#Adolescence

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hi! Hope you're doing well 🌟

Do you have any advice on how to write ten year olds? Like, not physically but emotionally. One of my main characters is ten years old and I wanna make sure I get it right, sometimes I feel like I'm giving him the emotional maturity of the characters that surround him that are in their 20s and 30s but idk ://

Writing Notes: Emotional Development

Emotional Development

Also called affective development.

A gradual increase in the capacity to experience, express, and interpret the full range of emotions and in the ability to cope with them appropriately.

Cortical control, imitation of others, hormonal influences, home atmosphere, and conditioning play major roles in emotional development.

It is nearly impossible to imagine emotional development as separate from changes in cognitive development that occur in the first two decades of life.

As memory and thinking become more complex and abstract, emotional development changes as well.

Similarly, markers of emotional development are intimately linked to a child’s social experiences.

The following examples are major markers of change in emotional development as they occur within a social context.

Emotional competence (7 to 10 years). Emotion expressions are used to manage relationship dynamics, such as smiling at a new friend (Saarni & Camras, 2022).

Emotion regulation (infancy through adulthood). Emotion regulation strategies are processes used to monitor, evaluate, and modify our emotional reactions in order to achieve a goal. Strategies become more sophisticated from extrinsically based regulation in infancy to more intrinsically based regulation from preschool-age through adulthood (Eisenberg et al., 2010; Thompson & Goodvin, 2007).

8 to 9 years: Cognitive emotion regulation strategies emerge, and children begin to use thoughts and feelings about themselves and others to control their emotions (Garnefski et al., 2007).

The ability to regulate our emotions is one of the most important skills for learning, social relationships, and mental health. 

Adolescence - The period of human development that starts with puberty (10–12 years of age) and ends with physiological maturity (approximately 19 years of age), although the exact age span varies across individuals.

During this period, major changes occur at varying rates in physical characteristics, sexual characteristics, and sexual interest, resulting in significant effects on body image, self-concept, and self-esteem.

Major cognitive and social developments take place as well: Most young people acquire enhanced abilities to think abstractly, evaluate reality hypothetically, reconsider prior experiences from altered points of view, assess data from multiple dimensions, reflect inwardly, create complex models of understanding, and project complicated future scenarios.

Adolescents also increase their peer focus and involvement in peer-related activities, place greater emphasis on social acceptance, and seek more independence and autonomy from parents.

How Emotions Develop in Adolescence

Once self-conscious emotions such as guilt, embarrassment, and shame emerge in middle childhood, very few new emotions develop. Adolescents’ cognitive skills to reason about abstract concepts improve their ability to manage and reason about their own emotions and improve emotional competence in relationships (Rosenblum & Lewis, 2006).

Research on adolescent emotional development shows how emotions change during this time of rapid physical development.

Emotion Expression. Emotion expression in adolescence differs from that in childhood and adulthood. Adolescents report experiencing greater extremes of emotion and more negative mood states than adults. Adolescent emotional experiences are reported to include less happiness than during childhood (Rosenblum & Lewis, 2006).

Emotional Dissemblance. Emotional dissemblance is the ability to separate one’s emotional expressions from one’s internal feelings. Children learn how to control the emotions they display in order to avoid negative outcomes. During adolescence, teens begin to display expressions according to the norms of adult interaction (Rosenblum & Lewis, 2006); for example, the ability to outwardly display a facial expression of congratulations to a competitor immediately after a tough loss, while feeling intense emotion internally.

Emotional Competence. A successful transition to adulthood is associated with increased emotional competence across several skills during adolescence; for example, learning to regulate intense emotions, knowing how to attend to emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them, and learning how to manage interpersonal relationships in the midst of intense emotions (Rosenblum & Lewis, 2006).

Emotional Maturity - A high and appropriate level of emotional control and expression.

Prerequisites for Developing Emotional Maturity

Emotional maturity is a skill that can be nurtured and developed through psychoeducation, therapy, and coaching (Kaur et al., 2015).

