Adolescent Issues and Developmental Theories Psychology Essay (Essay Sample)

Adolescent Issues and Developmental Theories
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Adolescent Issues and Developmental Theories
Although many parents feel a great sense of excitement when their toddlers achieve various physical, cognitive, emotional, and psychological growth and developmental milestones, this is not the case with adolescents. Markedly, children in the adolescent stage express themselves more freely, experiment with life, believe in self-righteousness, and develop an important sense of self-worth (Slee, Campbell & Spears, 2012). Perhaps, this is the reason parents feel frustrated with them. They question the authority of their parents; begin to disobey their parents, and act on their free will, thereby expressing an outstanding sense of deviance. As explained by McIntosh (2015), many teens at this point are characterized with outstanding curiosity and spirit of adventure. This leads to a great influence of their characters by the actions of their peers where many teens consume high amounts of drugs because they believe others do. Similarly, D'Arcy, C. (2016) indicates that teens easily get explicit because of their emerging sexual development, thereby sharing explicit pictures on the social media without realizing potential consequences. In another study by University of Montreal (2009), delinquent behavior among adolescent boys is found to be impulsive, repetitive, and contagious in many senses. Reviewing the developmental theories of adolescents by Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, James Marcia, and Lawrence Kohlberg among other psychologists reveal that perceived deviance from adolescents result from explicable cognitive, emotional, social, moral, gender identity, and sexual developmental milestones.