Prenatal Development - Essay Example

? PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT Prenatal Development Essay One There are various developmental stages inlife from the time a child is born. After birth, one has to develop to infancy, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and finally proceed to late adulthood, the last stage in the development of an individual. One of the most critical of these stages is the young adulthood phase since this is the time when a lot of decisions that will determine how a person’s life will eventually turn out to be are made. Young adults range between the age of 18 to 35 years, and this section of the paper will discuss some of the phases that they go through in their development and decisions that they have to contend with. This stage could be described as the ‘prime of life’. Focusing on my cousin Erin, whom I was close to as she developed into a young adult, there are some changes that I witnessed her going through. With regard to her physical appearance, this is the time when she reached her full height of 5 ft 7inches; this was accompanied by a well toned and structured body when she was in her early and mid twenties. This was coupled by the fact that she worked out regularly, engaging in activities such as running, cardio training as well as keeping to a strict diet to ensure that she stayed fit (Weiten et al, 2008). As a result of this, Erin was always a healthy young lady, and she rarely had to make any visit to a doctor or go to the hospital. She was always in good health. In addition to this, she was always full of strength and could do thorough cleaning of the house, cook and go shopping without showing any signs of tiredness. Erin graduated from college at the age of 23 and immediately moved to another city where she started working as a management trainee. During her stay in the new city, she made a number of friends, most of whom were workmates and others that she met at social events, after which she would call me and tell about how she had met certain people. These were people who mostly shared the same goals with her; thus, the friendships grew due to the similarity of interests that they shared (Weiten et al, 2008). By the time she had spent almost 5 years there, she had some serious relationships with people she would consider for marriage, but all of them did not work out. This, as she later told me, was because most of the men she dated were not ready for serious relationships and to settle, yet this was one of the things she was working towards, that is getting settled and starting a family. Erin also changed her jobs three times, claiming that they did not offer any room for development, and she needed to advance in her career. This is the time when she experienced Erik Erickson’s Intimacy and Solidarity vs. Isolation, which is the point in one’s life when an adult seeks one or more companions and loves them (Nevid, 2008). It is also the time when one finds mutually satisfying relationships, mostly through marriage and friends. If one succeeds in all of these, they experience intimacy (Weiten et al, 2008). On the other hand, if they fail, it gets hard to find successful relationships and launch a career, and people begin being defensive isolating themselves from others. In Erin’s case, her mother would call her often enquiring how she was doing, and most of the time she would get defensive for having changed jobs again or breaking her previous relationship. This did not always go well with her mother, who felt that her daughter should settle down, which in turn affected the close relationship that the two previously had; Erin isolated herself from her family for some time. However, on coming back home at the age of 29, Erin reunited with an old family friend, dated for one year, and finally got married. This stemmed from the fact that they were both ready to settle down and start a family. They gave birth to a beautiful daughter Tiffany, whom they really loved and cared for. Young adulthood is a time when one is braced with a lot of decisions to make that later affect their life. Therefore, it is a stage full of challenges, and one needs to be sober and independent-minded so that they can achieve full intimacy with other people. Essay Two Due to an increase in the emphasis on the physical, cognitive and emotional needs of a growing number of older adults, there has been a resultant increase in life expectancy in a number of countries in the world. Thus, there are a larger number of people who are reaching late adulthood, which is the age of 65, and before the lower border of this period was lower. This is one of the stages of developmental psychology, and the people in this age group go through a number of physical, emotional and cognitive challenges, and therefore need to be understood and supported. This paper will discuss some of the changes and challenges that are experienced in the late adulthood developmental stage. One person that I witnessed going through late adulthood is my grandmother. One thing that I noticed was the physical change that she underwent when she approached 70 years. First of all, there was the common graying of hair and wrinkling of the skin. These are some of the changes that began getting evident when she was approaching 60 years, but they were now even more conspicuous. Apart from that, I could see deposits of fat on her face, especially around her chin. In addition to this, her blood vessels became more visible on her skin; this could be most probably attributed to the thinning of fat deposits under her skin. However, despite some of these changes, my grandmother still maintained perfect eyesight, and her hearing was also good; this was the same case with