Identity Vs. Role Confusion

1275 Words3 Pages

Why do most individuals listen to the advice given from friends and peers but don’t listen to the words of knowledge expressed from parents? Are the words coming out of a guardian or parent’s mouth really seeping into one ear and draining out the other continuously? The average adolescent listens to the advice given to them from their parents but because of the lack of development of their prefrontal cortex they are unable to hold the knowledge without it being replaced by a text message or call. How is a parent’s advice much different from the advice we receive from colleagues people attend school with or hang out with? The way that adolescents converse with each other make the difference between accepting their opinion and declining the advice. The voluntary relationship of not having to accept the individual’s comments but having the choice also makes a huge difference in a parent’s involuntary receiving and a friend’s intentional acceptance. Identity vs. Role Confusion, one of Erikson’s stages of psychological development, states that around the ages of 12-18, a child struggles with finding sense of self. The child through success is able to differentiate between what they truly want to proceed with doing without falling into peer pressure’s grasp. But, with the failure to discover one’s sense of self, the child falls victim to friend’s opinions. This stage is one of the reason’s a child is unable to listen to the parent’s opinion versus the friend’s inviting suggestion. The adolescent is torn between whether the colleague understands the situation because of the age similarities and whether the parent understands clearly enough to give them advice. The child, at this age also sees the parent as the rival or enemy, viewing th... ... middle of paper ... ...es of the parent’s opinion against the friend’s persuasion comes with social cognition, sense of self and also the way the person views the individual giving the advice. If the person views the parent as a nuisance, or thinks the parent cannot understand the problem that the person is facing, the adolescent is more prone to isolate from the guardian. If the child sees the parent as a comfortable companion and not just a caregiver, the child is able to express the problems present in the minor’s life without feeling judged or misunderstood. Concluding my essay, I state that by the child creating a better bond with children in the same age group, it can lead to emotional and educational success in life but by neglecting the opinion or words of knowledge given by the parent, it can lead to parental negligence and lack of wisdom and world understanding earlier in life.

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