PSY 280: Relationship Between Middle Childhood And Adolescence

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Middle Childhood and Adolescence PSY 280 Sunday, October 29, 2012 Middle childhood and adolescence is a crucial period of development within everyone’s lifetime, but for the child and parent it can become a time of uncertainty. In this era of a child life, their brains are developed enough to for logic, so they attempt to understand the world around them with answers from their perspective. All children require parents who would do what is necessary to care about them. Parents should act in the best interest of the child’s development, and they should have to make an evaluation of the parenting methods that work well with the personality of the child. Within these years the child’s temperament also begins to have an effect in their lives.…show more content…
A relationship between a child and a functional family unit helps foster self-esteem in the child, but that is most likely with support from a functional family. As the parent finds reward in their child’s achievements and rewarding them as well, the child is encouraged by the progress of their development. When a child is encouraged, they are expected to follow a lifetime of meaningful work. “Often people who marry and stay married have personal and financial strengths that also make them better parents.”(Berger, 2010). On the other, in contrast to be within a functional family, children being part of a dysfunctional family are any family that are poorly functioning, and consist of family members that are not supporting all its members. “In every nation and with every type of family, three factors increase the likelihood that a family will be dysfunctional; low income, low stability, and low harmony (Teachman, 2008b).”(Berger, 2010) Pressures build and affect each other leading to a dysfunctional family unit, for example a single parent receiving less income than that of a two parent home. Children having to deal with divorce also adds to the pressure adolescent children. Unfortunately dysfunctional families exist, and often that dysfunction is passed down through generations, many children are being raised by single parents, raised in two households, or have to…show more content…
Such pressures as family structure and marital status of the parents, contribute to an adolescents perceptions and social views. Adolescents are thought to believe that others are always watching and evaluating them, and so some think they are special and it gets to them. They think believe that because he or she is so concerned with themselves, then so must be everyone else and that’s a child falling into egocentrism. Their feelings about themselves stem not only from their inner crises, but from their peers' acceptance or lack. Their self-conscience is highly regarded as conceited which can cause personal distortion. Generally these added pressures serve as only distractions in a child’s development, but can have adverse effects if they are not addressed. Peer groups are capable of aiding children during this difficult period, but there are some peers that influence risky behaviors. The adolescent starts believing that if risky behavior is not harming their friends, then it will not harm them and some risk taking can lead to greater peer acceptance. One benefit would be that it can also help relieve the so-called maturity gap between physical and social maturity by mimicking adult behaviors, thereby affirming personal independence. Moral development is a great aspect of cognitive development, where a child achieves thinking abilities that develops

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