 2000).

Egocentrism starts from childhood and develops into adolescence. During the adolescent stage however, egocentrism develops from the challenges and thoughts of an individual’s self-evaluation. This usually occurs when adolescents modify their thoughts and perceptions in the process of developing their identities. Through self-absorption, adolescents undergo a period in life where they develop their identity and sharpen their process of decision-making. According to Berger (2008), egocentrism during adolescence has two components:

• The imaginary audience
• Personal fable

The imaginary audience usually develops when the subject develops thoughts

about his/her personality and tries to comprehend what other people think about him/her. As a result of these thoughts, adolescents tend to become self-conscious. In the process, they usually become consumed with their thoughts and ideologies. This process is so strong that adolescents believe that other people whom they share a common relationship with (friends, schoolmates, family members, and so on) should also believe in similar ideologies and concepts.

On the other hand, the personal fable compliments the ideologies that adolescents had developed through the imaginary audience phase by making them believe that they are special or unique. Due to the exaggerations of their beliefs and ideologies, such individuals develop the notion that they cannot become victims of unfortunate circumstances of the world.

This therefore explains why adolescents engage in risky activities such as crime, unprotected sex, and disobeying the law for males while females have additional characteristics such as obsession with their looks and weight. Adolescents believe that the resultant image of these activities make them to be considered as great individuals especially among their peers (Berger, 2008).

Given the environment that surrounds them, their ideologies, and their characters, adolescents usually face a number of pressures in the process of development and transition into adulthood. Examples of the pressure that adolescents face include:

• Sexuality and dating
• Drug and substance abuse
• Peer pressure
• Family issues

According to Oak (2000), the major challenge that adolescents face is to make the decision between what they are expected to do (what is considered morally right by the society) and what they want to do at this stage. Making this decision is usually challenging hence bringing about an immense pressure within adolescents. For instance, two teenagers might engage in sex. This situation might end up being fun for both parties if they both agreed to engage in the act.

However, there might be instances where one of them might not support the idea hence turning the incident into rape. In adverse situations, the girl could end up being pregnant and contracting a sexually transmitted disease such as gonorrhea, syphilis, or HIV. It is also during this stage that individuals realize their sexuality. It would thus be difficult for a homosexual adolescent to come present himself/herself to his/her family or the society especially if homosexuality is has not been accepted as a norm.

An adolescent might also face a lot of pressure while trying to fit in a group. At this stage, it is considered ‘cool’ among peers if a girl is a member of the most beautiful girls in school or the cheerleading squad. Failure to become a member of these groups might have serious self-esteem damage to the individual.

On the other hand, male adolescents might join gangs that usually require them to commit an act of crime as an initiation process. Many teenagers have been arrested and sentenced due to such acts hence losing an essential stage of their life.

Divorce, domestic violence, death of a parent, poverty, or low income might are some of the family issues that have immense pressure on an adolescent. To overcome this pressure, adolescents usually seek support and advice from their peers.

Due to their vulnerability, they might easily be recruited into gangs or become addicts of different substances as a means of trying to get away from reality by being high. Some adolescent usually develop violent behavior due to the stress and tension that comes about as a result of conflicts within the family. In some rare cases, adolescents have ended up killing their parents or killing themselves as a means of overcoming such pressure.

During middle childhood, friendship plays a significant role in the development of an individual. In adolescents, peer influence is also critical but with dire consequences. Individuals are also conscious about their identity and behavior. Finally, given the fact that adolescents face a lot of pressure, it is advised that they receive positive guidance and support from family members, peers, and reputable individuals and institutions within the society to ensure that they develop into sensible adults.

Blume, L.B. (2006). Childhood Development. Journal of Human Behaviour, 2(1), 14-22. Berger, K. S. (2008). The developing person through the life span . New York: Worth Publishers.

Lightbrown, P. and Spada, N. (2006). How languages are learned. New York. Oxford University Press.

Oak, M. (2000). Negative and Positive Effects of Peer Pressure. Retrieved from https://aptparenting.com/negative-positive-effects-of-peer-pressure

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Young Adult

The phrase “young adult” reflects the history of changing perceptions of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood and how these ideas have shaped parenting, education, libraries, publishing, and marketing (Cart 1996; Eccleshare 1996; Campbell 2009). The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) denotes ages twelve to eighteen as composing “young adult” readers (YALSA 1994). Given the dominant conception that this period of growth is particularly important, understandings of what constitutes “good” young adult literature vary extensively, for there is a great deal at stake.

