Emerging Adulthood : Becoming The Norm

“Let Teen-Agers Try Adulthood” was written on May 17,1999 and published in The New York Times by Leon Botstein. The main topic of the article revolves around the Botstein’s belief that high school should be abolished and the various underlying social reasons that drive his viewpoint. The text has a clear bias for his viewpoint however those who disagree with abolishing high school can also find certain parts of the text to be agreeable. The author persuades his audience by using examples that are relevant to readers. Botstein’s writing does have great word choice for example he uses words like “adolescence, pubescent, and innocence” to describe the teen agers. Throughout the article, Botstein introduces key supporting points such as the

This chapter focused on a controversial issue among young adults, the transition to adulthood can be hectic and varies among social classes. I agree with the author that adulthood is not a matter of age, but instead the feeling of success when one achieves certain milestones. Also, researchers have focused on the Big 5 indicators of adulthood, I disagree with this concept because due today’s economy it’s hard to find jobs after graduation thus making it difficult to live independently. For instance, by the age 24 my grandmother was married with children and lived independently with my grandfather. In my case, I’m 21 still enrolled in college with no children and remaining semi-dependent on my parents. I’ve noticed that most of the older populations

Emerging adults have reached a step up from childhood but are not yet ready to fully take on adult responsibilities. This part of life is open to many new experiences which can be very good for the morality of this upcoming generation of adults. People find themselves changing majors in college or taking different classes to explore their interests and find out where they best belong in their future career field.

As the mother of seven grown children, I agree with most of Jeffrey Arnett’s, author of Emerging Adulthood, theories. It is a time of change, with a developmental connection between adolescence and adulthood. During this phase of development, children experience periods of self-discovery transformation. There are favorable outcomes as well as adverse effects during this developmental stage. Furthermore, this successive stage encourages and promotes the change from the dependency of their parents to the independence that is distinctive for adults. This autonomy is beneficial because it prepares the emerging adult for their future independently from their parents. Arnett believes there are five characteristics of emerging adulthood that make it distinguishable from other time periods: the age of identity explorations, the age of instability, the self-focused age, the age of feeling in-between, and the age of possibilities.

The life pursuits and subjective judgments of many contemporary young people indicate that the transition to adult roles has become so delayed and prolonged that it has spawned a new transitional period extending from the late teens to the mid-to late-twenties, called emerging adulthood. During the college years, young people often refine their approach to forming their own identity. In these years, young people have left adolescence, but most have not yet assumed adult responsibilities. Many have dreams and those are what guides them in their decision making. In the video, 22 year old Casey describes her dream and comments on her identity development. Casey says that she became interested in Psychology in high school during her junior year when she took a psych course. She knew from then on that was what she wanted to do, but she hadn't picked a career yet. Casey said that she picked a career during her first year of graduate school, when she decided on gerontology. She said her happy and active grandparents had a lot to do with picking a career and wanting to work with the population. Casey thinks her identity was a gradual process and it's only really formed since last year. She feels her parents helped shape her morals and beliefs, but in between her senior year and her first year of graduate school, she started to form her own and integrated some of her own ideas. 24 year old Elizabeth and 25 year old Joel are shown discussing

Being an adult is the number one thing that children want to be: The desire to get older to do things that you want when you want and having no one say otherwise. However, what is an adult? An ambiguous term that really falls into the hands of the individual, where at Sixteen you can drive, eighteen you can vote, and twenty-one you can drink, for those in the USA, all varying ages that individuals could use as indications of adulthood. Robin Heinig wrote and article “What is it about 20- somethings?” where she discusses Arnett’s proposal about a new developmental stage, “Emerging Adulthood”. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, an American professor in psychology, believes that we aren 't entering adulthood till the later portions of our twenties. For some, this may be true but for the general population including myself I find this hard to believe. Leo Hendry’s article, “How universal is emerging adulthood? An empirical example”, on emerging adulthood gives a deeper understanding to what this generation 's kids are going through. The late teens are a crucial part to the lives of a young adult. It 's the time that we spend trying to identify ourselves, escape the circumstance that we are put into at a younger age, or just had a better family income. Arnett is not wrong, but all other external factors need to be accounted for before we know, or even consider if emerging adulthood is a new developmental stage.

