Middle Childhood and Adolescence Development
The change experienced by a child during the middle childhood or puberty and adolescence stages is mostly frightening and makes the child not feel at peace. As is normal, when anyone feels as if facing an abnormal situation, or is not what one is accustomed to, one gets shocked. This is what happens to children once they move from one stage to another. The changes are also characterized by lots of mixed emotions and feelings. The changes become more and more difficult and stressful for the children. Many of these changes also involve the changes in the several relationships among the peers that these children have.
Generally, while one is in their childhood stage, the relationship they have with their peers is based purely on a few factors like convenience. Convenience in this case implying that the friend one has is who has the best and needed toys or who lives close by. Once one hits the adolescent and middle childhood stages, it changes. The relationships are then determined by commonality. The implication in this case is friendship on basis of similar likes and dislikes. This can possibly make the children forget their old friends in search of newer more common ones. Here, feelings of betrayal may arise when the adolescents begin feeling their friends have betrayed them since the relationships at this stage are mostly based on emotional connectivity (Steinberg, Vandell & Bornstein, 2010).
At this stage disillusionment may also arise since it is when they realize certain beliefs or ideas their young minds had do not hold any water. During childhood, the most popular thing, toy or activity was what was desired by all the children. However failure to acquire these items led to the children finding solace and comfort at home. However, during middle childhood and adolescence, the children have a strong will to run away from anything considered childish. This includes the dependence on a child’s family for comfort or solace. The alternative becomes cliques and clubs formed by these children in an attempt to bond. The feeling of loneliness and being left out becomes stronger during these two stages of childhood and it has a great impact on the child. If one is left out of these clubs, they experience great pain; sadly it is a common occurrence in this stage of life.
In this stage of life the children also develop interactions that are strategic in nature. This means they act in certain ways in order to achieve certain objectives. They tend to act like players in a poker game using certain facial expression to send messages to each other on the status of their cards. Popularity becomes a crucial part of life in that, a popular teenager is idolized. Manipulation is also another common trait the teenagers use in order to get the others to believe them. This is usually followed by negligence of the used person. The adolescents who practice this kind of behavior easily get what they want since they act like they are honest when they are not. The victims on the other hand end up feeling quite used and very hurt and mostly learn a lesson out of the experience (Wolfe & Mash, 2008).
Unfortunately, it is a very common behavior by people in this age group to use their statuses in relationships to achieve their goals and leave, having achieved what they wanted. The victims of this kind of treatment end up being quite cautious and untrustworthy of the people they interact with and most lessons they learn from this end up guiding them for the rest of their lives. The peer relationships in middle childhood and adolescence mostly change due to the changing of the mentality of the young minds. Moreover, during this period the young men and women are most tempted to explore and do things whether bad or good in order to discover. Peer pressure is also at an all time high at this level with the groups, cliques and clubs being formed being the hub. Young adults are pressured to do things they might not do on their own, or make little or no sense to them, in order to fit in their groups or for popularity.
References:
Steinberg, L., Vandell, L. D. & Bornstein, M. H. (2010). Development: Infancy Through Adolescence. New York, NY: Cengage Learning.
Wolfe, D. A. & Mash, E. J. (2008). Behavioral and Emotional Disorders in Adolescents: Nature, Assessment, and Treatment. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
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