Readers often imagine young adult (YA) literature as texts that challenge the status quo. They believe that while children’s literature finds its roots in a cheerful, Wordsworthian Romanticism, YA literature is heir to the more revolutionary strain of Blakean Romanticism with characters who incisively expose society’s ills (Lesnik-Oberstein 1998). An examination of the phrase’s history, however, reveals a more complex Romantic inheritance that can illuminate contradictions within the various communities that coalesce around their interest in YA literature, and in their belief in sheltering these readers from or introducing them to a range of texts.

Oddly, “young adult” is not found in most dictionaries even though it is used in thousands of articles in academic, educational, and library journals in addition to the popular press. Patty Campbell (2003) documents the earliest “use of the term young adult for teen books… [in] 1937, although it didn’t come into general use until 1958.” This move followed organizational changes within the American Library Association, dividing the Association of Young People’s Librarians into the Children’s Library Association and the Young Adult Services Division in 1957 (Starr n.d.), but librarians had already begun creating special spaces and services for their teenaged readers as early as 1926 (Campbell 2003).

“Young adult” is not in the Oxford English Dictionary , but Random House Dictionary defines it as “a teenager (used especially by publishers and librarians).” Improbably, their editors skip the phrase’s adjectival form entirely. Although they gesture toward the textual world—reminding readers that people who work with books use this word—they never remark upon it in the context of YA literature. They also define it as “a person in the early years of adulthood,” a definition that only points to the very end of the age continuum, excluding most of the readership addressed by Random House’s YA imprint, Delacorte. It does incorporate the more expansive understanding of “young adult” that includes the MTV demographic of readers as old as twenty-five, however (Cart 2001).

The dominant way of imagining and marketing YA literature is shaped primarily by the age of the work’s intended reader. Yet “crossover” novels such as Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy (1995–2000) and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1997–2007)—read by children, adolescents, and adults—challenge the categorization based solely on age. Further complicating the often dualistic category of crossover literature, YA literature comfortably houses award-winning “adult” texts such as Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003); children’s books like Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (1992; see Aronson 2001); texts that have won awards in children’s and young adult fiction, such as Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion (2002); as well as literature imagined as young adult, such as Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007).

Importantly, defining “young adult” according to what readers between the ages of twelve and eighteen (or twenty-five) would enjoy or benefit from reveals assumptions about adolescent readers that pre-date the “beginning” of YA literature in the 1960s. Sarah Trimmer appears to be the first to have used the concept of a young adult readership in her periodical, The Guardian of Education (1802–6), although she uses the terms “young person” or “young people” (Chambers 1985a; Eccleshare 1996). Trimmer, a deeply religious writer and publisher, loomed large on the intellectual landscape of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Ruwe 2001), and upon her death, more than one person publicly urged Britain to memorialize her in Saint Paul’s Cathedral (Myers 1990). Trimmer designed The Guardian to help adults choose “safe and good” books for children and young persons “from the most respectable sources” (Trimmer 1802). Her primary concern was helping readers avoid books influenced by contemporary philosophy, and promoting those that would shape well-behaved, submissive, and God-fearing youth.

Relying on some of the new theories of child development, Trimmer makes what is likely the first distinction between child and young adult readers, explaining how she

shall endeavour to separate [texts] into two distinct classes, viz. Books for Children_, and Books_ for Young Persons … [and shall] take the liberty of adopting the idea of our forefathers, by supposing all young gentlemen and ladies to be Children_, till they are_ fourteen and young persons till they are at least twenty-one_; and shall class books we examine as they shall appear to us to be suitable to these different stages of human life. (Trimmer 1802)_

Although Trimmer’s understanding of young people is remarkably contemporary in its perception of young adulthood as lasting until “at least twenty-one,” and also in how it is conceptualizing young adult readers, The Guardian ’s recommended reading is literature that might be enjoyed by adolescents but was not necessarily written with them in mind. (See Trites [1996, 2000] on the distinction between adolescent and YA literature; see Immel’s index [1990] for the list of texts Trimmer recommended to her adolescent readers.) Undeniably, determining whether or not a work is written expressly for young adults is a significant variable in defining contemporary YA literature.

