Problems and Their Solution in Adolescence - Essay Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : Working with Adolescence and Children Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Introduction Adolescence is the stage that between childhood and adulthood. It is a transition stage that is characterized by various biological changes in the body of a person. The person also experiences several emotional issues. This stage mostly occurs between 12 to 19 years. The stage may be divided into early adolescence, mid adolescence and late adolescence with different changes occurring at each stage. During this stage, the adolescents develop conceptual thinking abilities; they also become increasingly aware of their sexuality and develop an apparent sense of psychological identity. During this stage, the adolescents also get involved in many conflicts with their friends and parents. Parental guidance is however very important during this stage. According to Geldard (2008, p73), parents have a bid role to play on their adolescents. This is because various changes that take place during adolescence may look so strange such that some may be unable to handle them. The parent should be there to guide their children in dealing with some of these issues. The most disturbing change that takes place in the adolescent is in their body image and their physical appearance. Before adolescence, most of them do not care about their physical image but during adolescence, they get concerned about their body weight (especially the girls), their faces and other parts of their bodies. Some may therefore develop a negative image of themselves if they do not understand the changes properly. Parents should therefore enable them to understand why things are happening that way. The issues that I faced during my adolescence One of the main problems that I experienced during adolescence was my bad body image due to weight that I had gained. The weight gain was mostly contributed to the eating habits that I had developed during adolescence. This is common with many adolescents as most of them develop poor eating habits during this stage. Excess weight gain occurs when an individual eats more calories that the body can consume. Most adolescents like eating junk foods that contain high amounts of calories. This was also the case with me and I ended up gaining a lot of weigh that made me think that am too fat. The other problem that I developed was acne. Acne is formation of big pimples that mostly occurs on the face. I developed big pimples on my face and this made my self-esteem to be low. This is a common problem in adolescence and it is cause by hormonal imbalances. Other issues that made me suffer during my adolescence were due to my father who was always violent towards my submissive mother. This really disturbed me psychologically and could not feel comfortable when at home. The other problem was cultural difference since I came from a Greek background and most of my peers were not Greeks. My father was also very strict to me and could not allow me to have friends. I therefore had no friends to share my adolescent experiences with and this left me to suffer alone. However, I had two sisters who offered me some support. Adolescence changes and experiences Most of the problems that was experiencing were common problems but due to my stage of growth, they were troubling. Adolescents tend to interpret things differently and this makes them to be affected by even very small issues. For example, many people experience weight gain at different stages but adolescents tend to be more disturbed by it. My sisters were also having excess weights but to me, this seemed as a very big concern. Erikson’s Theory of Human Development can explain this, adolescents are very much concerned about how they appear to other people. The issue of how people will see me having excess weight was therefore a big problem. Development of acne on my face was also another problem that was making my self esteem to be low. This is also associated with the worry for how I appear to other people (Cicchetti & Toth 2006, p 309). During my adolescence, I was also getting affected by the violence that may father had towards my mother. This was unlike my sisters who were not adolescents. This is common since adolescents like taking some issues with much weight unlike other family members whop are not adolescents. According to Erikson’s theory of human development, adolescents suffer from identity crisis. They like identifying themselves with positives and not negatives. I was experiencing this problem. My sisters could go on with their lives regardless of the domestic problems we were experiencing. Nevertheless, on my side, I hated being identified with the violent father. According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, self-consciousness is very high during adolescence. One is always very conscious of the things happening around him or her (Salkind 2004, p139 & 229). Friends are very important during adolescence. Considering the theory of Erikson on need for identity during adolescence, friends help their adolescent peers in working out their identity. This is because for the adolescents to accept their identity, they must feel acceptance from others around them. Adolescents require a sense of identity and a feeling of acceptance either form the family or from the friends. In my case, I could not feel free to identify myself with my family and my father was very strict with me such that I could not have friends. Friendship in adolescence offers one various structures needed for psychological growth and development of competence. It offers one with opportunities to explore themselves and form a better understanding of others. With the stressful life I was experiencing at home, I needed to have friends who may offer me support and enable me to be more involved in school activities. With the many changes taking place in my body, I required friends who I could share my experiences with. In this case, I lacked the support that I was supposed to get from my parents and from my friends (Way & Hamm 2004, p18). Challenges of working with adolescents and their families Working with adolescents is very challenging especially where one does not clearly understand their reality. One of the main challenges that I face when working with adolescents is their unpredictable character. The character of a person develops well during adolescence and this is the time when one can tell what the person likes or dislikes. Therefore at this stage, most of them are unpredictable and this poses a challenge when dealing with them. One may appear in a different character each day. Another challenge when dealing with the adolescents is the strong impact of their family backgrounds. Those adolescents who come from abusive family backgrounds may be more affected by the conduct of their parents as compared to their siblings who are not adolescents. This mostly occurs because adolescents are facing the problem of defining their identity and may therefore not like to be identified with abusive parents. They therefore suffer mentally and this may hinder