Essay On Parental Separation And Individuation

In textbook (Berk, 2017), Erickson describes the psychosocial development of adolescence as a time when the individual establishes a new sense of identity or self, which leads to independence or individuation from parents and reliance on peers. The adolescent examines and redefines self, family, peer group, and community, and an adolescent who is unable to establish meaningful definitions experiences confusion in one or more life roles. Parental separation and individuation are critical developmental tasks faced by late adolescents, which can impact their academic, social, and emotional adjustment to college.
Any life change during this time period, whether welcomed or unwelcomed, is likely to result in stress and require coping strategies

Although going to college is considered a significant and positive step in life, it can challenge a late adolescent's personal security, physical comfort, and ability to enjoy gratifying activities. Moving away to college forces students to establish new social support systems and to renegotiate previous relationships with family and friends back home. Aside from establishing new support systems, the new college environment can be intimidating and anxiety provoking for students for other reasons. There are academic adjustments such as examinations, grade competition, large amounts of content to learn in a short time frame, and excessive homework or unclear assignments. There are also life and social adjustments such as becoming familiar with the college campus, public speaking, encountering hundreds or thousands of other college students, living in a dormitory, and having more independence. In

For newly arrived international students who are in their late adolescence developmental stage, the sources of acculturative stress often include academic pressures, language difficulties, feelings of inferiority, difficulties in adjusting to new food or cultural values, lack of support, perceived discrimination, and homesickness (Andrade, 2006). In addition, international students may experience little acceptance, tolerance, and understanding of their cultural practices by members of the host country, and in some cases, racial discrimination (Poyrazli & Lopez, 2007). It is also possible that international students themselves may be intolerant or discriminatory towards other international students or members of the host culture. These difficulties can contribute to international students’ loneliness, alienation, mistrust, powerlessness, and depression. Although members (e.g., new college students) of the host culture may be affected by such difficulties, the combination of acculturation stressors has been found to weigh more heavily on international students who have limited access to resources (Poyrazli & Lopez, 2007). Specifically, when experiencing acculturative stress, they may