1.1. Physical: Most teens go through growth spurts. I never really had one of these. When I was 12 I was 4'10" and by age 14 I was 5'2" and have remained that height ever since. One of the most exciting events of adolescence would have to puberty. In our younger years they tried to prepare us for this but it never really works. I started my first menstruation cycle in the sixth grade. I was kind of scared and didn't even tell my mom or anyone when I got it. Surprisingly after the first one I didn't have another for over a year and then finally told my mom when it came again. I was involved in many sports and activities. I always stayed active and ate a ton. During high school I gained about 15 pounds but was never unhealthy. I certainly could have eaten better though. I like most college students binge drank and tried smoking. I really don't have an addictive personality type so never really picked up on those things as habits.
1.2. Cognitive: The formal operational stage starts and we are able to think in a more abstract way. They can use logical reasoning to understand what is going on. Sometimes this stage can have consequences. Earlier in life we just accepted rules plain and simple. But woth this way of thinking you can go around the rules or think why there should even be rules. In this stage I was still placing in advanced courses. Something inside me had changed though. I no longer strived to be the best at a subject, I just simply wanted to get by. I still maintained good grades but I only did the minimum to get there.
1.3. Socioemotional: I noticed a big change from middle school to high school. I didn't care as much what people thought of me on middle school and just did my own things. When I got to high school that changed. I was always worried about what I looked like and what people thought. i noticed myself doing things just because some of my friends were doing them. I hung out with the older crowd and not so much people from my own grade. I have always felt that I was mature for my age. I loved being involved and just being around other people as well. I had one of the largest varieties of friends and hung out with different groups on a regular basis. My senior year I was eventually voted our school's homecoming queen probably due to the fact that I did get along with so many people.
2. Early Adulthood
2.1. Physical: This is the stage I am currently at in my life. So far I have not changed much since adolescence. My brain has finally grown to it's full maturity in size and weight and my senses are quick. I will need to keep my diet healthy and make sure to get exercise to ensure my health stays good and to try to prevent osteoporosis. Health risks are not a major concern through this time and we are less likely to get the common colds and flus than when we were children. Now that I am independent I sure do feel stressed a lot more than I used to. I started to get minor illnesses due to this but have found that yoga can help cope my stress. I plan on eventually having a baby in this stage.
2.2. Cognitive: Thinking has to become more personal in this stage, practical in response to the individual's life experiences and commitment to the responsibilities that one is given. Dialetical thinking is another way of thought that is often used by adults. This way of thinking shows that the answers are not always simple and often have to be agreed upon. Emotional and pratical intelligence are often used in adulthood. Being able to understand emotions and fellings are very important, as well as, being able to be put in new or difficult situations and being able to conquer them. College os a big part of this stage. Being on your own and maintaining grades can be a very difficult thing to do. I experienced this when I first came to school.
2.3. Socioemotional:We start to realize we are adults now and no longer children by taking more responsibility for things.We feel the need for belongingness. Maintaining friendships can be hard in this stage since people are placed with lots of responsibility and are often starting intimate relationships with a life partner or starting a family. I am going through the emerging adulthood stage right now. I feel like an adult but sometimes just want to be a kid again. I still often go to my parents for help with things. I am now engaged and have gone through many of the faces of love. We are maintaining a good and healthy relationship so far. Let's hope it stays that when once we're married!
3. Middle Adulthood
3.1. Physical: I for the first time have had to get a pair of reading glasses. It is normal for people of this age to experience declines in their vision as well as hearing. I have gotten a bit shorter and more frail than I was. I am still active and try to exercise 4 days a week. I have not experienced any major health problems and am thankful for that. I eat healthily and take a multi-vitamin to ensure I am getting all the necessary things in my diet. I am at a higher risk for illness and disease at this point. I have yearly physical exams to make sure I stay healthy.
3.2. Cognitive: I still feel intelligent and am still succeeding in my job as a Dietician. Although my fluid intelligence is decreasing my crystallized intelligence is making up for that and allowing my problem solving skills to still work just fine. I often use mnemonic strategies to help when learning new tasks. I have not yet hit my midlife crisis and who knows if I will have to go through that. I am a pretty accepting person and understand that things just happen how they should.
3.3. Socioemotional: I am going through a bit of stress at this point. My daughter has just entered high school and is having the normal teenage attitude changes. We have been arguing more but I know it will evetually work itself out. I remember going through this stage with my mother- now I feel bad for acting like this!I have a healthy marriage. we have our small problems but nothing we cant handle. We have a set group of friends who we meet up with at least once a week to catch up and have dinner. In This stage things have slowed down a bit making it easier to find time to ourselves. Eventually our daughter will go to college and move out. We may experience the rough time of empty nest syndrome once she leaves, but who knows we may just get closer to each other.
4. Infancy
4.1. Physical:When born all of my movements were reflexes. Breathing as soon as I left the womb was one of these reflexes. Another reflex that is greatly used is sucking. This allows babies to eat. Throughout this stage I am learning how to control muscle movements and one of the first one is being able to hold that big baby head up without assistance. After this I begin to roll over on my stomach on my own, this then leads to crawling. It took me right around 12 months to figure out how to walk. During this stage sleep is very important. I was able to start sleeping through the night around 5 months but even doing this naps were still an important part of the day. Infants usually triple in weight by the time they turn 1.
