ADOLSCENT

Challenges and remedies from social – psychological & cultural perspective:

          Historians have described G Stanley Hall (1844 - 1924) as the father of scientific study of adolescence. According to Hall (1904) adolescence is the period from 12 to 23 years of age and it is characterized by considerable upheaval. The storm and stress view is Hall concept that adolescence is a turbulent time charged with conflict and mood swings. Anthropologist Margaret Mead (1928) studied adolescent’s on the south sea island of Samoa. She concluded that the basic nature of adolescence is not biological but rather socio- cultural. In cultures that provide a smooth, gradual to transition from childhood to adulthood which is the way adolescence is handled is Samoa , she found little storm & stress associated with the period. According to G. Stanley Hall inventions view adolescence is a socio historical creation. School work and economics are important dimensions of inventions view of adolescence. (Elder 1975, Fasick 1994, Lapsley Enright & Serlin 1985). Stereotype is a generalization that reflects our impressions and beliefs about a broad category of people. Stereotype of adolescent are plentiful “They want a job but do not want to work.” “Adolescent’s today do not have the moral fiber of my generation. Adult’s perception of adolescent’s emerge from a culmination of personal experience and media portrayals neither of which produces a genuine picture of adolescent’s development process. Each adolescent’s development occurs against a cultural backdrop of context that includes family, peers, school, religions and social traditions, region and its cultural & ethnic legacies. The cultural context for Delhi adolescent and a Gorakhpur adolescent will be certainly different. Adolescents in certain conservative area are not allowed to interact with other sex even at school level. Not accepting the parent’s choice of a marital partner for them is also regards as an act of immorality and less trustworthy to their parents in many parts of the country. Similarly majority of adolescents in low income group category do not have the exposure to latest technological advancement’s and other academic facilities. But in course setting for a Job from a small place to big metropolitan cities they are stigmatized for not speaking very good English and many metropolitan traits. The nation of morality, respect to the elders, freedom for pursuing certain careers and engaging in variance leisure act are different for male & female adolescents. There are far more restriction on male & female adolescents on sexual and irrational activity of male and female adolescents in different cast, region and cultural setting. 

       The nation of morality, respect to the elders, freedom for pursuing certain careers and engaging in various leisure act & female adolescents. There are far more restriction on male & female adolescent on sexual and interactional activity of male and female adolescent and cultural settings.

                Self – Esteem of an person refers to global self evaluation self concept to domain specific evaluation. An adolescents self – esteem might indicate a perfection about whether he or she are intelligent, attractive and realistic perception of one’s worth and one’s successes and accomplishments. Physical appearance is an especially powerful contributor to self – esteem in adolescence (Harter 2006). School performance and self – esteem are only moderately correlated and these correlation do not suggest that high self – esteem produces better school performance ( Brau Meisters & other 2003).

                  Social context such as the family, friends, school contribute to the development of an adolescents self – esteem (Duesk & McIntyre 2003) . in an investigation of self – esteem and parent child relationship a measure of self – esteem was administrated to boys and the boys and their mother were interviewed about family relationship (Copper Smith 1967).

Based on these assessments, their following parenting attribute were associated with boy’s high self – esteem.

·        Expression of affection

·        Concern about the boy’s problems

·        Harmony in the home

·        Participation in joint family activities

·        Available to give complete organized help when the boys needed it

·        Setting clear & fair rules

·        Abiding by the rules

·        Allowing the boy’s freedom within well prescribed limits.

                      In our practical day to day life also if parents allow liberal atmosphere at home then the adolescents share their true felling to them. But if a parent does not find time to share the feeling of an adolescents they try and experiment with friends which many situations parent consider the genuine expression of their child as humiliating and threatening conduct to their own ego’s and the static world view. But in reality the dynamics of change keep ushering myiads of change that adolescent face at a particular point of time but mostly parents experience great difficulty in adopting to those sensitive experiences of their adolescents. According to the great theories Erik Erikson adolescents Clamor for solution to question of identity. Identity is a self portrait that is composed of many pieces includes work identity, political identity, religions identity, relationship identity, achievement identity, interest identity intellectual identity and body image undeveloped and undeveloped societies the identity is perceived merely on singular track of intellectual and economic achievement while ignoring other important and diverse aspect of identity. Had it not been the case how we would have seen wizards like A.R, Rahman, Sachin ,Sania or the likes of him/her. Although we do appreciate such legends of their respective fields but we mostly want this happen i.e. becoming musician or players to the child of other not of our own.

