Physical and Emotional Changes in Adolescents and Emerging Adulthood
The neurobiological processes that define adolescents and influence the risk taking behaviours are complex. Accumulated evidence suggested that certain psychological, social and biological factors are responsible for risky behaviour of the adolescent. A study by Casey,(2015),suggested that these processes must be understood from the depth of psychological and developmental, social influences for their risk taking behaviour. The risky behaviour of the adolescents becomes an important issue because in the diverse example of problematic behaviour and risky lifestyle choices are reported in audio visual media. Accumulated evidences highlighted that these risky behaviours trigger an increased in the mortality rate (Ronald & Rand, 2018). A study by Gardne (2017), suggested that the risk-taking behaviour of the adolescent generally occurs as a response to the limited cognitive resources available to them in order to deal with the social pressure. Consequently, these risky behaviours impacted their outlook of life as an adult and impacted the surroundings. Cultural beliefs play a crucial role in reducing the risk behaviour of the adolescent by engaging the in spiritual activities, meditation and influence them to make wise choices in life that would be discussed further in the paper (Crews et al., 2016). This paper will illustrate the unhealthy lifestyle choices of the adolescents, different changes of adolescents and the effect of cultural practice in adolescents in order to reduce the risk behaviour in following paragraphs.
Unhealthy lifestyle choice is defined as a personal and conscious choice to perform a behaviour that may increase the risk of injury (Yeager et al.,2016). Accumulated evidence identified that at the age of 8 to 12 years, the frequent choices of poor lifestyles are generally smoking, overuse of alcohol, showing violence in school, reckless driving that may cause severe injury (Widman et al., 2016). Looking for different experience is normal for teenagers and sometimes it involves thrill seeking or even risky behaviours for adolescents. A study by Crews et al., (2016), suggested that a considerate number of individuals are influenced to take decisions of risky behaviours because of their traumatic experiences from childhood, disrupted relationship with family members, and poor parental practice. These incidents in turn pushed them to make unhealthy choices that damage their life permanently (Yeager et al.,2016). Therefore, a considerate number of researchers argued that the risk-taking behaviour of adolescents disrupts the stability of life permanently.
A study by Moffitt (2017), suggested that during the puberty, various physical changes occur that gives rise to the social and emotional changes as well. In this age, adolescents start to act different and an array of social influence further accelerate their risky behaviour. Although the sequence of pubertal changes is relatively predictable, the timing is extremely variables. The normal range of onset behavioural changes for women is in between 8 to 14 years whereas male experience these changes in 9 to 15 years (Costa et al., 2016). Pubertal maturation is controlled by a complex interaction of brain, pituitary gland, and gonad. A study by (Toomey, Syvertsen, & Shramko, 2018), the most common biological changes observed in puberty is proliferation supporting cells that include the nourishment of neurons and myelination. These changes in the brain are more likely to stimulate the developmental and cognitive growth, especially the capacity for abstract reasoning (Krugman, 2016). Mounting evidence also suggested that gonad hormones such as gonadotropin, adrenal hormones influenced their sexual intensity, social behaviour (Moore et al., 2018). Due to the different set of biological changes adolescents are going through, they developed a tendency of carrying out the adult roles, gaining autonomy attitude, performing risky sexual behaviour with the members of both same and opposite sex. Another study argued that for many adolescents, such skills are further developed because of predominance of the peer orientated interactions and lack of parental interactions (Turbin, Jessor & Costa, 2017). As the adolescent is a time of tremendous growth and potentials, this is a considerable time of developing risk-taking behaviour. considering the adolescent in the current context, the social and emotional changes are interconnected (Crews et al., 2016). The research evidence highlighted that these social changes in adolescents observed due to the peers they are interacting with, relationship with parents, the environment of the school (Jose et al., 2016). Few studies also highlighted the family income is perhaps the single most important factors in determining the setting where adolescents spend their majority of the time that shaped their development (Jackson et al., 2016). Peers played a crucial role in influencing the behavioural changes and leading their personal values in vogues direction. For example, many adolescents in Australia develop the habit of smoking and consumption of alcohol as well as reckless drive due to the influence of the peer. World health organization estimated that 70% of the premature deaths amongst adolescents are due to the risky behaviours (Laird & LaFleur, 2016). Researchers highlighted the few cases where parent’s divorce or poor parental practice, excessive scolding of teachers about the academic performance influenced the emotional changes in children, they tend to feel vulnerable towards stressful situations (Flouri et al., 2018). These unique biological, social and emotional changes in adolescent’s period give rise to the conflict in the home setting, schools and between peers. The overload stress from physical, emotional, sexual changes resulted in the anxiety, withdrawal, aggression, poor coping skills, and actual physical and mental illness (Simon, 2016). The most common response of these changes is wrong decision making and choosing risky behaviours (Laird & LaFleur, 2016). The most commonly reported behaviour in this group is playing video games, hitting others, reported bullying others, throwing things, reckless driving, smoking, and drinking, swearing and through things (Chirico et al., 2016). Therefore these behavioural response increases their vulnerability of poor life choices.