Possessing or developing the following characteristics provides the foundation for developing emotional maturity:

Personal Reflection & Self-Awareness. Self-awareness and a willingness to reflect on one’s emotions and behaviors are crucial for the growth and development of emotional maturity (Herwig et al., 2010).

Openness to Feedback. Personal growth and emotional maturity are dependent on our willingness to accept and learn from constructive criticism (McEnrue et al., 2009).

Commitment to Growth. Personal growth is hard work and requires a dedication to ongoing personal development and emotional learning (Bauer & McAdams, 2004).

Empathy. The ability to identify, interpret, and share the feelings of others is integral to emotional maturity (McNaughton, 2016).

Resilience. All personal growth requires the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and adapt to change (Still, 2023).

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

There are some children who exhibit the same (or almost similar) level of emotional maturity of adults surrounding them, depending on the circumstances. Consider these notes and incorporate which ones are most suitable for your own story. Hope you're doing well yourself, and that this helps with your writing! :)

[foldingfittedsheets]

My coworker Astrid and I were chatting yesterday. I mentioned that I have this specific moment that I’ve always felt like was my transition from child to sapient being where I suddenly looked at myself and had the epiphany that my appearance mattered to others perception of me and I conceptualized myself as a person. It was really wild and being a His Dark Materials fan I’ve always been like, yeah, that’s when I got Dust and my daemon settled.

Astrid was fascinated and told me she hadn’t had that exactly but she did remember being on this one road trip through Kansas and she’d looked up at the clouds and suddenly, all at once, she could perceive them as being three dimensional. Even though conceptually she’d always known they had depth she could now perceive the shape.

She told me this in the slightly embarassed way that said she didn’t think this sounded impressive and she wasn’t expecting me to sit bolt upright and exclaim, “Me too! I had that too! It blew my mind!”

It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen clouds before but clouds were just up there in the sky, taken for granted and generally they just made flat shapes. But to realize the full scope and depth of clouds, to shift from thinking about them as a faraway background element of nature to seeing them as huge majestic three dimensional things had been awe inspiring.

“Right?! I just spent the whole rest of the drive overwhelmed with the beauty of the world, staring at the clouds!”

“When I try to tell people how profound it was they just act like I was high but it was like, this massive shift in how I saw the world right around adolescence.”

Slightly curious if anyone else had experiences like these as they stepped toward adulthood.

[vintage-tigre]

[reasonsforhope]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but especially with the end of the school year coming up soon, and a bunch of people about to leave high school or about to leave college, I just wanted to say:

Being an adult can be really nice, actually!!!

Like, okay, yeah, life can be fucking stressful sometimes, and there's definitely an annoying amount of paperwork.

But me and just about every single adult I know will agree: I would never choose to go back to being a teenager, even if I somehow could.

Insert obvious disclaimer that nothing is universal. But for people worried about aging or graduating into the next chapter of life, here's some words of reassurance:

When you're a teenager, your brain is extra mean to you. Like, neurologically. All of the changes it's undergoing really, really increase rates of depression/anxiety/etc. A lot of the time, literally just not being a teenager anymore is really good for your mental health

Less than five months out of high school, everyone I knew my age was like "Thank fuck we're no longer in high school." Once you leave high school and adolescence there's really just such a dramatic drop in petty bullshit. Shit that would have been a huge social humiliation or gossip in high school is really often just like, "Hate that for you, man." Boom, done.

When you're a teenager or a brand new adult, you're encountering so many problems for the first time ever. When you're older, you just. Have learned how to handle a lot more things. You know what to do way more often and that builds confidence

When you're an adult, other people generally don't care if you don't do things perfectly, because jobs and life don't work like grades. This was such a trip to learn, honestly? But when you are an adult or have a job the bar for success is usually just "Did you do the thing?" or "Did you do the thing well enough that it works?" or "Did you show up to work for your whole shift and look like you were doing things?"

