Psychosocial Growth of Students
With new and exciting hormones raging through them on a daily basis, students are awash in a very sea of confusing social and emotional changes and demands. Plainly stated, psychosocial development involves the interaction of emotional, social, and cognitive development, along with the resulting conglomeration becomes a way that students see, interpret, and performance in their world (class notes). Students within the middle school stage of psychosocial development are unique in the they fall somewhere in between childhood and adult identities. They find they are becoming different in several ways, and therefore these changes effect the way they view and relate with the planet around them. This realization pushes these people to explore themselves along with the social dynamics which they never knew existed.
Developmental theorist Erick Erickson addresses a child/adult conflict by placing students in this age within a unique developmental state. He purports that middle school level kids are still striving to please others and remain in "the group," but are also seeking to be independent and experience things for their own end. School plays a central role in bridging those two conflicting concepts (Slavin 51). Other researchers accept Erickson in proclaiming that middle school-aged adolescents have many finding out how to do. Students must, at this stage, begin and complete certain developmental tasks before they can move into more adult-like thought patterns. These tasks include things such as defining gender roles, increasingly socially responsible for their behavior, beginning more mature relationships with both same and opposite sexes, and navigating toward increasing emotional independence from parents (Manning & Butcher 42).
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Several areas of behavior and thought characterize this often-complicated definition. At this stage, students become very preoccupied with themselves as well as their looks. Self-esteem will vary from day-to-day dependant upon the situations they face. An individual who seems to be brilliant and outgoing within a classroom might be shy and unwilling to sign up in another (Manning & Butcher 43). Peers and friends rapidly turned into a huge influence, and the demand for independence becomes stronger. Young adolescents at this stage learn to value the input of peers more than this of their parents and teachers. This effects a sizable continuum of student life, including clothing choice, speech and language, and just how they express themselves (Manning & Butcher 43). Relationships, both same and opposite-sex, become a little more mature when they set out to see themselves as being a more "evolved" group (class notes). Overall, a middle school adolescent is defined and characterized in they are caught between conflicting needs. The younger child within still banks on simple instruction and also the constant guidance of teachers and parents. However, the maturing side ones fights for independence and social acceptance. They wish to be seen and serve as adults, but have not really completed all the necessary steps (Good & Brophy 265).
Implications:
Because there are many complicated characteristics as well as their permutations, it can be obvious why the implications of psychosocial development develop into a huge area of the means of "being raised." Obsession with appearances, handling peers (positively and negatively), forming categories of similar interests, as well as the constant tug-o-war with self-esteem issues all express themselves in psychosocial development. In lots of ways, these aspects can be a direct reflection with the characteristics of psychosocial development, but with an added weight of continuation beyond the adolescent period.
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