The Impact of Puberty on Your Child's Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Development

1. The Impact of Puberty on Your Child's Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Development Presenters: Angelica Greiner Baylis Scott

2. Adolescence • Covers the period from roughly ages 10 to 20 of a child’s development • A time of growing up, of moving from the immaturity of childhood into maturity of adulthood

3. Adolescence • There is no single event or boundary line that denotes the end of childhood or the beginning of adolescence

4. Adolescence • Instead… • Experts think of the passage from childhood into and through adolescence as composed of a set of transitions that unfold gradually and that touch upon many aspects of the individual’s behavior, development, and relationships • These transitions are biological (puberty), cognitive, social, and emotional

5. Biological Transition • The most salient sign that adolescence has begun • Refers to the physical changes the occur in the growing girl/boy as the individual passes from childhood into adulthood • The physical changes of puberty are triggered by hormones—chemical substances in the body that act on specific organs and tissues

6. Biological Transition • Difficulties associated with adjusting to puberty are minimized if adolescents know what changes to expect and have positive attitudes toward them

7. Biological Transition • Although the immediate impact of puberty on your child’s self-image and mood may be very modest, the timing of physical maturation does affect your child’s social and emotional development…

8. Biological Transition • Early-maturing boys tend to have a more positive self-concept and be more self-assured than their later-maturing peers • Early-maturing girls may feel awkward and self-conscious

9. Cognitive Transition • A second element of the passage through adolescence is a cognitive transition • Compared to children, adolescents think in way that are more advanced, more efficient, and generally more complex

10. Cognitive Transition • The cognitive transition can be seen in 5 ways: • Better able to think about what is possible, instead of limiting their thoughts to what is real

11. Cognitive Transition • The cognitive transition can be seen in 5 ways: • They are better able to think about abstract ideas

12. Cognitive Transition • The cognitive transition can be seen in 5 ways: 3. They begin to think more often about the process of thinking itself (metacognition)

13. Cognitive Transition • The cognitive transition can be seen in 5 ways: • Their thinking tends to become multidimensional, rather than limited to a single issue

14. Cognitive Transition • The cognitive transition can be seen in 5 ways: • Adolescents are more likely than children to see things as relative, rather than absolute (black and white)

15. Emotional Transition • During adolescence, important shifts occur in the way individuals think about and characterize themselves—their self-concept

16. Emotional Transition • As adolescents mature intellectually and undergo cognitive transitions, they come to perceive themselves in more sophisticate and differentiated ways • Children – describe themselves in relatively simple, concrete terms • Adolescents – likely to employ complex, abstract, and psychological self-characterizations

17. Emotional Transition • Conventional wisdom holds that adolescents have low self-esteem—that they are more insecure and self-critical than children or adults

18. Emotional Transition • However, most research indicates otherwise… • Although adolescents’ feelings about themselves may fluctuate, their self-esteem remains fairly stable from about age 13 on • Researchers believes that self-esteem is multidimensional—young people evaluate themselves along several different dimensions

19. Emotional Transition • Erik Erikson theorized that the establishment of a coherent sense of identity is the chief psychosocial task of adolescence • Adolescent may experiment with different roles and identities • This experimentation involves trying on different personalities and ways of behaving • Sometimes parents describe their teenage children as going through “phases”—much of this behavior is actually experimentations with roles and personalities

20. Emotional Transition • Establishing a sense of autonomy/independence is an important part of the emotional transition out of childhood

21. Emotional Transition • During adolescence, there is a movement away from the dependence typical of childhood toward autonomy typical of adulthood • This movement can be seen in several ways… • Adolescents don’t rush to their parents whenever they are upset, worried, or need assistance • They do not see their parents as all knowing or all-powerful • Adolescents have a great deal of emotional energy wrapped up in relationships outside the family—may be more attached to a boyfriend/girlfriend than to their parents • Older adolescents are able to see and interact with their parents as people—not just as their parents

22. Emotional Transition • The process of individuation begins during infancy and continues well into late adolescence • Individuation involves a gradual sharpening of one’s sense of self as autonomous, as competent, and as separate from one’s parents

23. Emotional Transition • The process of individuation does not necessarily involve stress and internal turmoil

24. Emotional Transition • Instead… • Individuation entails relinquishing childish dependencies on parents in favor of more mature, more responsible, and less dependent relationships • Adolescents who have been successful in establishing a sense of individuation can accept responsibility for their choices and actions instead of looking to their parents to do it for them

25. Emotional Transition • Susceptibility to the influence of parents/peers changes with development • Childhood—highly oriented toward parents/less oriented toward peers; peer pressure during the early elementary years is not especially strong • Adolescence – less oriented toward their parents and more oriented toward their peers; peer pressure begins to escalate • Early Adolescence– conformity to parents continues to decline and conformity to peers and peer pressure continues to rise • Middle Adolescence – genuine behavioral independence emerges when conformity to parents and peers declines

26. Social Transition • One of the key social transitions into adolescence is the increase in the amount of time individuals spend with their peers

27. Social Transition • Specific developments… • Sharp increase in the amount of time adolescents spend with their peers and in the relative time they spend in the company of peers versus adults • Peer groups function much more often without adult supervision than they do during childhood • More contact with peers of the opposite-sex friends • Whereas children’s peer relationships are limited mainly to pairs of friends/relatively small groups, adolescence marks the emergence of larger groups of peers (i.e. band, athletics, drama, etc.)

28. Social Transition • The importance of peers during early adolescence coincides with changes in individuals’ needs for intimacy • As children begin to share secrets with their friends, a new sense of loyalty and commitment grows—a belief that friends can trust each other • During adolescence, the search for intimacy intensifies and self-disclosure between friends becomes important • Teenagers spend hours discussing their innermost thoughts and feelings, trying to understand one another • The discovery that they tend to think and feel the same as someone else becomes another important basis of friendship

29. Social Transition • Early adolescence is a period of significant change and reorganization in family relationships

30. Social Transition • Changes in ways adolescents view family rules and regulations may contribute to increased disagreements between them and their parents

31. Wrap Up • Research indicates that most young people are able to negotiate the biological, cognitive, emotional, and social transitions of adolescence successfully! • Questions/Comments