Human Growth and Development II

Human Growth and Development II

Part A

Human development aims to understand individuals and how they grow, change, and develop. Human development has eight distinct stages with independent traits, activities, and changes. The most important developmental stage is infancy, the stage of improvement where children exhibit trust versus mistrust (Robert, 2016). The other stage is middle childhood, where kids move or change into expanding environments and roles. They begin spending more time far from their family and spend the most time on activities and at school. As they continue experiencing more of the world they live within, and start developing their own identity and individuality.

The second stage is adolescence, which entails children developing a sense of self. Adolescence is also considered a stage of an identity crisis because adolescents who can identify themselves with self-knowledge and stronger goals are considered teenagers. However, those who struggle and depend on parents for guidance and social interaction might encounter confusion (Orenstein & Lewis, 2021). The other stage is early adulthood. It starts at age 20 when children start solidifying their lifetime bonds and exhibit intimacy and isolation because most people enter marriage or committed relationships and lifelong friendships. The last stage is the middle adulthood stage, which is also regarded as the generativity and stagnation stage (Orenstein & Lewis, 2021). In this phase, individuals tend to battle with their contributions to society, and others might be busy pursuing a career or raising kids.

In contrast, those who feel they are contributing to society experience generativity, which signifies legacy. In contrast, those who feel their lives are not worthwhile will feel stagnated (Robert, 2016). Therefore, the purpose of this assignment is to understand human development and its stages, as well as the self-personalities of each stage and how what I learned from the course has improved my understanding of the four stages of life.

Part B

Self Identity Development in Middle Childhood, Early Adulthood, and Middle Adulthood

Self-personality means what makes individuals who they are. The self-personality in middle childhood is developed through expanded social interaction and competency. During middle childhood, kids’ identity grows when they spend more time experiencing the world and being far from their parents at school and other activities. As a result, they get more multi-faceted, abstract, and complex in nature. At this point, they stop thinking of themselves as individual persons with comparisons and attributes. Self-personality becomes more evident and strong in the adolescent stage. Costa, McCrae, & Löckenhoff (2019) state that developing a stable and strong sense of self is widely viewed as one of the central responsibilities of the adolescence phase. During adolescence, people are much more self-mindful about their fast-changing identities. For example, an adolescent girl starts realizing she is beautiful and applying makeup. However, if anybody shames them for being unpretty, their self-personality can be affected because how youths view themselves changes in response to family, school, and peers. Self-personality and identity continue developing during middle adulthood, but they remain stable, which is found cross-culturally (Robert, 2016). For example, people with good emotional maturity would have shown a strong sense of self, power, and confidence in a work situation and are often gratifying. In contrast, those with a lot of regrets would show stagnation.

The Growth of Interpersonal Relationships

Interpersonal relationships begin from infancy when the link is bonding with the parent. This then transitions into early childhood. During this stage, kids interact with their environment materials, peers, and adults, which make up the engine for learning and development. Emotionally responsive, contingent, and secure interactions with peers and adults promote cognitive, social, and emotional development. Therefore, individuals in early childhood learn interpersonal relationships by copying or imitating the behaviors they see from others (Robert, 2016). For example, if a child sees their mother or father happy while interacting with others, the child will exhibit the same. When they transition to adolescence, the youth become independent and engage in different relationships as independent persons. For example, the youth start seeing physical changes within their bodies and then start feeling more aggressive and engaging in boy-girl relationships. Next, in early and middle adulthood, interpersonal relationships occur due to work and different activities, and these relationships mostly depend on mutual gains. For example, an adult would be in a relationship with a long-time workmate or neighbor they meet with and share so many thoughts and ideas.

Intimacy in Middle Childhood versus Intimacy in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Intimacy is the relationships or close bonds and activities within such associations as sex (Campione‐Barr & Killoren, 2019). Therefore, intimate behavior happens between people, representing a major way in which two or more persons can develop a strong connection to enhance a long reproductive relationship. The intimate relationships formed in adolescence to early childhood and young adulthood result in continuing relationships and individual growth (Campione‐Barr & Killoren, 2019). Such life stages are linked with stronger bodies of knowledge on intimacy than any other. Most importantly, young adults face the problem of nurturing their adult identity, while adolescence is concerned with developing their individuality while seeking acceptance from the people around them. The degree of intimacy during middle childhood is driven by respect, attribute, and affection, similar to friendship. In adolescents and young adults, intimacy is more sex oriented than intimacy in early and middle childhood, which is more of the need for closeness with little to no sexual desires (Cacciatore, Korteniemi-Poikela & Kaltiala, 2019).