Psychological and Biological Factors Influencing Risky Behaviour
In recent years, there has been considerable research was conducted in determining the prevalence of self-harm amongst the adolescents. It is not surprising that the considerate number of adolescents choose self-harm as a response to the physical and emotional changes that increases their vulnerability towards problematic behaviour or unhealthy lifestyle choices. In this context, a phenomenon of Thomas can be elaborated (Handley et al., 2016).
Thomas was a 14 years old boy who lived in New South Wales of Australia. St the age of 14 he was going through different physiological, emotional and social changes that compelled him to choose a lifestyle that disrupted his life permanently. At the age of 14 years, during his schools days, due to biological changes, he was experiencing a strong sexual attraction toward a girl from his school. He had poor relationship with his parents and his parents got divorced which impacted him emotionally. Due to lack of emotional support, he was seeking the emotional support from that girl and eventually intimated with that girl. The home setting, he had for relationship with parents and frequently involved himself into the conflicts. After certain meeting, the girl from his college left him saying that it’s not working out. The series of negative experiences along with the different physiological changes increased his vulnerability towards the risky behaviour and poor choice. His parents frequently received complaints from schools about bullying other classmates, hitting them unnecessarily, and the rapid decline of the academic performance. His parents repeatedly receive calls from school about the ad grades and teachers also complained that he was unmindful most of the time. His responses to his parents become aggressive day by day and reduce interaction with parents. His parents also observed that he was away from a longer period, usually sleeps at morning and throughout the day time. After certain times, his teachers called his parents personally and highlighted that his academic grades are decreasing exponentially. Teachers also inquired about his whereabouts since he developed dark circles around his eyes, could not able to the concentrate on classes, mostly sleeps. School authority conducted an investigation and found that he was involved in bullying the juniors with few of his peers and hitting them. After returning home, his parents went through his personal belongings and found out that he was using alcohol and marijuana frequently. Later in the evening when he was confronted by parents about his aggressive behaviour towards peers and consumption of alcohol, he became aggressive. After aggression, he finally admitted that he was taking drugs on the daily basis with his peers who gave him satisfaction of life and make him feel good. After further inquiry, he became aggressive and he started throwing things to his parents. He was screaming and complaint about the poor parental practice that compelled him to make this poor choice of lifestyle. That night he went out of the house and never came back. His parents filed a diary to the copes and after two days, copes found out that he died in the road accidents. Post mortem report came out after two days. It was clearly written in the report that the death of Thomas occurred because of the accident and identified reason behind reckless driving and overuse of alcohol because of impulse. His mother immediately crushed in the floor because of crying. Therefore, the psychological biological and emotional changes subjected him to make the choices that not only disrupted his life but also impacted his parents’ life permanently. There are approximate, 2, 886 people like Thomas died or committed suicide in 2016 who failed to cope up with the stress in their surroundings. The world health organization report 10.4 per 100000 people year (Handley et al., 2016).