This article was on a study that compared developmental trajectories of non-students, versus college-educated young adults, on the aspects of Arnett’s theory of emerging adulthood (Mitchell & Syed, 2015). However, there is a large group that literature has not been explored, and that category is on the young teen/adults who choose to not attend college, or are unable to because of socio economic status (Mitchell & Syed, 2015). The emerging adulthood theory has been controversial. The controversial topic has been brought up by researchers questioning how non-students may not experience the development of other emerging adults based on their interests to pursue adulthood without attending postsecondary education. The aim of the study was intended to compare emerging adulthood among individuals with college degrees, some college, and no college (Mitchell & Syed, 2015). Arnett’s development tasks for emerging adulthood include: finding a reliable and satisfying career, choosing a partner and starting a family, and establishing financial independence (Mitchell & Syed, 2015).

In emerging adulthood, many people experience the need to share their personal life with someone else. Erikson name for this crisis is intimacy versus isolation and emerging adults and many older adults know this feeling very well (Berger, 2014, p. 551). As emerging adults begin feeling the need for human connection, friendships and intimate relationships deepen for this reason (Berger, 2014, p. 551). As a senior in high school my friends became an extremely important part of my life, we told each other everything and the need for human connection was evident as I always wanted to be with my friends and share my personal life with them. I had, and currently have, the same 2 friends that I would confide in about boy problems, health

Emerging adulthood is a concept that is usually put to the side. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett author of “Emerging Adulthood” explains this concept as, “neither adolescence nor young adulthood but is theoretically and empirically distinct from them both” (469). Emerging Adulthood is leaving adolescence behind, yet not fully abiding to the responsibilities of adulthood. It is almost like a middle between the teenage years and adulthood, not being a teenager yet not necessarily being an adult. This is the time where individuals start to identify themselves and figure out what they want to do in life before jumping into the pit of adulthood.

Transitioning to adulthood is considered a period of life when young people are faced with trials of becoming part of the adult world. For some young people, this is a time to grow, an opportunity to spread their wings, and navigate through an exciting life. However, for others, the burdens that accompany the task of growing-up may be overpowering. Some may find themselves at odds and feel overwhelmed while pursuing their goals, although motivated to do so. Also, they may lack the resources or find themselves underprepared to meet the challenges that accompany those goals. Important questions come to mind when I think about young adults within today’s society: why does it seem that today's

As children, we have always turned to our parents or guardians to consult them about our personal decisions. They handled our doctor appointments, signed our field trip permission slips, and provided us with groceries and transportation. However, as teens progress closer to 18, the legal age of adulthood in the United States, they tend to encounter urges to break the ties with their parents in order to handle responsibilities on their own. Why must there be a certain age when a person is fully free to make independent decisions? Why are some rights and privileges given before and after the legal age of responsibility? There is a solid answer to these questions: education. In the US, it is mandatory to attend school until 18. Adulthood should

It comes as no surprise, in that, people should be considered adults at the age of 18 by reason of legally speaking, being considered an adult and additionally, I don’t think a few people should be considered adults at the age of 18. I believe being considered an adult could perhaps depend on your level of development, mixed with your preceding insight on life skills. I suspect it fluctuates from person to person as every person develops variously throughout life. During the thought-provoking time of emerging adulthood, young individuals generally have the ability mettle into the level of education that will aid them throughout the remainder of their working adult lives. For various people this is a time of transformation and intensified changes

The characteristic that I will be discussing in this week’s blog post is the age of identity explorations. According to the book, it is “the age when people explore various possibilities in love and work as they move toward making enduring choices.” As college students, this stage is definitely portrayed by our population. During this time, it is a huge change from what we were accustomed to in our adolescence. In adolescence we cared more about what people thought about us or what group we belonged to. In contrast to college, where the central focus is within ourselves and figuring out what we want to do with our lives. Now we are more independent and are at the age to make big decisions on our own. I feel like during this age it is about

Larry J. Nelson’s study, Parenting in Emerging Adulthood: An Examination of Parenting Clusters and Correlates, was an attempt to gather groups of parents and study how they maintained control, responsiveness and how their relationships correlated with the outcomes and success of their children (2011). The groups of parents were then identified as uninvolved, controlling-indulgent, or. authoritative. The last group was identified as the mother being inconsistent or the father being labeled average. One of the main ideas in the introduction is that individual’s ages 18-24 do not consider themselves adults as well as these individual’s parents do not label them as adults either (et. al., 2011) . This poses the question; do these parents still

Peck (1968) suggests that it is psychologically healthy for middle-aged adults to redefine the people in their lives so they can find value in their relationships (Zastrow, 2011). Michael a 45-year old male with no children, weight issues, and a girlfriend with children of whom he is uncertain about in his life is struggling with dealing with his weight and health issues. In addition, to his personal problems Michael also has his sister Taylor to look after who has been diagnosed with HIV. Michael is in the stage of his life where he is redefining his identity and questioning those around him and the