her sense of smell, which was still remarkably sharp. Concerning her cognitive development, I could proudly say that my grandmother beat all odds and overcame all the challenges that are associated with cognitive development in late adulthood. This is due to the fact that her memory was still excellent at 70 years of age. She did not have any form of dementia, which is memory impairment. I could attribute this to the fact that we always tried to engage her so that she could remain active almost all the time. We always strived to take her to social events so that she could keep up with the social activities that were going on around her and also remember people. She always took good care of herself and was wary of the food that she ate, thus always ensuring that she had a balanced diet. According to Beeston (2007), the rate of dementia increases with age; however, the same study says that early intervention is imperative to prevent rapid decline in memory functions. Therefore, people who are around those who are in late adulthood stage of development should be well informed so that they can assist the people in this age group to maintain their memory. Among the last psychosocial developmental stages in life, as propounded by Erick Erickson, is the tension between integrity and despair (Nevid, 2008). This is the point at which an individual will both accept and appreciate their life as being meaningful and productive and thus attain integrity or the feeling that their life is unproductive and unfulfilling, hence despair (Nevid, 2008). From my observation, I noticed that my grandmother was having both feelings: there were times when she could be very happy and joyful and even give gifts to her grandchildren as well as talk freely about her life when she was younger. These are opposed to other times when she would be gloomy and have the feeling that other people were looking down on her. During these times, she would still talk about her life as a teenager and young woman, but it would be full of nostalgia. However, such occasions were few, and most of the time she would be happy about being old and ageing, claiming that there were very few people of her age and that she was blessed to reach such an old age. My grandmother never had doubts that life had meaning. This was propelled by the fact that she always felt she had made a great contribution to the life of other people such as her relatives and friends. According to Wink and Scott (2005), religion not only provides comfort in times of suffering and stress but also offers a promise of life after death and re-union with loved ones. This is the reason why most people who strongly believe in Christianity are most of the time comfortable with the thought of death, especially in the late adulthood stage of life when it seems that people are through with their mission on the earth and are simply awaiting death. My grandmother always felt that she had accomplished her destination on the earth, and thus was comfortable with the thought of death, partly thanks to the fact that she was a staunch Christian and received a lot of social support through frequent church attendance and membership in religious groups. With such a foundation, she was always at ease with the subject of death. But despite this fact, she would always get terribly affected by the death of a close friend or relative. She would grieve for days and even refuse to take her meals as required after the occurrence of such events. However, she would get over her grief with the belief that she always had: that death was a time for reward for the good deeds that people did while on the earth (Wink & Scott, 2005). In my opinion, she always said this so that she could comfort herself, though deep within her there was the fear of death. One thing that made her strong was her strong religious belief regarding death. Actually, funerals were some of the occasions when she would meet and catch up with some of her old friends and relatives who she treasured but had a hard time meeting. She maintained a circle of close friends and relatives, and her home was always a haven of visitors who would frequently shower her with gifts. However, she had got quite slow with age, and it always took us, the grandchildren, much effort to ensure that all her visitors were comfortable and well catered for. She had lost the independence that she had when she was slightly younger. Then, she was a strict disciplinarian and always preferred doing her work all by herself. In children, the fear of death always stems from the loneliness that they are bound to feel, but for people in late adulthood, there is always the question of whether they have had a fulfilling and complete life or not. All in all, I could say that my grandmother had a healthy acceptance of her mortality. Conclusively, late adulthood is a period of great challenges, and it takes a lot of support and perseverance in dealing with people at this stage. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the people that are near those in late adulthood to ensure that they are healthy and at peace with themselves by removing any doubts that they may have with the thought that there life was not fulfilling. References Beeston, D. (2007), Early Interventions in Dementia. Staffordshire University: Centre for Ageing and Mental Health. Retrieved on 15th October, 2012 from Nevid, J.S. (2008). Psychology: Concepts and Applications. New York: Cengage Learning. Weiten et al. (2008). Psychology Applied to Modern Life: Adjustment in the 21st Century. New York: Cengage Learning. Wink, P. & Scott, J. (2005). Does Religiousness Buffer Against the Fear of Death and Dying in Late Adulthood? The Journal of Gerontology, vol. 60 No. 4 Read More