Contrary to Trimmer’s understanding that good literature should fashion young readers into deeply moral people, contemporary YA literature ostensibly shuns that didactic impulse. And while Trimmer’s periodical provided children and young people with models of near impossible virtue in order to shape more upright adults, today’s YA literature could hardly be said to advance this agenda—indeed, the “adult” in “young adult” is often code for its euphemistic meaning of mature content. Yet, as many have pointed out, the problem novel in the 1970s, a staple genre within YA literature, was freighted with deeply didactic impulses (Cart 1996; Trites 2000). Undeniably, the conventional association between YA literature’s beginnings and realism privileges both verisimilitude and a strong sense of moral purpose (see Cart 1996; Tribunella 2007; Campbell 2009; Nilsen and Donelson 2009). For if we take Raymond Williams’s (1983a) important articulation of realism as “a description of facing up to things as they really are, and not as we imagine or would like them to be,” then we arrive at a dominant theme in much of contemporary YA literature. While Trimmer’s understanding of “things as they really are” is grounded in readings that reflect a prerevolutionary world order and a divine transcendental signified, the foundational texts of YA literature, such as S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders (1967), Paul Zindel’s The Pigman (1968), and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War (1974), are anchored in an equally fervent—though more subtly articulated—commitment to “‘facing facts’” (Williams 1983a).

S. E. Hinton (1967b) calls for a young adult literature fashioned against romance—those novels about the “horse-and-the-girl-who-loved-it” as well as the “fairyland of proms and double dates.” Instead, she insists that texts address the real “violence of teen-agers’ lives… [such as] the beating-up at a local drive-in” or the “reality” of “the behind-the-scenes politicking that goes on in big schools, [and] the cruel social system” that defines popularity. She demands this realism because of her belief that young people “know their parents aren’t superhuman,… that justice doesn’t always win out, and that sometimes the bad guys win.” Her understanding of fiction has an implicit moral imperative: to “face facts,” certainly, but also to show that “some people don’t sell out, and that everyone can’t be bought.” Jerry Renault, the protagonist of The Chocolate War , could be held up as an example of Hinton’s latter claim. (Anita Tarr’s [2002] vital rejoinder to this dominant reading extends Hinton’s insistence on the importance of exposing the real violence of teenagers’ lives. For Tarr reveals that Jerry does not make a conscious choice to “disturb the universe,” and asserts that academics’ and teachers’ attention to his “decision” to resist the chocolate sale shifts critical focus away from the novel’s deeply troubling and virulent misogyny—another “fact” readers need to face.)

Many contemporary YA writers, even those not allied with realist works, are also committed to this politics of realism, which often addresses ethical concerns. M. T. Anderson’s Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing novels (2006, 2008) present eighteenth-century American society in new and ominous ways, ingeniously illuminating the horrors of slavery, and melding rich historical realism with new imaginary perspectives. Octavian Nothing pushes readers to contemplate what it means to be human, and has stirred debate about the nature of youth and what they should be reading. Other significant YA texts also advance a realist agenda ineluctably bound up with a sense of the moral possibilities of literature. Francesca Lia Block’s magical realist fiction reminds readers of the transformative potential of love and art in stories that address topics such as sexual abuse and AIDS, all the while challenging heteronormativity by consistently providing readers with gay characters. Other, more realist writers advance similar agendas and illuminate the limits of Block’s more utopian yearnings. Jacqueline Woodson makes alarmingly clear that race still clouds how people see other humans in If You Come Softly (1998) and reveals the particular challenges facing biracial youth in The House You Pass on the Way (1999), as well as presenting a range of sexual identities and experiences for her characters. Walter Dean Myers’s Monster (1999) scrutinizes flaws in the American judicial system while also trenchantly examining contemporary constructions of masculinity. And Catherine Atkins’s When Jeff Comes Home (1999) considers sexual violence against boys and men, crucially illuminating effects of trauma as well as the intensely gendered ways we conceptualize victims of sexual violence (Pattee 2004). Other texts that examine rape, such as Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (1999), work to show young readers that adults are not “superhuman,” to use Hinton’s phrase, but significantly depict them as human and humane—unlike the remote, distasteful, and sometimes sadistic adults presented in The Chocolate War . If sex and death are the two primary concepts from which we shelter children (Mills 2000), and then introduce young adults to in texts that reflect their burgeoning maturity, Jenny Downham’s Before I Die (2007) considers both. Yet her novel and Cynthia Kadohata’s Kira-Kira (2004) are as much about living fully as they are moving examinations of young people succumbing to terminal illnesses. Aidan Chambers’s masterful Postcards from No Man’s Land (1999) also addresses death, but pushes readers to contemplate the possibility of euthanasia for an aged protagonist, as well as challenging them to think about the Dutch and British legacies of World War II, teenagers’ fascination with Anne Frank, and bisexuality.

