Development Is a Normal Process
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Development is a normal process that occurs throughout the life span. It enables individual to have personalities that evoke emotions and ultimately determines the actions that would be performed. If a country needs better leaders for tomorrow, the leaders of today have to place emphasis on children and development as according to Robert Bruininks;the key words for the 21st century are going to be human capital and the development of human capital (Grunewald, 2010). However, this could be deterred by certain aspects which are prevalent to life. These aspects include broken and dysfunctional families, teenage pregnancies, poverty and many others social events that is swarming the world nowadays. Therefore, this essay will define teenage pregnancy; describe the key development issues children of broken families and teenage motherswould face. The bond of attachment that exists within the family members would also be discussed using Erikson and Kohlbergs theory and proper interventions would be suggested to help each member of the family curb the crisis that is being faced.
Divorced couples are breaking a once whole family into thousands shattering pieces and children are often affected as well as the parents. The family tends to be dysfunctional in which conflict, misbehavior, and often child neglect or abuse on the part of the individual parents occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions (Boyd, 1992). Many problems arise because of this and children mainly resort to antisocial activities where females mostly end up as pregnant teenagers and males as juvenile delinquents in order to fill the void that scarred their lives. “In Fiji, from October 2005 to March 2008, there were 875 applicants for divorce where majority were I- Taukei. Out of these 764 marriages were dissolved” (The Fiji Times Online, March, 28, 2009). In correlation to the above, the number of teenage pregnancy in the year 2008 and 2007 were 1186 and 1237 respectively (The Fiji Times Online, June, 23, 2009). Looking at the above statistics, it is evident that many antisocial problems arise because of broken families, the major one being teenage pregnancy.Childbearing during the teenage years is usually viewed as an undesirable event as each girl from the age of twelve through eighteen is still a young, dependent person at mind. That teenage girl is still under the parents control and is still premature knowing less about parenting. Therefore, having a baby would only spoil that teenagers life providing a quick shortcut to adulthood without experiencing the joy and sweetness of being a teenager.
Annie is still fifteen years old and she already has a baby. It is like a baby with a baby so the saying goes. On top of that the father of the child is not there to help with the upbringing and nurturing of little Adam who is oblivious of what problem the mother is going through. Annie had dropped out of school to look after Adam. There is no fatherly figure in the family and Annie has a thirteen year old brother, David. This is quite a problem to Sue, Annies mother as there is another mouth to feed and the family income has to be further stretched to accommodate for another family member. All the three children mentioned above are going through some kind of development and because of the lifestyle that all of them are brought up in, this development might be distorted.
Development has three main domains and these include physical, cognitive and psychosocial. The three children mentioned above are developing physically, cognitively and psychosocially. Adam is an infant and this is where development starts. At this stage, weight is gained and there is growth in height too. Infants would start rolling from stomach to back, reaches for toy, transfers toy from one hand to the other, puts everything in the mouth and make sounds with specific reasons including hunger and wet (MCIU, 2013). Language emerges as a result of imitation and reinforcement according to Skinners behaviorist theory, so parents use of motherese help babies learn words faster and easier (Cherry, 2013). Adams cognitive development falls in Piagets sensory motor stage whereby infancy is characterized by extreme egocentrism where the child has no understanding of the world other than his own, current point of view (McLeod, 2010). The main development that occurs at this stage is the understanding that objects exists and events occur in the world independently of ones own actions.The above is the normal development Adam should be experiencing. However, since the family is broken and probably living in poverty, these developments might be delayed. The reasons are at eight months, infants should be weaned so Adam might be malnourished as babies foods are mostly expensive nowadays. The brain is growing at this stage so nutrients deficit would hinder proper growth of the brain. There is high chance of getting marasmus or kwashiorkor and Adam might end up as a slow learner in school.
David would be labeled as an adolescent as he is thirteen years old. Puberty would starts to manifest itself during this stage even though the onset is slow for males. Males at this stage start growing taller, voice would deepen, pubic hair starts to grow and this is quite a frightening phase for these male adolescents as the body is starting to mature. Cognitively, this age falls in Piagets Formal Operational stage whereby adolescents gain the ability to combine and classify items in a more sophisticated way and the capacity for higher- order reasoning. Ideas are able to be manipulated in adolescents head without any dependence on concrete manipulation(McLeod, 2010). The above development that David is supposed to be going through can be hindered by the type of family and surrounding he is nurtured in. At school, there is high chance of himgoing through Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as he would be concentrating a lot on his family and why he cannot be like other children who are well off (Moore, 2010). Due to the influence of two females in the family and without a fatherly guidance, he could either be strong enough to resists or end up becoming feminine.
Being a teenage mother, Annie would have gone through puberty already but puberty does not stop at the age of fifteen so she would expect her body to continue to grow. As a mother there is obviously high chance of her gaining weight and breast is bigger and heavier as she is breastfeeding. Similar to David, Annies age group falls in the Formal Operational stage in Piagets cognitive theory so there is presence of reasoning abilities. At this stage, Piaget concluded that childrens cognitive development is based on acquiring and using rules in a more complex situations rather than stages (McLeod,