Terry Ravello Developmental Psychology Research Paper Adolescence is seen as the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood;

it generally refers to a period ranging from age 11 and 19. Adolescence has many psychological and social stages. The beginning of adolescence is usually marked with the beginning of puberty. While the physical changes of puberty are an important indicator of adolescent development, there are many other kinds of changes also occur during the adolescent years; self-concept, social and moral reasoning to name a few. Adolescence is a time where we go through puberty and evolve and mature mentally and physically in which helps us to move forward into adulthood. For me, experiencing adolescence was a time frame that I can look back at and helps me learn to move forward. Ranging from my parents, to peers and even having an imaginary audience, these elements had an important influence in shaping me into the person I am today. There are different styles of parenting that can reflect the beliefs about the nature of children and the role of parents. As we learned in class, these parenting styles can fall into four categories: Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive, and Disengaged. Authoritarian parenting consists of parents who usually want things done their way; these parents tend to be controlling and less likely to show any warmth nor acceptance. Authoritative parenting consists of parents who have goals for their kids but they are not over controlling with their goals; more likely to show warmth and acceptance. Permissive parenting consists of parents who are quite the opposite of Authoritarian parents where they tend to show much warmth and acceptance and are not controlling. Disengaged parenting consists of parents who are more concerned with their own needs/wants that they spend less time with their own child. By learning these different parenting styles, we are able to

have a better understanding of parenting that surrounds us everyday including what we learned from our parents which can have a profound impact on our development during adolescence. Growing up in Trinidad, during my early adolescence I did not have much concern about what was happening around me. Even though I was very sheltered growing up, I grew up with 5 older sisters varying in ages and looks who were an important influence with shaping my identity. Having my sisters relationship and helpful advice has helped me a lot in learning how to embrace myself and my looks at an early age; Im not trying to say that I was perfectly confident at a young age but I was comfortable with my looks to a certain degree. I was not an early bloomer as some of my peers but that did not bother me. If I had a concern during that time frame, it was due to my authoritative father who had expected a lot from me in terms of physical capabilities and academic capabilities. My father wanted me to become a competitive runner, but when I did try to participate in competitions, I was not the success he wanted from me which led me to give up. As for my academic capabilities, I was much better but it was not good enough in the terms of my father. In Trinidad, the grading system is a little different in terms that they do not only grade you on the performance in your class subject but they also use that performance as a placement in class; I was usually placed second or third in class but that was not good to my fathers standard who only expected me to be first in the class. As I mentioned before, the relationship I shared with my older sisters has helped me a lot during my adolescence and with these situations of these kind, it had helped me with getting through with difficult situations like this. My relationship with my parents during my adolescence was not as good as the relationship I have with them now because with time my fathers authoritative attitude changed a lot. As I had mentioned before, I was raised by my father who wasnt affectionate and had high expectations out of me. He basically wanted me to achieve the things he wanted to do when he was younger but did not have the opportunity to do so.

Im not trying to paint a bad picture of my father as I think I learned a lot from him from his parenting. I believe that it has definitely influence the vision of what type of parent I would like to be for my future kids. This had an influence on my relationship with my peers. My peer relationships during my early adolescence were pretty good and solid up until my middle adolescence. During my early adolescence, I had quite a bit of friends who I had known over a few years and knew me pretty well. I had one particular friend of whom I thought would be my best friend for life. This best friend of mine, I used to have dreams of us doing everything together like getting married together, having kids together etc., the usual expectancies that young girls think of when having a best friend. It was when we were around 14 years old, when my friend had developed an interest in the opposite sex; I had barely much interest in the opposite sex because of my dad who used to warn me about staying away from guys. My friend had started dating a guy who had a friend that had an interest in me but of course at the time, I was not going to pursue anything because I did not want to cause any trouble between me and my father. Unfortunately because I did not show any interest this guy, this had led to breakup of my best friend who ended up not talking to me. I was pretty devastated at the time because I did not think for a second that anything would have caused this breakup between my friend and I, especially over something stupid as this. I really had high hopes for our friendship and this had left a permanent scar on me that even now in my adulthood, the 2 closest friends I have, I would not consider them my best friend even though they consider me to be their best friend; I may say it especially if they are introducing me to another peer but I feel bad because I do not mean it the same as they do. There has been time of personal instances where I have experienced David Elkinds fallacies of adolescent thinking especially during my early and middle adolescence with having imaginary audiences and personal fables. I remembered right after the breakup of my friendship with my

best friend I found myself wondering too much about what were people saying about me. I was not part of a popular crowd but I know quite a bit of people in the school and often felt like my classmates were talking about me behind my back even though they were not saying anything; this of one of my experience with an imaginary audience. My experience with a personal fable was when I experienced having my first menstrual cycle. During my early and middle adolescence, my exposure to the world came from learning through my older sisters; my mother was living in the United States at the time and was unable to be there physically during these changes in my life. When I experienced my first menstrual cycle, I was too completely embarrassed to even reveal that information to my sisters even though they were close to me. I could not believe that was happening to me and really felt I was going through a stage in life that I was not prepared for. These are just a few examples of experiences that has shaped me into the person I am today. As I mentioned earlier, adolescence is a time where we go through puberty and evolve and mature mentally and physically in which helps us to move forward into adulthood. It an experience that is not only worldwide but also unavoidable and it is up to the individual on how they handle themself. Everyone will have different experiences with peers, or parents to name a few that will heavily influence them in learning how to handle their decisions which will hopefully lead them into reasonable adulthood. With the wisdom and the knowledge that I have acquired in my times of being an adolescence I look forward to the future of being an adult and one day to be able to support my own family.