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

Development

Presenters:•Angelica Greiner•Baylis Scott

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

Adolescence•There is no single event or boundary line

that denotes the end of childhood or the beginning of adolescence

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

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

Biological Transition •Difficulties associated with adjusting to

puberty are minimized if adolescents know what changes to expect and have positive attitudes toward them

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…

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

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

Cognitive Transition•The cognitive transition can be seen in 5

ways:

1. Better able to think about what is possible, instead of limiting their thoughts to what is real

Cognitive Transition•The cognitive transition can be seen in 5

ways:

2. They are better able to think about abstract ideas

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)

Cognitive Transition•The cognitive transition can be seen in 5

ways:

4. Their thinking tends to become multidimensional, rather than limited to a single issue

Cognitive Transition•The cognitive transition can be seen in 5

ways:

5. Adolescents are more likely than children to see things as relative, rather than absolute (black and white)

Emotional Transition•During adolescence, important shifts

occur in the way individuals think about and characterize themselves—their self-concept

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

Emotional Transition•Conventional wisdom holds that adolescents

have low self-esteem—that they are more insecure and self-critical than children or adults

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

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

Emotional Transition• Establishing a sense of autonomy/independence

is an important part of the emotional transition out of childhood

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

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

Emotional Transition• The process of individuation does not necessarily

involve stress and internal turmoil

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

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

Social Transition•One of the key social transitions into

adolescence is the increase in the amount of time individuals spend with their peers

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.)

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

Social Transition•Early adolescence is a period of significant

change and reorganization in family relationships

Social Transition•Changes in ways adolescents view family

rules and regulations may contribute to increased disagreements between them and their parents

Wrap Up•Research indicates

that most young people are able to negotiate the biological, cognitive, emotional, and social transitions of adolescence successfully!

•Questions/Comments