Role of Cultural Beliefs in Reducing Risky Behaviour
Cultural values and beliefs refer to the core principles and ideals upon which an entire community exists and practice generally refers to the manifestation of that believes into the actions (Crews et al., 2016). In the current context, most of the research reported that due to physical changes as well as peer influence, a considerate number of adolescents believe that choosing risky behaviour such as self-harm overuse of alcohol because of their beliefs that it reduces their level of sin spiritually (Laird & LaFleur, 2016). The amount of pain they will be subjected to is equivalent to the amount of sin they would minimize. Therefore, this set of beliefs leads to induce suicides and unnecessary incidents. Another study suggested that many families lost their children due to the tendency of self-harm and suicide (Widman et al., 2016). In the current context, the cultural practice for disrupting this mindset is involving them in the spiritual programs in churches mediation on a daily basis where parents play a crucial role in engagement (Laird & LaFleur, 2016).
All kinds of addictive behaviour had a significant direct relationship with psychological distress. Excessive drug use, excessive alcohol consumption, and frequent internet use, lack of sleep, exploration of different sexual fantasies are highly associated with psychological distress. The psychological costs and benefits problematic behaviour is development of different mental health issues such as anxiety disorders, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline disorder, schizophrenia and lastly, self-harm (Handley et al., 2016). National research council conducted a study where the majority of the adolescents are suffering from anxiety, depression and developed a tendency of self-harm (Crews et al., 2016). The more detailed research highlighted other health issues such as Chlamydia, development of HIV infection, poor academic grades (Kuhn, 2015). Majority of them do not seek clinical support for their problem. During these research the negligence of the parents, giving responsibility to the adolescents which they are not able to handle due to their lack of maturity. The psychological impact of these behaviours is long term. These adolescents who are vulnerable to risky behaviour also develop other health issues such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease (Krugman, 2016). The psychological impact of these risk behaviour also impacts their further relationships with their parents, their children, and surrounds. They tend to be more aggressive as an adult and promote violence compared to other peers of their group.
Unhealthy Lifestyle Choices in Adolescence
In order to reduce these risk behaviour of the adolescents, it is crucial for every parent to understand the challenges of the adolescents, what is the emotional trauma they are going through. Parents need to be more empathetic towards their child since at this age, they are vulnerable to any changes. Seeking professional help is an effective strategy where a health professional can assist the past and child to communicate with each other and involve themselves in psychological therapies to lead a healthy life and eliminate the adverse choice of lifestyle (Ronald & Rand, 2018). It is also crucial for parents to talk about drugs and alcohol consumption, giving education about the adverse effect if it in life and help them to e more cautious. By addressing the adolescent’s issues and seeking professional help would prevent huge numbers of suicide and mental health disease (Flouri et al., 2018). A considerate number of rehabilitations in Australia are taking initiatives for the reducing of these risky behaviours and design different educational program for engaging adolescents for boosting their self esteem, increasing their self confidence, improving interpersonal relationships and providing strategies to improve healthy life (Simon, 2016).
Conclusion:
The risky behaviour of the adolescents becomes an important issue because in the diverse examples of problematic behaviour and risky lifestyle choices are observed in the newspaper that not only impacted their behaviour but also increased the mortality rate exponentially. During the puberty, various physical changes occur that give rise to the social and emotional changes as well. Most common biological changes observed in puberty is proliferation supporting cells that include the nourishment of neurons and myelination. These changes in the brain are more likely to stimulate the developmental and cognitive growth, especially the capacity for abstract reasoning. The overload stress from physical, emotional, sexual changes resulted in the anxiety, withdrawal, aggression, poor coping skills, and actual physical and mental illness. A considerate number of adolescents choose self-harm as a response to the physical and emotional changes. it was defined by the story of Thomas who died because of risky behaviour. In order to reduce the prevalence of these behaviours health professionals and parents need to take the active role which provides them a healthy life.
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