Novels such as these reflect the breadth of the best of contemporary YA literature, but some would prefer these—and a host of others—to be censored. The disagreements reveal interesting ideas about young adults that recall the phrase’s dual Romantic roots: YA readers are innocents in need of further shelter or last-minute instruction, or are readers who need to “face the facts” about the world, ideally becoming more enlightened, democratic world citizens. While contemporary YA writers have largely used literature to advance Western notions of adolescence as a time to question the power structure, rebel, or embrace one’s “individuality,” scholars should not forget this term’s occluded Romantic inheritance of narrower reading practices and antirevolutionary sentiment. The rich field of YA literature is indebted to a number of revolutions, including but not limited to the social movements of the 1960s and the backlash that followed them; it is also heir to the French Revolution and reactions against the Enlightenment philosophies that brought it about. Both legacies reflect people’s comprehension of literature’s ability to shape, define, expand, and alter experience. Given the considerable changes in mind and body that mark adolescence, and our belief in the significance of this liminal state between childhood and adulthood, it is no wonder that YA literature is viewed—positively or negatively—as potent and transformative.

Adolescence

Adolescent changes for parents to anticipate, when childhood ends, parental expectations must be adjusted..

Posted May 20, 2024 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

• What Changes During Adolescence?
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• Parents can expect adolescence to increase distance, diversity, and disagreement with their teenager.
• Parents need to manage three kinds of expectations: predictions, ambitions, and conditions.
• Adequate anticipation of adolescent change can smooth the parental way.

Once their daughter or son starts separating from childhood , usually around ages 9 to 13, adolescence commonly begins.

Now the girl or boy feels more restless and dissatisfied, not content to be defined and treated as just a little child anymore, but wanting something different, more, and older.

Thus, the 10- to 12-year coming-of-age passage gets underway as two parallel forces begin to drive adolescent growth.

Expectations about growth

The young person begins to detach from childhood and parents to create growing independence, pressing for more freedom of action. And the young person begins to differentiate from childhood and parents to express growing individuality, pressing for more freedom of self-definition.

On both counts, growing more separate and more unique, parenting a "teenager" is differently demanding than parenting a child. In response, they must now adjust their expectations to keep pace with the young person’s growing changes so they can stay caringly and communicatively connected as adolescent development unfolds and gradually grows them apart, which it is meant to do.

At this point, I believe it helps ease the parental way to foresee common changes in their daughter or son so they can adjust expectations accordingly.

Expectations about relationship

As adolescence unfolds, parents can anticipate distance , diversity , and disagreement to increase between them and their growing teenager.

• They can expect increased distance from growing separation as the young person becomes more private, self-preoccupied, and socially wed to a competing family of peers. In response, parents can feel less close to the teenager and more estranged, missing childhood intimacy and companionship that is over: “She wants to spend most of her time with friends.” “He doesn’t enjoy the old pastimes we used to share.” Instead of feeling abandoned, parents can treat losses of old companionship as opportunities for opening up new ways of being together.
• They can expect increased diversity from growing identification with a contemporary media culture that can significantly contrast with and challenge more traditional adult values and tastes. In response, parents can feel put off by what calls to their teenager and feel more ignorant and estranged: “How he can enjoy such online entertainment?” “How can she like this kind of fashion and dress?” Instead of feeling offended, parents can bridge growing differences with interest by asking to be taught about what they don’t understand.
• They can expect increased disagreement from growing assertiveness and determination to operate more independently, less willingness to immediately comply with what parents ask or tell the young person to do, and more inclined to question the correctness of parental decisions, wanting parents to explain themselves: “Just tell me why this matters?” “You don’t know what’s best for me!” Instead of feeling offended, parents can treat all disagreements as opportunities for discussion through which each can become better understood by the other.

