Compare and Contrast the Social World that Mark is experiencing with that of your own Adolescence - Essay Example

There is a lot of peer pressure for Mark to stop scouting and camping in order to be more involved in “social” activities like sports and seeking girlfriends; failure to which results in loneliness and lack of friends to associate with. This happens to many adolescents who cannot conform to this peer pressure due to either shyness or lack of interest. At many instances, adolescents often give in to these influences in order to retain their friends or at least feel associated with some company.

Some hardly make independent choices and decisions, especially when parents are not there to offer assistance in decision making.Adolescents feel parents don’t understand what they are going through, thereby becoming angry with them most of the time for no apparent reason and prefer their peers who are undergoing the same issues as them. Mark thought his parents did not understand his dilemma of quitting scouting or not and was therefore angry with them, which made it hard to communicate with them.

Most adolescents gain peer acceptance after getting socially preferred items like cars and through this, they feel their sense of identity has been achieved. As a result of the identity confusion during the period of adolescence, teenagers like Mark have a hard time paying attention to their studies and therefore their grades decline over time.Mark’s dad, Doug, tries to put himself in Mark’s “shoes”; being a young person and therefore utilizing that opportunity of going to a party is not a common occurrence among many parents.. Contrast Mark’s dad, Doug, tries to put himself in Mark’s “shoes”; being a young person and therefore utilizing that opportunity of going to a party is not a common occurrence among many parents.

Most parents are restrictive towards their children and especially teenagers. Mark’s parents reacted differently in relation to what other parents would have towards the same issue. This is so because they decided to seek help after they realized their 16 year old son was taking alcohol. Normally, detention, withdrawal of benefits and other forms of punishment would be the option for most parents in dealing with underage drinking. What influence did each environment have on the development that is taking, or has taken, place?

Mark’s absent parents contributed to lack of guidance on how to tackle the peer pressure that accompanied him when he joined the 8th grade. For example, the pressure of acquiring girlfriends and joining sports, which was not in his interests. Mark’s acquisition of a car results to his acceptance by his peers, who in turn introduced him to underage smoking, drinking and taking drugs. He did all this in order to try and gain identity and try to “fit in “with the rest of his peers. It is also a way for him to rebel against his parents (as most adolescents do according to Stanley Hall’s “storm and stress” description of adolescence) (Purcell, 2007).

Mark’s parents bought him a car not because he really needed it, but because he had asked for it. They therefore bought the car to please their son who had been a loner, keeping to himself and really angry when confronted. In a way, the car acted as a bribe to try and see if he would start to be social and let go of the