Cognitive and Physical Changes during Early and Middle Adulthood

The cognitive and physical changes are less emotional between early and middle childhood. Physically, individuals in early childhood have stronger and smaller bodies and grow bit by bit as they grow into middle adulthood. Physical growth also reduces as children move from early childhood to middle adulthood because the body starts maturing. Children experience a lot of energy in their bodies in early adulthood, but as they enter middle adulthood, the energy level slows down (Robert, 2016). The significant resemblance or uniformity remains that body structures such as facial looks, tallness, and language tone remain vague between early childhood and middle adulthood. Their portrayal starts as people move to middle adulthood, such as eye shortcomings, ill effects of balding, and early exhaustion. Middle adulthood also witnesses sicknesses such as elevated circulatory strain problems, low bone thickness problems, and high cholesterol. Finally, the physical ability to execute roles and tangible and psychological abilities change as people transition from early to middle adulthood (Robert, 2016).

Part C

This course has greatly empowered me as it has widened my understanding and perception of human development stages and the individual impacts on relational connections. It has taught me the essence of closeness and subjective and physical changes from early childhood to adulthood. It is worth noting that each life stage has important aspects that drive the social structure, and the major one is interpersonal relationships. The degree of closeness at every life stage is different. For example, I learned that closeness is more towards parents in middle childhood, while in adulthood and adolescence, the closeness is from sex inverse. As a result, I would apply this information in the future to guide my children and advise them that the adolescence stage is the most challenging because it is the stage where people’s personalities begin forming and becoming evident. For middle childhood, I will apply the idea that social relationships can be formed beyond family and through fellow students and friends in teaching young learners how to build their social relationships away from family. Since early adulthood focuses on the future, I will use the ideas learned here into practice by ensuring I make a choice that will earn and build others, too. For middle adulthood, I will engage in community activities to contribute to the community by giving charity contributions, among other things.

References

Cacciatore, R., Korteniemi-Poikela, E., & Kaltiala, R. (2019). The steps of sexuality—a developmental, emotion-focused, child-centered model of sexual development and sexuality education from birth to adulthood. International Journal of Sexual Health, 31(3), 319-338.

Campione‐Barr, N., & Killoren, S. E. (2019). Love them and hate them: The developmental appropriateness of ambivalence in the adolescent sibling relationship. Child Development Perspectives, 13(4), 221-226.

Costa Jr, P. T., McCrae, R. R., & Löckenhoff, C. E. (2019). Personality across the lifespan. Annual review of psychology, 70, 423-448.

Orenstein, G. A., & Lewis, L. (2021). Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.

Robert, S., & Feldman, H. (2016). Development Across the Life Span. Pearson.

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Instructions
Directions: Be sure to make an electronic copy of your answer before submitting it to Ashworth College for grading. Unless otherwise stated, answer in complete sentences, and be sure to use correct English spelling and grammar. Sources must be cited in APA format. Your response should be four (4) pages in length; refer to the “Assignment Format” page for specific format requirements.

Human Growth and Development II

Part A
Describe in a well-developed paragraph that includes a thesis the development focus of each of these groups:
1. Middle Childhood
2. Adolescence
3. Early adulthood
4. Middle adulthood
Part B
1. Describe how the identity of self is developed in middle childhood and continued in adolescence, early adulthood, and middle adulthood, including one concrete example of how growth occurs for each stage.
2. Explain how interpersonal relationships, including those from family and school, experience growth from childhood to adolescence to early and middle adulthood. Include a relevant personal example for each stage.
3. Describe how intimacy is apparent in middle childhood and contrast this with intimacy in the adolescent and the young adult.
4. Compare and contrast the physical and cognitive changes of early and middle adulthood.
Part C
Explain how what you’ve learned in this course has aided you in understanding the four stages covered so far: middle childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and middle adulthood. Give an example for each stage that describes how you would apply the information learned in that stage to your future profession.