It is important for adolescents to establish their own identity to become successful in life, learn life lessons, and learn the values of life. As a parent, it’s our responsibility to ensure our adolescents become great adults to our communities and not hold them back from adventuring out into the real world. It is great for adolescents to start as soon as they graduate high school to start establishing their self. Waiting until later in life to establish your own identity sometimes not always work best.
Success in life starts with establishing your own identity. Once as an adolescent, I had to learn for myself that everyone is not going to have the same mind frame as you. That goes for your views on life situations, career choices, and even day to day issue that you may deal with. Sometimes as a child, you and your parents will not always agree on the same thing. Which I believe many of us deal with, not saying to disobey your parents as you should take their advice but also have an opinion on your own. When you choose to want to know how you are as a person and your likes and standing strong in your beliefs that will lead to your passions, goals, and where you want to see yourself as an adult.
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Some people may say will say that they regret their mistakes and wish they would have never made certain mistakes in their life. I, on the other hand, take my mistakes and learn from them I believe that making mistakes is what mold your whole life not just as an adolescent. If you do not go for what your goals and passions are establishing you, you will be living off of someone else’s life and be stuck and not successful because you have not found
During this stage, Erikson believes that the individual’s successful identity formation relies on social, cognitive and physical maturation (Pittman, Keiley, Kerpelman, & Vaughn, 2011). The individual tries out different roles for who they see in themselves and who they portray to others, eventually committing to their own personal role and occupational choice. Pittman et al. (2011) describe the identity formation as “consisting of decisions, investments, and commitments tied to current and future roles, goals, and relationships.” Additional considerations for identity formation include the context of the culture which is available to the adolescent during this time. After successful resolution of this stage during adolescence, individuals will typically progress into Erikson’s Intimacy versus Isolation stage during young
Adolescence is a time when everything we've ever known is being changed. Relationships, friends, thoughts, and other things that shape who we are become more awkward and confusing and are changed from what they have been in the past. Consequently, we will change also because all these things shape who we are. During a period of such change, it's hard to know who we really are. Adolescence is the time when we find out who we truly are, but not until we know who we aren't. Adolescents use common words, actions, and rivalries to try to define their unique personalities, goals, and ideas. They label themselves in different ways, trying to find a single word that defines them entirely. Through this ongoing change of identity, adolescents fully realize who they are by trying on different identities until they find the one that fits them the best.
Unfortunately life has many hurdles and roads unturned. I do not feel we should regret the mistakes we have made in our past. Or else, we may be too hesitant to make correct choices in our future.
Lastly, we look at identity without knowing it adolescents are searching for the answers to the question, “who am I?”. Although this is an important part of development for this stage it didn’t just being in this stage nor do adolescents have the capability to figure it all out. While growing up children are pushed one way or another by parents and peers some are pushed towards academics while others athletics. But how influential are parents and peers?
The first topic I would like discuss is when adolescents start to form their identities. Although this ma...
In the past, individual’s identities were often assigned to them by the hegemonic culture, largely based on their conceptualization of sameness. The hegemonic culture dominated identity discourse by drawing distinct boundaries between racial and cultural groups, separating and defining them. Modern discourse however, has seen individuals taking the power of assigning identity signifiers for themselves often in periods of great social change. While times of resistance are often the most easily recalled examples of this, subtle trends in society a tremendous impact, often without the conscience knowledge of the society. In the past two decades, Western Culture has been witness to a radical transformation in identification processes. Technology has become increasingly pivotal to popular culture, and as such, it has had a profound influence on the way we create and affirm our sense-of-self. Identification categories have become less rigid compared to thirty years ago, and people are on average more open to identifying across boundaries. The process of blurring identity lines between distinct groups has re-distributed the power of assigning signifiers from the hegemonic element of popular culture to the individual. Means of instant information distribution and exchange, discourse and academic retrieval, such as instant messengers, social networking sites, Wikipedia, et al are perhaps some of the most influential because of their instantaneousness. While the lines have become blurred on a social level, individual identities are often affirmed.
Identity, an ambiguous idea, plays an important part in today’s world. To me identity can be defined as who a person is or what differentiates one person from another. Identity would be a person’s name, age, height, ethnicity, personality, and more. A quote by Anne Sexton states “It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was”(Anne Sexton). This quote helps me define identity because I believe it is saying that identity is what people are remembered by. When some people think of identity, words such as, uniqueness, distinctiveness, or individuality may come to mind. However, I disagree with this because when I think of identity I think of mimicry, self-consciousness, or opinions.
