Erikson's Theory Of Adolescent Development

An adolescent might seek advice, attention or care from a family member (Paley, 2000) but might not be able to express this to them. At this stage parents must play a crucial role in overall development of an adolescent by giving them a patient ear, acting as friends to them, listening to every thing a child has to say, appreciating the good decisions and giving them a valuable advice over bad ones and most importantly encourage them to act honestly and efficiently by not imposing their will over an adolescent. As adolescence identities are formed it is a very sensitive time and parents need to be aware of their relationship with their child (Gill, 2008). Lack of communication and involvement with an adolescent child can cause harm to the child …show more content…
He pointed adolescence as the period where identity development is particularly critical, given the significant physical, psychological and social changes that they are taking place (Stantrock, 2014). Refining and extending Erikson’s work, James Marcia (2002) came up with four Identity Statuses of psychological identity development: diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium and achievement. In early adolescence identity diffusion is common, meaning that the adolescent does no have a sense of having choices, does no have any sense of identity crisis in terms of career, religion and ideology (Stantrock, 2014). Adolescence starts with abstract thoughts and feelings about everything happening in the surroundings and family or friends group. The early adolescents are mostly interested with the present situations and its analysis rather than paying any focus over their future developments or thought process. Between mid to late identity, adolescents will move into “identity foreclosure”, meaning that have made a commitment to some relevant roles, values or goals for the future but not yet experienced an identity crisis and then they will enter “identity moratorium” are currently in a crisis, exploring various commitments and is ready to make choices but have not made a commitment to these choices yet. The statement in the student’s self portrait “I don 't know what I 'll do when I finish school. I will probably go to uni. I don 't know” (Pollack, 2000) indicates the boy is in the moratorium phase associated with his mid adolescent age range. The middle adolescent phase opens the doors for deep moral thinking and introspection in regard with personal activities, intellectual levels and expansion in sense of understanding and