Similarly, if you're about to graduate college and you're really stressed about it, fyi just about everyone I knew in college ended up very quickly going "wow, 'real life' is way easier." Admittedly I went to a school full of very stressed out perfectionists and the like, so I can't promise this is universal, but there's a very real chance that life will in many ways get easier when you graduate

WAY MORE CONTROL OF YOUR OWN LIFE

Literally I cannot overstate that last point. As an adult, you are (barring certain disabilities or shitty circumstances like abusive family/the criminal justice system/etc.) able to make most of your own decisions. If you want to rearrange your furniture, you can. If you want to eat tater tots at midnight, you can. If you want to get yourself a little treat, you can. You can sign contracts and make your own legal and medical decisions and not need a parent or guardian signature for just about anything ever again

You generally learn how to give fewer fucks

The people around you have also generally learned how to give fewer fucks

Even when things are shitty, being able to choose what kind of shitty a lot of the time can really be worth an awful lot

[morepeachyogurt]

what is adolescence if not leaving and being left?

1. iain s. thomas | 2. alison zai @alisonzai | 3. @chloeinletters | 4. mikko harvey | 5. fleetwood mac | 6. the breakfast club (1985), john hughes | 7. lorde | 8. miranda july | 9. richard siken | 10. @mavra-matia | 11. homer | 12. amy hempel | 13. mitski | 14. katrin koenning | 15. freya ridings |

[unbfacts]

[chimyku]

"The two of us were connected with our hands held together."

Jelsa siblings AU?!

(Guys hear me out xD)

I recently rediscovered one of my favorite vocaloid songs, "Adolescence" by producers Signal-P and Orange, and I also remembered that some people said Jelsa looks like siblings, so here's an illustration based on that! Go listen to the song as well: https://youtu.be/u-YH22ijXhs?si=GN6U2xPPZw2b3ROv

I like this version better though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHglIaco2fE

I often hear/read about how Jack and Elsa can pass off as siblings because they supposedly look alike. I personally don't think they do (or maybe that's the shipper in me talking lol) just because they are both light-haired, blue-eyed, and have a pale complexion. I mean, both their hair and eye colors are different shades anyway, that has to count for something, right?! XD

If you haven't heard of the song before, there are basically two major interpretations to it: it can either be viewed as a platonic or romantic relationship between twins. The overall idea is that, as adolescents, they realize that they're growing and that things are no longer the same. By that, no longer the same physically—as in their once similar facial features, hand sizes, etc. are all different now— and from a social standpoint, where it is no longer acceptable to do some things that were so normal for them as twins, such as sleeping in the same bed together (like I said before, you can view it however you like; be it either as the innocent indignance of close-knit twins who were suddenly made to distance themselves, or a tale of forbidden incestuous love). Most vocaloid songs, including this one, are up to interpretation anyway. I might be slightly off though, it has been quite a while since I've delved into the meanings of vocaloid songs. Whether or not to consider this jelsa piece as platonic or romantic, it's also up to you hehehe.

Here's a lovely fanfic I've found from @oni-no-ko that has Jelsa as twins (which reminded me of this song!). Mind the rating before you read it, don't say I didn't warn you XD: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10339919/1/Behind-Frosted-Doors

I have mixed feelings about this artwork. I haven't tried this art style in a while and though I like how it turned out, I'm not satisfied with the hands lol they're the bane of my existence xD. I also kept going back and forth modifying random parts of the artwork, so I decided to finally post it because I will never be done with it at this rate xD.

[two-bees-poetry]

my main character is a teenage lesbian

[writingsforwinter]

Day 19 of my December daily poem challenge

By Meggie Royer

[avbocetos]

Nejiten month 2024

"Of course he had!"

Day 11. Adolescence.

[thedeluxedoll]

[dionysian-mystery]

All my life, I've been obsessed with adolescence — drunk on it. Even when I was little, I knew that teenagers sparkled. I knew they knew something children didn't know, and adults ended up forgetting.

Lorde on turning 20

[doubtspirit]

Joseph Sterling, From The Age of Adolescence, 1961

[vintage-tigre]

[veegodoi87]

"Helping girls to blossom and show their inner beauty, as well as coloring this ugly city a little. Just like and comment!" 🌸📱❤️

- C.B. (Cherry Blossom), Maya Aco Hindenburg

[sagent-of-chaos]

being gay shouldnt be a political statement