The definition essay - Adolescence

The definition essay

Adolescence

Adolescence is the phase of every human being's physical and mental development that takes a person from childhood to adulthood. This transitional stage is characterized by significant biological, psychological and social changes. Moreover, it involves an intensification of sexuality and sexual desire.

As far as the biological changes (or, to put it better, puberty) are concerned, children's hormonal balance moves into adult features and makes children acquire secondary sex characteristics (those traits that distinguish the two sexes of the human species, but that are not directly part of the reproductive system). In fact the pituitary gland, located at the base of the brain, secretes different kinds of hormones (testosterone for males and estrogens and progesterone for females) into the blood stream and provokes the rapid maturation of the gonads (males' testes and females' ovaries).

In males, testosterone directly increases the size and mass of the vocal cords, muscles, skull and bones. As a consequence, males' voices become deeper and the shape of their face and skeleton changes. Testosterone also accelerates the growth of facial hair and body hair (including underarm, abdominal, chest, and pubic hair), but, sometimes, it slows and eventually stops the growth of hair on the head.

In females, estrogens promote the development of breasts and make hips larger, widen the pelvis and increase the amount of body fat in the hips, thighs, buttocks, and breasts. They also induce the growth of the uterus and are involved in the thickening of the endometrium and other aspects of regulating the menstrual cycle.

The average age of puberty's onset is reported as being 10 years for girls and 12 years for boys, but the normal range extends from 7 to 14 years for girls and from 9 to 16 years for boys (Chumlea, 1982). Every person's individual timetable for puberty is influenced by heredity and environmental factors (for example diet and exercise).

Mood swings, the acquisition of logical forms of though, and rapid cognitive development could all be considered psychological changes.

Adolescents undergo changes in mood, connected with emotional instability.

At the same time, their thinking becomes logical. In fact, on the one hand, children cannot imagine the feasible to be out of the reality's pattern. Children think that the feasible is only what hasn't come yet but is to come. On the other hand, adolescents' logical thought finds feasible what is consistent.

While children work with fantasy, but their fantastic world is linked to concrete things (even if it deals with space-heroes or monsters), adolescents' fantastic world is constituted by social, ethical and political hypotheses. These hypotheses are not real, but logically doable.

Adolescents undergo a rapid cognitive development. Moreover, the thoughts, ideas and concepts developed at this period of life play a very important role in character and personality formation because the individual's future life is strongly influenced by them.

During adolescence, finally, children's egocentricity is overcome.

In this delicate stage of their lives, adolescents also instigate social changes, especially as far as the relationship adolescent/parents and adolescent/friends are concerned. In fact, while children spend the most of their time with adults (mother and father), adolescents reduce the amount of time spent with their family and increase the time spent with their peers. The peer group becomes more and more important and, consequently, the state of opposition between adolescents and their parents increases.

Adolescents strive to create a natural separation and sense of independence from their parents and, at the same time, look for a social identity for themselves, often confusing "right" and "wrong".

Furthermore, young adolescents are particularly susceptible to conforming to the behaviour of their peers and are often influenced by them. Peers can encourage pro-social behaviour, but also anti-social behaviour. In the second case, this peer pressure may prompt adolescents to cheat and commit misdemeanours or crimes.

Finally, people between childhood and adulthood experience an intensification of sexuality and sexual desire. However, a clarification has to be made. An adolescent often achieves sexual maturation as far as the body is concerned, when sexuality in the area of feelings and emotions is still to be developed fully. During adolescence, in fact, libido's discharge does not blend with the need for the tenderness and affection.

The shape of adolescent, view as person in a prolonged stage of troublesome transition, is not considered by most traditional societies, in which the passage from childhood t adulthood is run by rites of passages.