Expectations for parents

Getting used to adolescent changes is what parents must continually do, stage by adolescent stage adjusting expectations for themselves and of their teenager.

• Early adolescence (ages 9-13) brings the loss of childhood when parents look fondly back: “We can miss, but not recapture.” Now parents must let go of beloved old activities and be ready to move on. For the young person, loss begets loneliness .
• Mid-adolescence (ages 13-15) brings the diminishment of parental importance compared to the power of peers: “We still matter, but not as much.” Now time with parents must compete with the call of friends. For the young person, puberty creates sensitivity .
• Late adolescence (ages 15-18) brings risk-taking from acting older: “We can prepare, but not protect.” Now parents must be alert as the adolescent may experiment with danger to become worldly experienced. For the young person, adventure creates vulnerability .
• Trial independence (ages 18-23) brings emancipation from family rule: “We can witness, but not govern.”Now parents must behold the adolescent lapsing some responsibilities before finding independent footing. For the young person, older demand creates stress .

Thus, parents adjust expectations for themselves as the young person proceeds through the growing-up years.

Expectations about schooling

Now consider some examples of how parents might use changing expectations to refocus their relationship, helping the changing teenager as she or he grows through their educational passage.

• “Expecting how the onset of adolescence in late elementary school can be distracting and disorganizing, and paying attention and keeping up can be harder to do, we are here with our supervisory help.”
• “Expecting how middle school can bring more push and shove and pressure in peer relationships than in elementary school, we are ready to give emotional support should any social hardship happen.”
• “Expecting high school can bring more pressures for acting older and grown-up, we will have ongoing conversations about the risks out there, trouble signs to watch for, and safe decisions to make.”
• “Expecting the college-age years to sometimes offer more independent freedom than can initially be managed, we will honor floundering and learning from mistakes, like we did at your age.”

Power of expectations

Expectations are chosen mental sets of three kinds that can have powerful emotional effects, particularly when violated. There are predictions about what will happen, ambitions about what they want to happen, and conditions about what they believe should happen.

• Parents make predictions of how the young person will behave: “We will always know her plans.” When their prediction is violated, parents can feel anxiety : “We’re in the dark!”
• Parents set ambitions of how they want the young person to perform: “We want him to act responsibly.” When their ambition is violated, parents can feel disappointment: “We’ve been let down!”
• Parents set conditions for how the young person should behave: “We demand that our kids tell us the truth.” When their condition is violated, parents can feel anger : “We’ve been betrayed!”

Because unmet expectations can be so powerfully affecting, when violated, they can have painful emotional consequences. This is why parents are constantly clarifying their expectations with the teenager about foreseeable activities, valued objectives, hard realities, and necessary compliance:

“We talk and talk with you about your life so we can stay on the same page of understanding, anticipation, and agreement. This way we can help you get ahead and also help us to get along."

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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Understanding How Digital Media Affects Child Development

Technology and digital media have become ubiquitous parts of our daily lives. Screen time among children and adolescents was high before COVID-19 emerged, and it has further risen during the pandemic, thanks in part to the lack of in-person interactions.  

In this increasingly digital world, we must strive to better understand how technology and media affect development, health outcomes, and interpersonal relationships. In fact, the fiscal year 2023 federal budget sets aside no less than $15 million within NICHD’s appropriation to investigate the effects of technology use and media consumption on infant, child, and adolescent development.

Parents may not closely oversee their children’s media use, especially as children gain independence. However, many scientific studies of child and adolescent media use have relied on parents’ recollections of how much time the children spent in front of a screen. By using software embedded within mobile devices to calculate children’s actual use, NICHD-supported researchers found that parent reports were inaccurate more often than they were on target. A little more than one-third of parents in the study underestimated their children’s usage, and nearly the same proportion overestimated it. With a recent grant award from NICHD, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine plan to overcome the limitation of relying on parental reports by using a novel technology to objectively monitor preschool-age children’s digital media use. They ultimately aim to identify the short- and long-term influences of technology and digital media use on children’s executive functioning, sleep patterns, and weight. This is one of three multi-project program grants awarded in response to NICHD’s recent funding opportunity announcement inviting proposals to examine how digital media exposure and use impact developmental trajectories and health outcomes in early childhood or adolescence. Another grant supports research to characterize the context, content, and use of digital media among children ages 1 to 8 years and to examine associations with the development of emotional regulation and social competence. A third research program seeks to better characterize the complex relationships between social media content, behaviors, brain activity, health, and well-being during adolescence.

