Chapter 8 Kassondra Amato

Adolescence is defined as the period after a child begins puberty this is when a young person develops from a child to an adult.  Now thinking about adolescence myself the first thing I think of is puberty. I generally relate the two because I relate to when a girl begins to menstruate is when adolescence beings. What I didn't realize was that on page 186 in Life Smart it is said that adolescence starts at 11 years old for girls and 12 years old for boys.  There are many other things that are supposed to gauge when adolescence begins.  Some of these things are listed on page 186 as well and include when a child develops an interest in sex, when a child became really moody, and when a child begins to wonder who they really are.  Some of these things, like the interest in sex, threw me off a little bit because it wasn't something I though 11 or 12 year old thought about. Now I'm even more nervous for my children to grow up!
Physical development is also important in adolescence.  Some physical development include breast development, voice change, and pubic hair.  As a young person, I was always taller than most of  the boys and it made me really self conscious.  My mother always told me that boys grew later than girls did and I never believed her.  Sure enough, as I got older I stopped growing and I am pretty average height. Once the boys around me started growing I wasn't as tall as I thought I was!  My brother too, he was so much smaller than I was and then all of the sudden when he was probably 16 he shot up and now hes 6'6"!
Cognitive development is huge in adolescence. Not only does the child go through major physical growth, but the brain of an adolescent grows too! On page 191 it states that "changes in the young adolescent's ability to think may go unnoticed, yet growth spurts in the parietal and frontal lobes of the brain, and well as sub cortical regions, make possible tremendous changes in the quality of a teenagers thinking"
Something that really stuck out to me in this chapter was on page 193, Adolescent ego-centrism.  This was "coined" by Elkind, and refers to "adolescent's tendency to exaggerate the importance of, uniqueness, and severity of their social and emotional experiences.  Their love is greater than anything other have experienced.  Their suffering is more painful and unjust than anyone else's". I believe this really stood out to me because last week was Spring Break here in my daycare center and during that time I was with my School-Aged children from the summer time.  Most of the children were the same children I have been with during school breaks for the last year.  Last week, some of my girls, and one of the boys in my class were just acting out of their norm.  When investigating a little bit, one of the girls started to menstruate that in itself helped me understand her.  The other girls were just very unruly, and everything was drama so much drama in a week it was hard to continue our routine with the children. After reading this portion of the text and relating it to the children and their ages it makes much more sense why they were acting in a such a way I never expected from them. And to think they aren't even at the peak of it, age 13, according to Elkind and Bowen.
Something else that drew my attention was the How to talk to teens about sex (or Anything else) on page 197. I always wanted to be the parents that my children can talk to.  Mostly because I felt like I couldn't talk to my mom about everything.  This is just another tool to help adults communicate with children.  I strongly feel that if adults could communicate effectively with our youth there would be less of many things, suicide, bullying, teen pregnancy.  As adults and future educators it is our priority to help guide our youth, because they're scared, confused, and sometimes just need someone to listen.