Emerging Adulthood

Our development has made us who we are. Looking back now, after exploring my own development, I see some of the reasons behind why it is that I am who I am, whether it be physically, cognitively, socially, or emotionally. We are all unique, yes, but we have all gone down or will go down some similar paths in our development. The purpose of my essay is to take you down my own path focusing on key events and experiences that I believe to be influential in my development. I will begin the description of my development jumping straight into middle and late childhood, continue with adolescence, and end with my present developmental stage of early adulthood.

Middle and late childhood can vary, but for the most part it is around seven to eleven years

of age. The period of late childhood ends and enters adolescence typically, when the first signs of puberty begin (Santrock, 2018). Throughout my middle and late childhood developmental stage I can recall a time where I see that Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory can be applied, particularly in the concrete operational stage. In the concrete operational stage one of the achievements that is gained is the ability for spatial reasoning and mapping skills. Around the age of eight years old, I was in second grade. In second grade I had a teacher named Mrs. Kastner, and she had asked us to not only draw a map of the elementary hallway, but also then, we were going to have to explain to her how she could get from one room the another. In my case I had to explain to her how to get from the band room to the bathroom. I had to think about the rooms three dimensionally, and how they would look when you turn certain corners. I had to first create a cognitive map to then therefore draw this map out to explain to her how I would get her to go from the band room to the bathroom. Let’s just I had the elementary hallway down.
Second grade was a wonderful time for the most part, but just like anything else it had its downsides. The biggest downside of my second-grade year would have to be the time I “signed the book.” When a student got in trouble such as not turning in a homework assignment to things like talking when the teacher was talking, the student would sign the book. To sign the book was not a good thing and the more you signed the book the less privileges you received. Well one day I had to sign the book, and this was one of the worst days of my second-grade year. This has to do with Kolberg Stages. At this point in my life I would say in the lowest level of moral reasoning known as preconventional reasoning. In this preconventional level I was in the first stage known as heteronomous morality. The reason I was so scared of signing the book was because signing the book was tied to punishment. I needed to follow the rules and obey because I feared the punishment. Actually, to me, signing the book was punishment enough considering that was my first and last time to do so. I cried a lot that day, and I am pretty sure I never told my mom.
Now, fast forward to adolescence, the time where I would say some of the biggest physical changes occur. That’s right, I am talking about puberty. Menarche, was for me, the biggest physical change. I was only 11 years old, and at the time, I did not know of anyone else my age experiencing what I was. I honestly thought that it was the end of the world, and I couldn’t help, but think “why me?”. My mom had to reassure me that it was a part of life, and it was something that needed to happen.
During my adolescence, I can recall a time where Erikson’s theory was applied. One of the times when I was in Erickson’s fifth developmental stage, identity versus identity confusion, I was in middle school and had an assignment for careers class to make a pizza box. For this assignment I had to first pick a career in which I saw myself doing, and then, in the empty pizza box I had to design my working environment. The pizza box had to represent our career. My first problem for this assignment was that I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career for the rest of my life. For one, I was only in the eighth grade, and two I had never had to really think about this until now. I pictured myself in different career paths trying to see if any of those would fit who I was. I didn’t know where I fit exactly. I had to really sit down and think after several days and weeks about where I was going in life. Who was Ashley Bonilla, and where did I see myself?
Another scenario I can think of where the same concept was applied was when I was in the ninth grade about to be a sophomore. Cheer tryout were around this time, and all my friends were all cheerleaders. They asked me if I ever considered trying out. I immediately thought no way this is not for me, but then one day I sat down and thought maybe this is where I fit in the most. I thought okay I am going to just try this out and see if it fits me. My friends ended up signing me up for tryouts, and I mean I could have just said no, but I decided to try it out and see if a cheerleader was part of my identity. My closest best friends were cheerleaders these were the people who I would hang out with they were my clique. I ended up going through with the tryouts and making the team. I also continued with being on the team until I graduated high school. Honestly it wasn’t for me, but I continued with it because I had a high level of commitment in this identity. I would say I fit in the identity achievement in regard to Marcia’s Four Statuses of Identity.
Now we are my present developmental stage of early adulthood.

I am now twenty years old and would fit in the category of emerging adulthood. Emerging adulthood is considered to be the transition from adolescence to adulthood which usually occurs from about 18 to 25 years of age (Santrock, 2018). There are some key features of this developmental stage in life and one I can really relate to is the “feeling in-between.” The best example of this in-between feeling I experience is one day the summer after my freshman year in college a I boy I had never really met before asked me on a date. I grew up in a small town so everyone knew everyone, and my parents were always used to knowing who the people were that went to my school and who were my friends. This boy was not from around my town or old high school, but we got to talking and he wanted to meet me. My parents have always been strict, and so of course I tell them about the boy and how he asked me on a date. I expected to go on this day without any trouble from my parents because to me I was plenty capable of handling myself. I was basically an adult well, so I thought. My parents did not think so, and totally freaked out saying that I did not really know this boy and so on. I told them I am an adult I can make these decisions on my own, and then they started naming all the things that would actually make me an adult, all of which I did not meet. I began feeling frustrated because in my head I was an adult, but then I started having that “feeling in-between” feature. I did not really feel like I was an adolescence to me I was past that stage, but then I did not really feel like an adult either because I did not meet all the “full fledged adult”

criteria.