4.2. Cognitive: Babies quickly learn that crying usually brings them what they want. They use this as their primary source of communication with their caregivers. I did not do too much crying at all at this stage. When only a few months old I had to be hospitalized for pneumonia and the nurses told my mom I was the quietest baby they had dealt with. Language is another big step in development. In this stage babies are picking up on almost everything you say. They begin with simple babbling like goo and gah and then they will start to imitate sounds they hear. Usually by age 1 babies have said their first understandable word. My first word was cat. This just shows I have always been an animal lover.
4.3. Socioemotional: Nonverbal encoding is something that infants are capable of. Meaning they are born with the ability to express basic emotions. Babies facial expressions are good examples of this. As they continue to get older they can begin nonverbal decoding, meaning they can start to look at others expressions and be able to tell what that person is feeling. Babies start to experience social smiles and will smile at a person in response. Attachment to their caregivers and others that are often near begin and stranger anxiety also starts. Infants can tell when they are in the presence of a stranger and that can be scary. They often feel separation anxiety from their mothers as well. More towards the end of this stage infants can start to feel empathy for others and try to comfort them. When I was an infant I was very attached to my mother.My father was the next closest. I did not like to be held by others and most of the time it would take me quite a while to warm up to new people but once I warmed up I loved to play and laugh with others.
5. Preschool Years
5.1. Physical: In this stage I was very active. Always running around and trying to always hurry things up.I loved to play I tried to make almost everything a game. At age 5 I was on a soccer team and fell in love with the sport. Growth in this stage starts to slow down.Bodies start to slim down with muscle starting to build.By age six their growing of the body starts to even out. Now that growing has slowed not as much food is necessary.Obesity is becoming a big issue so parents need to watch out. Lateralizatoin starts to be more shown letting each side of the brain control different tasks. The fun task of potty training happens during these years. I was a bit stubborn to this and it took me a bit longer to pick it up.
5.2. Cognitive:In this stage, kids start going through Piaget's preoperational stage. In this stage they start to use symbolic thought and begin to be able to use a mental symbol, word or object to represent something that is not physically present. Make believe play is likely to start in this stage. I never had an imaginary friend really but I made one up for a few days and then got tired of doing that. Egocentrism is another type of thinking that preschoolers go through. They are not concerned or aware of others thoughts or views. This stage is where counting and reading begin. I picked up on numbers fast and was able to count to higher numbers than most but it took me much longer to learn to read than others. Once I picked reading up I became very good at it and always read at a higher level than my grade level.
5.3. Socioemotional:Preschoolers are going through initiative-versus-guilt-stage at this point. This is where they start making decisions for themselves and kind of experiment with these decisions and see if the outcome is negative or positive. They usually think they are better at things than they really are. In this stage boys and girls prefer to play with the same sex. Girls often have more organized games to play as well as role playing game. I remember playing games and acting like I was a doctor doing surgery on my friends or simple games where you clap each others hands and sing a song that goes along with it. During this stage I went to my first two years of school. I attended preschool twice due to the age requirement for kindergarten. This was where I really learned how to interact with other kids my age. I was usually stuck playing with my older siblings.
6. Middle Childhood
6.1. Physical:Children are usually attending an elementary school in this stage. Typically they are growing 2-3 inches a years. Girls are often taller than boys in this stage. Nutrition is very important in this stage. Bad nutrition can cause social and cognitive problems as well as physical. I remember in this stage I was a very picky eater. I loved meat and that was pretty much all I ate. I hated veggies and only liked certain fruits. I also remember my mom telling me I ate like a bird- I just ate a little bit at a time but ate quite often. I was still playing soccer and was becoming more skilled at my coordination skills. My fine motor skills were also picking up and I learned how to write cursive pretty fast. Nowadays children have more access to computers but when I was this age I rarely used one. I would play simple games on the computer but never did anything too much on there.
6.2. Cognitive: The concrete operational stage starts here. The start making logical explanations for things rather than just basing it off of appearance. Vocabulary is greatly increasing in this stage. They are also starting to use ore clear sentences and pronunciations. In this stage I picked up on some words that kids should not be saying and got in trouble quite often for this. My reading skills kept excelling and I was always placed in advanced courses. I was second in the amount of reading points in our entire school. My school also offered a program called "Gifted and Talented" I took part in this program for quite a few years. We would stay after school and worked on hard problem solving skills and fun experiments.
6.3. Socioemotional: Children start going through industry-versus-inferiority stage. This is where they out all of their energy in to completing tasks given by parents, school, and peers. They get a good feeling when they accomplish these tasks and will want to keep doing them. Some children if they don't accomplish one of these tasks will get a sense of unsuccessfulness and may not want to keep going. I went through this stage. I always wanted to be the one to help the teacher or work harder for my soccer coach or completing tasks for my parents. I always seemed to have high self-esteem and never worried about small things. Friendships were crazy in this time of life. I always had tons of friends so I could always have someone to play with even through all the bickering I would do with certain girls that were my friends. I was very generous in this stage and always wanted to share my things with others.
