S. Mermiga, N Voura, N. Benetos, D. Chatzigrigoriadou, C. Thomopoulou, G. Koutloubasi, N. Darai, E. Paraschou
Adolescence is a process, rather than a time period, of achieving the
attitudes and beliefs needed for effective participation in society.
Adolescence may also be defined: as a period of
physical development, a period of sexual development, development in the family
environment and social development (peer group pressure).
Physical development
Physically adolescence
comprises several distinct periods. Pubescence refers to the two-year period
preceding puberty and to the physical changes taking place during that period.
The climax of pubescence is called puberty. The onset of puberty involves many physical changes. Basic physical changes
force the body into adolescent girl’s consciousness. She loses the security of
a familiar body because of new sensations, features and the body becomes an important
symbol itself in which the adolescent invests emotions of security, self-worth and
competence.
In the typical girl, the adolescent growth spurt begins shortly after
the age of 10 and peaks about the age of 12. Ordinarily the first pubertal
event is the occurrence of breast buds at an average age of 11 years. A girl’s breasts are important to her because the
breasts are traditional symbols of beauty, motherhood and sexual expression.
Another pubertal change is the menarche.
Most girls reach menarche between the ages of 12 and 14. Many girls have
unpleasant experiences relating to menarche and keep the event secret. However,
their experiences differ according to various factors including the girl’s age
when it occurs, her expectations, her information, her family and her own
personality. Reactions to menarche vary from highly positive to highly
negative. Some girls are proud of attaining adulthood. In contrast, other girls
attach negative values to the process.
A structural feature of special concern in adolescence is height and
weight. Growth in height is rapid during infancy and early childhood but the
rate of growth slows down until early puberty when it speeds up again. The
average girl practically stops growing in stature at age 15. In parallel the weight
spurt for girls is between the ages 10 and 14. Both overweight and underweight
appear more frequently among girls. The tendency to put on weight may be normal
and temporary.
In addition adolescent girls face some problems such as malnutrition,
smoking and alcohol. During adolescence, nutritional needs are greatest in
puberty. A major problem is the
preference for snack food over proper diet. The diet of many girls is often
deficient in essential elements and this bad diet may influence their mature
physiques, their resistance to infectious diseases and their health for all the
years ahead. Smoking is another bad habit usually established in adolescence
and very popular in both sexes. Smoking causes many health problems as blood
pressure, increased heart rate and cancer. Last, alcohol is a very addicted
substance. It affects the physical development of girls, especially between the
ages 14 and 16 and causes serious health problems such as cirrhosis of the
liver.
Emotional development
Regarding emotional development stress, aggression and loneliness are
some of the feelings that influence girls in a major level. During adolescence
girls feel very stressful and unsafe for their future and they can’t accept
that their lives change and being characterized by difficulties.
Other feelings with largely negative effect are hostility and aggression.
In adolescence, the girl faces expectations, especially from her mother.
Consequently, her feelings of hostility may be disguised in somatic symptoms
and various defensive behaviors.
The sense of loneliness is also discomforting
for girls. It includes low self-esteem, anxiety, depression and interpersonal
hostilities. Loneliness relates to physical symptoms and even to suicide, as indicated
in case reports. Girls who feel lonely in a great level, are depressed, unhappy,
lacking self consciousness and relatively dependent on others in
decision-making. Loneliness may be the result of unsatisfactory relationships
with significant others and inadequate social skills.
Sexual Development
In adolescence, girls develop their sexual activity by observing the opposite
sex, flirting with boys, and paying more attention to their appearance more
than ever. The fact is that the sexual development of young people is affected
in fundamental sense by what is taking place around them. Today we live in a
society which is remarkably open to sexuality. However, there are some factors
that modify the sexual behavior of an adolescent girl such as family, religion
and friends. First, parents have more strict approaches on sexuality. They
influence their daughters’ sexuality which is under development related to
other social, cultural and religious factors. Parents, on the other hand, may
be the most effective sex educators, especially if they are open without being
intrusive and critical. Parents can offer monitoring and supervision, assisting
the teenager daughter to delay involvement in sexual activity. Alternatively, they
may let her set her own boundaries and make her own decisions about the pace of
her sexual development.
Secondly, there is good evidence to show that religious faiths have an
impact on sexual behavior during adolescence. The girls who have religious
beliefs are likely to delay sexual activity and may also be more prone to guilt
and anxiety about this aspect.
A number of studies have considered that differential impact of parent
and peer influence on girl’s sexual behavior. Results showed that the influence
of parents and friends varied in correlation with age. The effect of discussion
with the mother was strongest in those between 15 and 17, while the effect of
friends’ approval was most marked in the 19-year-old group.