I look forward to the findings from these ongoing projects and other studies that promise to inform guidance for technology and media use among children and adolescents. Additionally, the set-aside funding for the current fiscal year will allow us to further expand research in this area. These efforts will help us advance toward our aspirational goal to discover how technology exposure and media use affect developmental trajectories, health outcomes, and parent-child interactions.

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What are adverse childhood experiences?

Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). Examples include: 1

• Experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect.
• Witnessing violence in the home or community.
• Having a family member attempt or die by suicide.

Also included are aspects of the child’s environment that can undermine their sense of safety, stability, and bonding. Examples can include growing up in a household with: 1

• Substance use problems.
• Mental health problems.
• Instability due to parental separation.
• Instability due to household members being in jail or prison.

The examples above are not a complete list of adverse experiences. Many other traumatic experiences could impact health and well-being. This can include not having enough food to eat, experiencing homelessness or unstable housing, or experiencing discrimination. 2 3 4 5 6

Quick facts and stats

ACEs are common. About 64% of adults in the United States reported they had experienced at least one type of ACE before age 18. Nearly one in six (17.3%) adults reported they had experienced four or more types of ACEs. 7

Preventing ACEs could potentially reduce many health conditions. Estimates show up to 1.9 million heart disease cases and 21 million depression cases potentially could have been avoided by preventing ACEs. 1

Some people are at greater risk of experiencing one or more ACEs than others. While all children are at risk of ACEs, numerous studies show inequities in such experiences. These inequalities are linked to the historical, social, and economic environments in which some families live. 5 6 ACEs were highest among females, non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native adults, and adults who are unemployed or unable to work. 7

ACEs are costly. ACEs-related health consequences cost an estimated economic burden of $748 billion annually in Bermuda, Canada, and the United States. 8

ACEs can have lasting effects on health and well-being in childhood and life opportunities well into adulthood. 9 Life opportunities include things like education and job potential. These experiences can increase the risks of injury, sexually transmitted infections, and involvement in sex trafficking. They can also increase risks for maternal and child health problems including teen pregnancy, pregnancy complications, and fetal death. Also included are a range of chronic diseases and leading causes of death, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and suicide. 1 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

ACEs and associated social determinants of health, such as living in under-resourced or racially segregated neighborhoods, can cause toxic stress. Toxic stress, or extended or prolonged stress, from ACEs can negatively affect children’s brain development, immune systems, and stress-response systems. These changes can affect children’s attention, decision-making, and learning. 18

Children growing up with toxic stress may have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships. They may also have unstable work histories as adults and struggle with finances, jobs, and depression throughout life. 18 These effects can also be passed on to their own children. 19 20 21 Some children may face further exposure to toxic stress from historical and ongoing traumas. These historical and ongoing traumas refer to experiences of racial discrimination or the impacts of poverty resulting from limited educational and economic opportunities. 1 6

Adverse childhood experiences can be prevented. Certain factors may increase or decrease the risk of experiencing adverse childhood experiences.

Preventing adverse childhood experiences requires understanding and addressing the factors that put people at risk for or protect them from violence.

Creating safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children can prevent ACEs and help all children reach their full potential. We all have a role to play.

