Published by: Mandira
Published date: 12 Jan 2022
Adolescence is the most important period of human life. Some poets have described it as the spring of human beings and an important era in the total life span. The etymological meaning of adolescence is to grow to maturity. Adolescence is that span of years during which boys and girls move from childhood to adulthood mentally, emotionally, socially and physically.
According to a group of psychologist, it is the period when an individual is capable of begetting off spring. It means we can say that he/she becomes adolescent. As it is used today, the term adolescence has a boarder meaning. It includes mental, emotional and social maturity as well as physical maturity. It is customary to regard adolescence as the time when children begin to become sexually mature until when they reach the age of legal maturity. Chronologically, adolescence appears roughly between ages twelve to the early 20s. The onset of adolescence varies from culture to culture depending on the socio- economic conditions of the society and the country. In this period, great changes occur in the overall development of the individual.
Adolescence is the most important period because of its immediate effects on attitude and behavior. Similarly, it is also characterized by transitional period, period of change, age of problem, time of search for identify, and threshold of adulthood. So, they begin to smoke, drinking, and engaging in sex.
According to WHO, Adolescence is the age range ten to nineteen years. Adolescence is marked with physical, social and emotional changes. This is also an age of problem because many adolescents lack the capacity of actualization some of them feel the society in their opposition to reduce the gap and tension in adolescent. Proper understanding between the adolescents and their family is a must.
Changes during Adolescence
Whatever changes that happen during adolescence do not occur at the same time and with the same rate. Some changes emerge in the beginning of the adolescence and other changes appear in the last stage of adolescence. Some changes occur rapidly whereas other changes are seen gradually. This period is called the period of change because it is a transitional period from childhood to adulthood.
The following are the important changes in this period:
Physical changes
There are two types of physical changes during adolescence. They are external and internal. External changes are clearly seen and noticed from outside. For example, increase in height and weight of the body, growth of sexual organs, appearance of mustache and bread in a male child, etc. similarly internal changes are the changes that appear in the internal systems of our body such as changes and development of digestive system, circulatory system, respiratory system, glandular system, etc. The growth of height in girls is almost completed by the age of seventeen to eighteen years whereas the growth of height in boys remains two years later than the girls. Various researches have proved that immunized adolescents gain better height than those who were not immunized and sick during the children. Physical weight also increases along with their height. Various organs of boys proportionally and gradually increase. There is a growth and development of sex organs in both boys and girls but they are not fully matured for reproduction. Various changes such as increases in the size of penis and testis, sprouting hair around genitals, production of spermatozoa, emergence of mustache and beard, sprouting hair under armpit, change of voice, wet dream, etc. take place in boys. In girls, size of breasts increases, hair sprouts around genital and armpit, size and shape of vagina and uterus increases.
Mental changes
Mental changes and development during adolescence on many intellectual fronts. There is an increase in the ability to see relationship and to think the solution of more difficult problems. Children usually generalize in relation to concrete objective; where as adolescent can generalize in an abstract way. With the maturity of nervous system the memory power of adolescent increases. Besides this, they can imagine about a situation which is not physically present. In spite of these changes, the ability to communicate with other persons, moral concepts, decision making and identification with conditions also develop significantly.
Emotional changes and development
All the human beings have their emotions or feelings. It is emotion which controls our behavior. The development of emotions reaches its peak during adolescence period. Various kinds of emotions such as anger, sympathy, love, affection hatred, etc. develop in this stage. We went to do any sorts of work enthusiastically by showing our full energy. If our feelings are guided properly, we become more patriotic to the nation. Sometimes, we feel like laughing, crying, staying alone, reading love stories and watching movies, etc. Therefore, the period of adolescence is characterized by various emotional changes. If we cannot give right track to these emotions, they will surely create evils and spoil our whole life. Thus, the best alternative to this is to involve ourselves in recreational activities like dance, games, music, club work etc. Besides these, we can also develop positive emotions by concertinaing fully in our studies, taking part in scout and junior Red Cross, taking part in student leadership in school, etc. It is well known to everybody that every body's mind is the devil workshop. Keeping this statement in our mind, we should keep ourselves busy in some kinds of creative and constructive work. Developments of the feeling of loneliness, development of the ability to bear tension, rapid changes of emotion are the some emotional changes that occur during adolescent.
Social change
Human is basically a social animal. He/she is born, developed, works and progress in the society. Social development is very essential for proper adjustment in the society. In adolescent becomes self- conscious of his place in the society. With the advancing age, the child remains most of with his friends. The friends and types of peer groups join the adolescent join; shape his behavior, speech and interest than the family does. If members of the peer- group are experiment with alcohol, drugs or tobacco, adolescents are likely to do the same. There is an increasing interest to attend parties, fairs, and celebrations where members of both sexes meet. Adolescents take interest in taking up various problems. A strong desire for independence develops in adolescence. This leads to many clashes with parents and other adults in authority, etc. The most marked and important social change in adolescents is radical shift from disliking members of the opposite sex to preferring their companionship. The adolescents make friendship with that conform to their standard and do not tolerate the interference of parents and other members in selecting friends.
