LATE ADOLESCENCE
Late adolescence starts around the age of seventeen or eighteen in girls and about eighteen to twenty, or later, in boys. It is basically a time of changing relationships, even with the self. It represents the last days of childhood.
Independence from parents increases, although some late adolescents cling to their families or their families to them. As at all stages boys are given more freedom than are girls and usually still feel comfortable at home. Girls can be very conscious of their need to escape: into work away from home, into higher education, and even into marriage. When they do escape they often pass through a phase in which they want to reduce contact with home to a minimum whilst maintaining a friendly relationship.
Parental criticism or disappointment still hurts the late adolescent but most consult their parents about important decisions and sooner or later do accept their advice. Some parents are excellent at giving approval and support to late adolescents without interfering but others try to exert total control. The latter court the risk of open or covert rebellion or, if the child submits, of changing his (more frequently than her) future growth. Open rebellion can take the form of delinquency or, in girls, unsuitable relationships, a premarital pregnancy and so on. Covert rebellion is sometimes expressed in failure of one form or another. Late adolescents are not fully realistic about their parents, but the old idolisation of the parents that was present in childhood is usually overthrown in mid-adolescence. The emotional feelings withdrawn from the parents (and especially the opposite-sex parent) into the self by mid-adolescence are available in late adolescence for investing in significant relationships outside the family.
From mid-adolescence the child increasingly creates his or her own social life independent of his parents, but in late adolescence the emphasis is on opposite-sex relationships. Progressively throughout adolescence the individual becomes increasingly cynical about friendships and by late adolescence, in contrast with early adolescence, feels that the chances of finding a new, good friend are increasingly remote. At this stage many girls say they dislike other girls but boys still mainly function in same-sex groups of one kind or another. Boys often see a girlfriend only as someone with whom they share sexual, but few other, intimacies.
Emotional development along adult lines proceeds rapidly but in girls, on average, it occurs two or more years earlier than in boys of the same age. Girls are more ready to commit themselves to a relationship, perhaps partly motivated by guilt over their sexual activities and sometimes regard their boyfriend as being more committed to them than he really is. By the late teens some boys still look upon girls either as medals or as game to be tracked down. This is not so much the result of their insensitivity but rather reflects the more rapid progress of girls and poor education on sex and emotions for boys. Misunderstandings are rife and more girls think of themselves as being engaged, to a greater or lesser degree, than do boys. Suicidal gestures can be the result of the rejection which ensues. Although adults can be very impatient with such gestures it is important to remember that the girl is really saying that if she cannot be loved she does not even want to live.
Girls, much sooner than boys, can become preoccupied with thoughts of loving and being loved, and they may cry themselves to sleep thinking about it. Late adolescence can be a harrowing time for a girl and bouts of depression are common. At this stage some girls become more or less passive, being chosen rather than choosing. Older and even married men can seem very attractive, not only because of their resources and experience but because ultimately the girl knows there is little hope of an enduring relationship, so thoughts of ending the liaison distresses her less. Paradoxically, with older men she feels she is doing more of the choosing and is more in charge. As she becomes more self-confident her sights usually become set on men more of her own age.
Boys reach the same stage of emotional development later (at around twenty-three to twenty-five) than girls, but because women tend to marry men a few years older than themselves, most men do not have to experience rejection distress. This is not to say that boys have less anxiety than girls: it simply takes a different form and is more concerned with approaching girls and, eventually, with sexual performance fears. Some late-adolescent boys conceal their anxiety behind callow behaviour towards girls.
The average girl today first has intercourse around or before her sixteenth birthday, and probably more than 95 per cent of girls first have intercourse between the ages of fifteen and twenty, whereas the range amongst boys is much wider. Male virgins of twenty-three to twenty-five are not uncommon. As a result, many young women today have had several fairly intense relationships before they finally marry. If this helps them to deal better with sex and any guilty feelings and so frees them to choose a partner based on personality factors rather than being swayed by an obsession with genitality, then this is beneficial.
Although most earlier sex education has been too little and too late, there is an intense practical interest amongst late adolescents and young adults about the establishment and maintenance of relationships. Many really do want to know how to understand and please the opposite sex, and not just physically. They want to know if anything is wrong with them and if so how to correct it. Minor defects can be sources of agonising worry. In spite of being nearly adult they can easily be disorganised by anxiety and often need parental support.
Various strands of their previous development now begin to be knitted together, for good or ill, but change, even dramatic change, is still possible. Although what happens in childhood has immense consequences, it is not necessarily permanent. New attitudes, perspectives and insights are possible and late adolescence is the last chance before the relatively fixed attitudes of adulthood overtake the individual. A lot of preventive work can be undertaken with late adolescents, but the majority have no readily available service to help them, unless they are in extreme distress. As a result, maladaptive attitudes towards the self and others are carried forward into adulthood where they ultimately cause trouble either for the individual or those around him or her.
Like most people, late adolescents need success but, because they are at the starting-line of adult life, their needs are particularly great. Although some may seem self-assured and even arrogant, typically under-confidence and self-doubt are never far away. They are in a difficult situation because they are becoming increasingly aware of their need for a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. This is more than a genital need, although men reach their lifetime peak of sex drive during this period. This is before many of them have had intercourse.
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This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 4:34 am and is filed under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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