• Merrick MT, Ford DC, Ports KA, et al. Vital Signs: Estimated Proportion of Adult Health Problems Attributable to Adverse Childhood Experiences and Implications for Prevention — 25 States, 2015–2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019;68:999-1005. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6844e1 .
• Cain KS, Meyer SC, Cummer E, Patel KK, Casacchia NJ, Montez K, Palakshappa D, Brown CL. Association of Food Insecurity with Mental Health Outcomes in Parents and Children. Science Direct. 2022; 22:7; 1105-1114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2022.04.010 .
• Smith-Grant J, Kilmer G, Brener N, Robin L, Underwood M. Risk Behaviors and Experiences Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness—Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 23 U.S. States and 11 Local School Districts. Journal of Community Health. 2022; 47: 324-333.
• Experiencing discrimination: Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Impacts of Racism on the Foundations of Health | Annual Review of Public Health https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-090419-101940 .
• Sedlak A, Mettenburg J, Basena M, et al. Fourth national incidence study of child abuse and neglect (NIS-4): Report to Congress. Executive Summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health an Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.; 2010.
• Font S, Maguire-Jack K. Pathways from childhood abuse and other adversities to adult health risks: The role of adult socioeconomic conditions. Child Abuse Negl. 2016;51:390-399.
• Swedo EA, Aslam MV, Dahlberg LL, et al. Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among U.S. Adults — Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2011–2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2023;72:707–715. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7226a2 .
• Bellis, MA, et al. Life Course Health Consequences and Associated Annual Costs of Adverse Childhood Experiences Across Europe and North America: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Lancet Public Health 2019.
• Adverse Childhood Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Associations with Poor Mental Health and Suicidal Behaviors Among High School Students — Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey, United States, January–June 2021 | MMWR
• Hillis SD, Anda RF, Dube SR, Felitti VJ, Marchbanks PA, Marks JS. The association between adverse childhood experiences and adolescent pregnancy, long-term psychosocial consequences, and fetal death. Pediatrics. 2004 Feb;113(2):320-7.
• Miller ES, Fleming O, Ekpe EE, Grobman WA, Heard-Garris N. Association Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes. Obstetrics & Gynecology . 2021;138(5):770-776. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0000000000004570 .
• Sulaiman S, Premji SS, Tavangar F, et al. Total Adverse Childhood Experiences and Preterm Birth: A Systematic Review. Matern Child Health J . 2021;25(10):1581-1594. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-021-03176-6 .
• Ciciolla L, Shreffler KM, Tiemeyer S. Maternal Childhood Adversity as a Risk for Perinatal Complications and NICU Hospitalization. Journal of Pediatric Psychology . 2021;46(7):801-813. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsab027 .
• Mersky JP, Lee CP. Adverse childhood experiences and poor birth outcomes in a diverse, low-income sample. BMC pregnancy and childbirth. 2019;19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-019-2560-8 .
• Reid JA, Baglivio MT, Piquero AR, Greenwald MA, Epps N. No youth left behind to human trafficking: Exploring profiles of risk. American journal of orthopsychiatry. 2019;89(6):704.
• Diamond-Welch B, Kosloski AE. Adverse childhood experiences and propensity to participate in the commercialized sex market. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2020 Jun 1;104:104468.
• Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and Dependent Care, & Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232–e246. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2663
• Narayan AJ, Kalstabakken AW, Labella MH, Nerenberg LS, Monn AR, Masten AS. Intergenerational continuity of adverse childhood experiences in homeless families: unpacking exposure to maltreatment versus family dysfunction. Am J Orthopsych. 2017;87(1):3. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000133 .
• Schofield TJ, Donnellan MB, Merrick MT, Ports KA, Klevens J, Leeb R. Intergenerational continuity in adverse childhood experiences and rural community environments. Am J Public Health. 2018;108(9):1148-1152. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304598 .
• Schofield TJ, Lee RD, Merrick MT. Safe, stable, nurturing relationships as a moderator of intergenerational continuity of child maltreatment: a meta-analysis. J Adolesc Health. 2013;53(4 Suppl):S32-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.05.004 .

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

ACEs can have a tremendous impact on lifelong health and opportunity. CDC works to understand ACEs and prevent them.

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Child and Adolescent Mental Health CORE 2024-4

Child Welfare Education Partnership Concord , NH 03301 United States

This CORE course is a fully online, self led course.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health will focus on mental health as being part of every child and youth’s development. Children and youth with positive mental health are often able to function well across different environments. While children and youth with mental health challenges, often struggle with daily function in some way. Mental health disorders in children and youth can be treated and managed. The continuum that mental health occurs on and the changing nature of this domain will be explored throughout the course. The course will help participants become more aware of mental health disorders most prevalent in youth, including warning signs, symptoms, and issues related to specific high-risk populations. The material will cover strategies for working with youth experiencing mental health challenges and/or a mental health crisis and how to collaborate with providers and families in these situations. The role of the child welfare professional in working with children and youth experiencing mental health challenges will be highlighted.

Child Welfare Education Partnership

117 Pleasant St, Dolloff Building

Concord, NH 03301

[email protected]