their confidence when relating with their peers. During adolescence, one feels that he or she deserves the best and therefore feels bad when there are bad things happening around him or her. The other challenge I face when dealing with adolescents is their desire for freedom. Most adolescents like doing what they want and now what it is supposed to be. According to Wolman, (2000), adolescents interpret their progression to maturity and a stage where they should be allowed to do hat they want. However, when given freedom, they use to engage in risky behaviors such as taking drugs and engaging in sexual relationship. If given the freedom, they may end up in crimes and teenage pregnancy. On the other hand, it is also important to give them freedom so that they can have time to learn about the world and the society. This is because adolescence should also be a learning stage where they need to learn how to cope with other people in the society and also know more about life. Guidance and counseling is therefore very important at this stage so that they can utilize the freedom wisely. In dealing with the families of adolescents, the major challenge faced is their inability to understand the reality concerning adolescents. This is most common where the adolescent child is the first born in the family. The parents may be lacking the experience of dealing with an adolescent child and they may therefore not understand the reality about him or her. They therefore don’t give the child what is required. Some parents act like my father where they restrict the children from having friends. Adolescents like autonomy in all their activities which their parents cannot afford to allow the. They end up in conflict most fi the times since none is ready to understand each other. It is therefore important to counsel the parents on how to deal with their adolescent children to avoid conflicts. Counseling strategies for adolescents experiencing similar problems Counseling is the most important thing in helping adolescents who are experiencing problems like mine. This is because if such problems are not dealt with, most of them may grow with very low self-esteem. The most effective counseling strategy that I would use for adolescents experiencing problems similar to mine is the intervention and prevention strategy. Intervention in this case means an attempt to reduce or eliminate suffering that one is going through in a particular situation while prevention is helping one get into worse situations. In a case similar to mine, intervention would be used in helping the adolescent to cope with the weight gain. Weight gain can be controlled if the necessary measures are taken. The most important interventions for managing weight gain include encouraging physical activity and proper eating habits. This may involve discouraging junk foods and encouraging balanced diet. This will help one to reduce weight and may rectify the spoilt body image. However, one has to be encouraged that he or she does not look as bad as he or she may think (Wolman 2000, p56). Intervention can also be done on the violence of the father towards the mother. Since as a counselor I should also be involved in helping the adolescent’s family, I can hold a discussion with the parents and explain to them the impact of their behavior to their growing adolescents. As a counselor, I can also intervene to help the father be less strict and allow the adolescents to make friends. This I can do by explaining to him the importance of having friends during adolescence. Friends are very important since they show acceptance to the adolescents, a very important factor at this stage. In assisting an adolescent with similar problems, I can use prevention to help the adolescent not to suffer from adolescent depression. Small issues that are happening in their families and among their friends may depress most adolescents. With experiences such as those I was experiencing during adolescence, a person is very likely to get depressed. To prevent this, I would develop a very close relationship with the adolescent so that am with him or her at every moment. However, in dealing with such an adolescent, there are some questions that I need to ask so that I can get more information from the adolescents. For example, the type of friends he or she would like to have if he father allows that. This will help me in guiding the adolescent on how helpful the friends will be. Another question would be to ask on whether the child gets abused by the violent father. This will help in clearly understanding the problems one may be experiencing at home. Ethical issues in dealing with adolescents and their families The most important ethical consideration when dealing with adolescents is to maintain confidentiality. This is very important in counseling because as a counselor, I must assure the adolescents that their information will remain confidential. This will help in improving the confidence of the adolescent and his or her ability to be open to me. The other ethical issue is to show openness to the adolescents. In helping an adolescent with problems such as those I was experiencing, it is good to show openness to that the adolescent can also be open. During my time, I wished I could get someone to share my problems with. However, to be able to open up to someone, the counselor must also be open to the adolescent. When counseling the adolescents, I usually start by giving examples of my own experiences. They thereafter gain confidence and also open up to me. Another ethical consideration is multicultural competence. During my adolescence, cultural background was a main problem since I came from a different culture forms that of my friends. Having knowledge and being sensitive of cultural differences is very important as it helps one to understand the impact that cultural background may be having on the adolescent (Welfel 2006, p176). Conclusion Adolescence is a very delicate stage of life and most people’s lives gets messed up at this stage. A stable family background is very essential since parents have a role to play in guiding their children throughout the adolescent period. My adolescent experiences were not good and I would wish to help any other adolescent who is experiencing similar problems. Counseling is very important to an adolescent since it helps one to gain confidence and be able to overcome the problems experienced during adolescence. Bibliography Geldard, K., & Geldard, D., 2008, Counselling children: A practical introduction (3rd ed.), Sage Publications, London. Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S., 2006, Adolescence: opportunities and challenges, University Rochester Press, New York. Wolman, B., 2000, Adolescence: biological and psychosocial perspectives, Greenwood Publishing Group, Greenwood, US. Salkind, N., 2004, An introduction to theories of human development, SAGE Publishers, London. Way, N., & Hamm, J., 2004, The experience of close friendships in adolescence, Jossey-Bass Publishers, New Jersey. Welfel, E., 2006, Ethics in counseling and psychotherapy: standards, research, and emerging issues, Thomson Brooks, New York. Read More