    Eriksion was especially sensitive to the role of culture in identity. Throughout the world, he noted ethnic minority groups have struggled to maintain their cultural identities while blending in with dominant culture. A somewhat similar phenomenon can be observed in places like Mumbai and Delhi where a massive migration from purvanchal has taken place and majority of them are guided by their indigenous cultural identity and protecting a separate or inclusive identity within the large culture. Parents are influential figures in an adolescents search for identity. Democratic parents who encourage adolescents in the decision making are considered better than the autocratic parents. Joint family system and permissive family environments are helpful in encourage enabling behaviors. Cultural and ethnic identity also allows the formation of attitudes and feelings related to that membership. In recent years researchers have focused on big five factors of personality – openness to experiences, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (Emotional Stability). If we create an acronym from these trait words, we get the words OCEAN. In one study, adolescents who were characterized by openness, conscientiousness and emotional stability were less likely to have a pattern of school absences (  Lorensbury & others 2004) many of ours not aware of their gender – biased attitudes. These attitudes are deeply entrenched in and supported by the genera; cultural. Same – sex education and Co-ed education research finding are not conclusive and there may be broad deviations in the outcome. Message carried out by the media (print electronics and advertisement) are extremely stereotype in their portrayal of the sexes. Men are portrayed as more powerful than women an many TV show. The extreme level social & religious bias at the parental level can be easily witnessed in most of the households despite a mild change in attitude. the adolescent female right from childhood is reared to be more compliant and passive where as  dominant ,aggressive and acting. Observation imitation, rewards and punishment are the mechanisms by which gender identity develops. Gender typing emerges as individuals gradually develop gender appropriate and gender inappropriate in their culture.   

                      Gender stereotype are broad categories that reflect our impression and beliefs that is loaded with over simplifications. So many charges at social, technological and cultural level are easily ignored and it is very easy for us to classify them two distinct categories of males & females.

                  It is far more important to think of traits and contexts rather than gender identity alone. So many rituals and many traditions also reinforce such discriminatory behavior patterns. Adolescents in general also are victimized verbally if they do not fit in the unidirectional expectation of their parents. During creative years of personality building parents spends less of quality time but do not forget to compare in discriminatory fashion their achievements in school or sports. Control over adolescents girls social relationships especially romantic at times taken to very dangerous consequences of physical beating and even honor killing are not a rare phenomena. Strong discouragement of accepting teenager’s romantic relationship and ask them to wait till they are married also compel the adolescents to adopt practices that has widespread mismatch with the expectation of parents. Regardless of social prescriptions & proscription the rate of urban adolescent abortion is increasing at an alarming pace. The dramatic increase in HIV/AIDS cases among adolescents is happing because of lack of proper sex education to our adolescents. Ignoring physiological and biological needs in the name of religious & cultural moralizing does not matches with the reality of needs being faced by adolescents. Authoritarian, neglectful and indulgent parenting needs to be sensitized and adolescents be given more autonomy, mutual respect, balanced communication and attunement to each others needs. It also a big mistake by some of the non working mothers that they fail to motivate their adolescents progress by not allowing them to participate in outwards activities some behavior patterns like pressurizing their child to study more and more at the time of examination and not paying attention to proper time management. Setting unrealistic goals without considering the ability of their children also poses a negative self – worth to the adolescents. Minimizing social comparison induces self – worth among the adolescent. It is also important to note that in many cultures some small events of non – performance of their adolescents invite strong prejudiced mark of failure. We have a tendency to compare our children only with the best one percent successful adolescents and instead of exploring solutions for their future success we easily tart blaming the adolescent for their incompetence in all other fields. A little more open cultural, social, generational and technological changes understanding is necessary for improving the lot of our adolescents and exploring solutions to their problems based on contextual and individual considerations of adolescents will be more appreciate on part of condominiums researchers and members of civil society. It will be more important to perceive their problems in a wholistic perspective.