Furthermore, girls pay more attention to ideas of love, romance and
intimacy. For them the experience of passionate love or an all consuming
involvement in an intimate relationship can become the most important thing in
their lives. Falling in love is part of the search for identity and
self-definition. Thus, for girls an experience of love and intimacy contributes
to the development of identity and maturity, through opportunities for
self-exploration.
Also, girls stress the importance of disclosure and support in close
relationships. Close relationships of a sexual nature during this stage of
development have a high degree of impact on the young girl’s life. If the young
girl manages the break-up of the relationship without too much trauma, then the
next step may be developmentally more mature. On the other hand, if the loss is
too painful, then it may take some time to overcome it. In any event, we should
not underestimate the significance of intimate relationships for adolescent
girls.
The Adolescent In The Family
The adolescent stage includes many changes regarding parent-adolescent
relationship. As teenagers grow up, need to be more independed, to get new
experiences and achieve control of their own lives. It is believed, especially
for girls, that the emotional disengagement from parents is a fundamental
element towards autonomy. In this stage young girls are most in need of
establishing their right to freedom, while at the same time parents do not want
to lose control.
It is commonly believed that the adolescent years bring with them conflict and disagreement in home.
Researchers, on the other hand, report good relationships between parents and
teenagers, with relatively little evidence of a generation gap in attitudes to
careers, education and morality. Of course, there are families in which there
are problematic relationships between parents and teenager daughters. Young
girls perceive their parents as more conservative in their attitudes than
parents believe themselves to be.
Quality of communication between parents and daughters vary depending on
a range of variables such as social background, age of the girl and religious
beliefs. The most common reason for the communication breakdown is failure to
understand the other’s point of view. Another factor that affects the
parent-adolescent relationship is the type of parenting. Young girls reared in
families with authoritative parents do better on a range of qualities,
including self-esteem, perspective-taking and likelihood of avoiding risk
behavior such as drugs and immature sexual activity. Such parents show warmth,
provide structure in family rules, so that the young girl has expectations and
rules for her behavior. Adolescent girls who grow up in neglectful or
indifferent families are those most at risk. They are likely to be more
impulsive and get involved in high-risk behaviors.
Finally, there are some differences between mothers and fathers in their
relationships with their teenage daughters. All studies have reported mothers
as being more supportive, more interested in their daughters and more engaged
in the parenting task. Mothers maintain regular contact with their daughters
and engage themselves in adolescents’ interests. Also they closely monitor
their daughters by acting both as disciplinarians and advisors and serve as
confidants who share experiences. Whereas, fathers are important in setting
long-term goals, in determining rules and providing discipline. However, they
do not get to know their teenagers daughters as individual personalities or
support them in their emotional progress through adolescence.
The Adolescent In The Peer Group
Close friendships are the rule during the teenage years. Almost all
young girls are eager to participate in shared activities and exchange ideas
and opinions with their friends. The quality of relationship that adolescents
are able to establish with their peer group is important. To the extent that
individuals can identify and integrate with a group, they will derive
corresponding benefits in terms of emotional support, assistance and social
learning and this in turn is likely to be reflected in their self-esteem. Perhaps the most
distinctive feature of adolescent relationships across the teenage years is the
disintegration of the gender segregation.
Usually during early to mid-adolescence personal needs and social
pressures direct adolescents towards at least one peer group because the
alternative is loneliness and isolation. Friendships usually begin at school,
while time spent together outside of school strengthens the bond. Some young
girls find it difficult to establish out-of-school friendships because they
lack confidence or the necessary social skills. Many adolescent girls feel
awkward about meeting and joining established group. This may be partly due to
the fact that in adolescence young girls link to a range of groups. These
different groups demand different roles, have different norms and may be
difficult for some teenagers to penetrate as newcomers.
By comparison with adolescent young men, young women are more concerned
with forming emotional, intimate relationships with one, or a few, best
friends. For adolescent young women the peer
group is seen primarily as a network
of intimate friendships, a place to find a friend and a source of support and
confidence. Girls rate their friendships as higher in affection, intimacy,
companionship and satisfaction. They are in more frequent contact with their
close friends and there is an increasing ability among girls to seek
constructive solutions to problems. Friendships are based on a completely
different set of structural relationships than those with parents. They are a
move to intimacy that includes the development of a more exclusive focus,
openness to self-disclosure and the sharing of problems and advice. The central
notion is that friends tell one another and get to know just about everything
that is going on in one another’s lives.
Importantly, adolescent girls take their major values in life from their
parents, while they consult both parents and friends about relationship and
personal problems. In general terms, parental and peer influences complement
each other in ways that prepare adolescent girls for more mature relationships
in their future lives. Family relationships during childhood provide a strong
emotional foundation for peer relationships during adolescence.