Needs and Demands of Adolescence Adolescence It is a transitional period from childhood to adulthood. This is also called the "period of storm and states". This is a very sensitive period. That is why this is a very sensitive period. Neither adolescents mix up with children nor with adults. Children take them as senior fellows whereas adults still treat them as children. Rapid physical change takes place during adolescence and they achieve full growth. However, adolescents are still mentally and emotionally unstable and lack maturity and efficiency in their work. It creates the problems of adjustment for them in school, home and community. The feelings and desire of the adolescents do not match with the parents and other adults of community. Therefore, they become more sentimental and prefer to pass most of the time outside the family in peers.
Adolescents actually want to bear various family and social responsibilities to make their own identity but they are note given responsibilities by family members and elder considering they are not matured. As a result of this they feel insecure in the society and develop negative feeling and emotions which are really harmful to them. Finally, due to negative feelings, altitude, they involve in sexual abuse, Drug addiction vandalism, smoking, alcoholism and watching vulgar pictures and movies, which are more damaging anti- social activities.
oday's adolescents are the pillars of the nation in the future. Therefore, it is the responsibility of parents, teachers, social authority and everybody that they should give good guidance and counseling to adolescences for their bright future as well as of the country. It is the duty of every parent and teacher to identify the needs of the adolescents and create the suitable environment to foster their talents and develop a positive spirit of work in them. It would be better to talk and hear their voices to give them good guidelines and opinion on them unnecessarily. Parents, teachers and other adult have to be very friendly to adolescent. If we understand their feelings and demands and address those demands tactfully, we can safely motivate adolescents for good and creative work for the nation.
The following are the needs and demands of adolescents:
Considering the needs and feeling of adolescents mentioned above, everybody must show a good human behavior to them. If so they get enough opportunities for the development of their personality. Therefore, it is important for everybody to understand the needs and demands of adolescents and behave friendly with them. This ultimately helps all of us to guide adolescents into right path of their overall development.
Adolescence is the age of storm and stress. It is associated with many physiological and mental changes and is a time of great emotional upheaval. This is the age when the individual suddenly enters a new situation. These changes create problems of mental, social and emotional adjustment. The problems of adolescence are given below:
Mental Tension
Adolescence is the age when the development of sex organs reaches their mature size and the secondary sex characteristics, e.g. mensuration, the wet dream is observed due to hormonal development. These changes are unique experiences in their life which may be sometimes painful and life threatening. As it is a bridge between puberty and adulthood they become unable to adjust their youngsters as well as with the elders. Development of new interests, peer pressure, peer group, values, beliefs, social behavior and ambitions are seen somehow different than the established social behavior and trends. These differences may create mental tension in adolescence. Similarly, interest toward hetero- sex, new peer group, great emotional upheaval, and emotional instability are common observable characteristics of adolescence that may create mental tension and stress. This complexity creates mental tension and leads to dropout from the schools, discarding social norms, running away from home, drug addiction, suicidal tendency and other social crimes.
Imitation
Adolescence is a period of emotional instability. The feelings in adolescence develop in such a way that they want to survive only for present and do not see beyond this which leads to the behavior of imitation of hairstyle, eating, walking, clothing, etc. It is due to lack of farsightedness and pleasure seeking attitude they develop the habit of imitation. The adolescents want to develop their own identity by imitating other different things like hairstyle, Clothing, speech, manners, etc. Adolescents imitate most of the thing from celebrities like artists, singers, players and also from so called idols of advertisement. These kinds of imitations are not considered good from the point of view of sex, reproduction, mental and social health. Many adolescents have become the victims of bad habits like drug abuse, smoking, alcoholism, etc. due to habit of imitation.
Sexual abuse
As an individual enters adolescence, interests toward hetero- sexual desire increases naturally. These desires of the adolescence are so intense that they want to satisfy it at any cost and by any method. In this process, the adolescent may sometimes adopt unnatural means and results in sexual abuse. The sexual abuse like, eve testing, use of vulgar language, bluff call, and other means are common observable activities in adolescence that are harmful and destructive.
Early Marriage
Traditional Hindu society believes that parents can open the gateway to heaven if they celebrate the marriage of their daughter before her first mensuration . Some parents also think that they may adopt love marriage, they perform the marriage of their daughters unmarried till the late adolescence, and they may adopt love marriage which loses their prestige in the society. Therefore, with the fear of love marriage, they perform the marriage of their daughters at early immature age. Early marriage adversely affects health, education and other socio- psychological matters of the couple. Early marriage results in early pregnancy and it may cause death during delivery.
Peer pressure
An adolescence has to make many new adjustments to achieve the goal of life partner, among which increased influence of the peer group is important. Adolescents spend most of their time outside the home with members of the peer group. The friends and type of peer group would have a greater influence on adolescent attitude, speech, interest, appearance, and behavior. If the members of the peer group experiment with alcohol, drug, or tobacco, adolescents are likely to do the same. In such a case adolescents need proper guidance and counseling.