Identity often refers to a sort of desperate quest or a deliberately confused search through both a mental and moral experience. However, Erikson approaches this idea as an experience that will almost be a surprise that sneaks up on one, rather than something that can be found. The process of identity formation is located in the core of an individual, and also in the core of ones communal culture. This process is ever changing and developing, but reaches a crisis during the stage of adolescence. At the earliest stage of the identity crisis there is an important need for trust in oneself and others. Adolescents, at this stage, look passionately for ideas to place faith in, and additionally, ideas, which seem worthwhile to prove trustworthy. Erikson explains, “at the same time the adolescent fears a foolish, all too trusting commitment, and will, paradoxically, express his need for faith in loud and cynical mistrust” (Erikson, p. 252). This stage of identity formation is very confusing to youth because of the pull between childhood and adulthood. The adolescent undergoes and inner struggle of whether they wish to follow certain morals and beliefs, and the fear of committing to a specific identity. The second stage establishes the necessity of being defined by what one can will freely. The adolescent is now looking for an opportunity to decide freely on one of the available or unavoidable duty and service, and is at the same time terrified of being forced to engage in activities, which may expose one to ridicule. This further adds to the confusion of adolescents and identity formation. An adolescent is torn between acting shamelessly in the eyes of his or her elders, out of free choice, than to be forced into activities t...
Jones, Cheryl. "Identity and Adolescents: How Adults Can Help." NCYL. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 May 2014. . fifth
Biological influences combined with societal and social expectations contribute to how well people learn to adapt to their environments (2013). According to Erikson, there are eight stages of development. Within these states, there are different psychological, emotional and cognitive tasks. In order to adjust, individuals must learn to develop these tasks. During adolescence, Erikson states that each person needs to navigate through the development task of ‘‘Identity vs. Identity confusion ’’ (2013). He defined this task by stating that adolescent children must learn to develop a sense of self and establish independence. Prior to this stage of development, a person’s parents largely influence their identity. In this stage the adolescent children begin to explore and develop their identity outside of their parents’ influence (Hill, Bromell, Tyson, & Flint, 2007). Adolescents are generally more egocentric at this stage and have an increased sense of self-consciousness. They also have a strong desire to conform to peer influence and develop concerns regarding their appearance. They develop concern about their level of competence in relation to their peer group as well. As peer influence increases, during this stage, parental influence decreases (Ashford & LeCroy, 2013; Hill et. al, 2007). Conflict generally increases between parent and child at this stage of development (2007).
A person’s identity is shaped by many different aspects. Family, culture, friends, personal interests and surrounding environments are all factors that tend to help shape a person’s identity. Some factors may have more of an influence than others and some may not have any influence at all. As a person grows up in a family, they are influenced by many aspects of their life. Family and culture may influence a person’s sense of responsibilities, ethics and morals, tastes in music, humor and sports, and many other aspects of life. Friends and surrounding environments may influence a person’s taste in clothing, music, speech, and social activities. Personal interests are what truly set individuals apart. An individual is not a puppet on the string of their puppet-master, nor a chess piece on their master’s game board, individuals choose their own paths in life. They accomplish, or strive to accomplish, goals that they have set for themselves throughout their lifetime. Individuals are different from any other individual in the world because they live their own life rather than following a crowd of puppets. A person’s identity is defined by what shaped it in the first place, why they chose to be who they are, and what makes them different from everybody else in the world. I feel that I have developed most of my identity from my own dreams, fantasies, friends, and idols.
Adolescence refers to the transition period experienced by children that occur between childhood and adulthood (Shefer, 2011). Identity is first confronted in adolescence between the ages 12 – 19 years old, because of physical and hormonal changes in the body. It is also due to the introduction of formal operations in cognitive development and societal expectation that this contributes to an individual’s identity to be explored and established (McAdams, 2009). The forces within and outside (family, community) the individual that promote identity development usually create a sense of tension. The basic task is, in Erikson’s terms, “fidelity or truthfulness and consistency to one’s core self or faith in one’s ideology” (Fleming, 2004: 9), in a nutshell: "Who am I and where am I
Everyone is prejudice in some way or another. From a young age individuals observe, or are taught discrimination against others. Whether it is because of religion, sexuality, race, gender, personality, or just someone’s way of life, everyone is biased. In many ways, who we are today, is influenced by our race, ethnicity, and culture, and overall our individual identities. Every experience, positive or negative, has an impact on how we react to something in the future. Decisions others make, can impact the way we interact with others, our personal beliefs, and all together our life experiences. Along our path of life, we meet people with different goals and circumstances they’ve encountered which make them who they are and why they do certain things a certain way. But our experiences
According to Erikson, when adolescents are unable to find ownership of an identity, their lives can spiral off in several directions. In some ways they will reverse the role of their desire, slipping into a socially unacceptable role or a role that does not match who they wish to become (Feldman, 2012). Other teenagers will forego social interactions, leaving them to feel sad and alone in the world (Feldman, 2012). Teenagers thrive off of finding an identity to center themselves around, and when they fail to identify one, the adolescent crisis ensues (Feldman, 2012). There are several factors that can distract an adolescent from identifying a personal identity and pursuing a life of well-being...
Have you ever made a mistake, then regret it? Or ever made the same mistake more than once? If you had a chance to take back what you regret, would you? We are all human beings, no one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes no matter what age one is, personality, gender, we all make mistakes. Most of us make a mistake with out of us even knowing that we did make a mistake. Making mistakes is an everyday experience everyday in our world. All humans have the capability and opportunity to learn from their mistakes through positivity.