The problems of adolescence should be managed and addressed on time. Otherwise, it may spoil the life of adolescents they become the victims of smoking, drug abuse, alcoholism, unsafe abortion, etc. The problems of adolescence, if not managed, affect our society and the country as a whole. Stealing, terrorism, robbery and other activities increases along with the problems of adolescence. Therefore, management of the problems of adolescence is a most.
The following are the techniques of the management of adolescence problems:
Counseling and Service:The problem of adolescence is the result of natural growth and development in life span. In this stage, lack of experience develops shyness in them. Shyness prevents them to expose their problem to their parents and elders. This condition may increase their mental tension and they may not adopt healthy measures to overcome it. Thus, proper counseling and guidance by parents, teachers and elders is believed to be prime measure of the management of adolescent problem.
Mutual Understanding: When the interests of adolescents do not match with the interests of family members and teachers, a kind of misunderstanding is created. This results in emotional instability like anger, jealously and hatred, etc. and bigger problem among adolescents. They may even adopt anti-social practices due to misunderstanding. For this, parents, teachers and adults have to understand their feeling, needs and demands and try to create a better atmosphere for mutual understanding. For this, parents, teachers and adults have to be very friendly with the adolescents and counsel them.
Participation in creative activities: Adolescence is an age of vigor. If energy and vigor is utilized in creative work, i.e. sports, dance, social functions, Red Cross society, scouting, etc. their surplus energy, emotional upheaval and instability goes down naturally. This helps to harmonize the personality of an adolescent.
Safe sexual behavior: Heterosexual attraction and sexual desire is the common social behavior in adolescents. No doubt, sexual intercourse and practice during adolescence is believed to be injurious to health. Even though safe sexual behavior they may help to reduce some problems and tensions.
The following are the ways suggested forsafe sexual practice:
The meaning of sex education is different from that of the perception of common people. It is very important foundation of family life. In the present context, sex education is considered as one of the important components of family life. Sex education imparts the knowledge and attitude of reproductive process and the reality about human sex education to the young people. It also helps to develop healthy interrelationship. It is also an educational process like population education. Being satisfaction on sex related matter, youths prepare for marriage and develop responsibility of parents. It gives training to adolescents to be mentally prepped for adulthood and old age. It clarifies various misconceptions about sex and sex related problems.
Rationale of sex education
Misconceptions, orthodoxy and beliefs regarding sex education can be observed in our society. For example, some think that menstruation leads to physical weakness and deteriorates health. Similarly, people think women are only meant for giving birth to children and responsible for the birth of a son.
The rationale of sex education may be enlisted below:
Mainstreaming of sex education at national and international level
Our society is full of social problems and evils. The degree and frequency of these evil practices are increasing day to day. For example, sex related crimes, girls trafficking, rape, sexual abuse, drug abuse, adolescent pregnancy, prevalence of SITS and HIV/AIDS, etc. have become more common in the society. It is sex education which develops understanding on reproductive process and motivated the people to practice safer sexual behavior. That is why sex education is getting more important day to day.
There are various misconceptions regarding sex and sex related problems which are developed due to socio- cultural and religious traditions. These conceptions have led to the spread of sex related diseases and HIV/AIDS all over the world. In this context of present world, there is an urgent need of sex education to share appropriate knowledge on safe sex practice and prevent from sex related problems. Realizing the fact, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, in 1994. Sex education imparts the knowledge and attitude of reproductive process and the reality about human sex education to the young people. As a result, many countries of the world have now initiated sexual and reproductive health education programs including it in the curriculum of formal education. In developed countries, peer educations are trusted with the responsibility of imparting sex education in house, family, community and school formally as well as informally. They also have opened clinics and counseling centers for providing service on sex education.Asian countries like Philippines, Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc are providing sex education as formal education from school level. So far as Nepal is concerned, it has recently included sex and reproductive education in the curriculum of school. Before this sex education was incorporated partially in higher secondary education as well as university curriculum of I. Ed., B.Ed. and M.Ed. levels under health education and population education. In addition to this, it was partially included in the curriculum of population studies of B.A. and M.A. Various NGOs and INGOs like safe passage of Adulthood, UNESCO, UNFPA, Solid Nepal, etc. are working actively in disseminating sex education to the common people. Some private public clinics on reproductive health are also providing sexual and reproductive health services to some extent.When we talk about sex, not illiterate people but also educated people do not want to talk about this, Due to this reason, it has been found to be very difficult to disseminate the knowledge and skills of sex education in Nepal.
Sex education cannot be made popular in Nepal until and unless Nepalese society take part it a part of human knowledge. There is a need to involve teachers, parents and the people of our community in providing and sharing the knowledge of health education. We can control health related problems to a greater extent even if we formally spread sex education to school, university, working place, family, community, etc. The government of Nepal has targeted to conduct various program-mes adopting the issue of sexual and reproductive health as a major health policy since the tenth five year plan. We can be optimistic from this that sex education will be developed in Nepal.