Jackson Wu
Teddy Chocos
Freshman Seminar 126G
Oct 14th 2012
The Importance of Early Adulthood
In our life, we will often see the scene which is thatwhen a lot of adults come
into the societyfrom the University or family andgo to work, they do not know how to
live, do not know how to deal with the difficulties, setbacks and success or failure
encountered in daily life; in the work, they do not know how to get along with and
communicate with colleagues and superiors and do not know how to complete the
tasks. So is it what reasons that caused these adult not to be able to adapt to the
independent life and work? We know that the adulthood is the life period
ofphysiological maturity, including early adulthood, middle adulthood and late
adulthood. It is visible that early adulthood has the role of laying the foundation for an
adult stage, which is that whether the development of a child isplays good or bad in
this period will decide the status of the subsequent middle adulthood and late
adulthood.Many people still have no the ability of independent thinking, living and
working whenenter the mid-or lateadulthood, which is as the phenomenon said above,
the main reason of which is that the early adulthood of these people did not get the
correct training and development. Therefore, the following article will illustrate the
role and issues of early adulthood through analyzing some of the views of the
theorists, and then take a look at the differences between early adulthood and
Childhood and why early adulthood is very important in the developmental process of
people’s.
Grace J. Craig who is a teacher and teaches at the University of
Massachusettshas
definedin
his
"Early
Adulthood:
Roles
and
Issues"
that”Althoughsome theorists argue that there are recognizable developmental stages
in adulthood, the developmental process that take place during childhood and
adolescence. Changes in adult is judged through, behavior, and personality are less a
result of chronological age or specific biological changes and are more a result of
personal, social, and cultural events or forces.”(Page 46)
What it tells us in this sentenceis the differences between early adulthood and
childhood.According to him, the developmental process of childhood is mainly
performed in the physiological aspects, for example, the body grows taller or the
weight increases. During this period, the children mostly listen to their parents when
they are thinking and want to do things, which is that not having their own judgment
for things. Therefore, they are little affected by the surrounding environment, and the
parents cannot teach their children bad things, so it can surely say that the children’s
development of this period is safe, which is just to make their own physical well
developed. Therefore, the issues appeared of the children in this developmental
progress are less and the role of the influence for their future life will be relatively
small. However, the early adulthood is the developmental progress that psychology
began to slowly change, such as that thinking and acknowledging on things will
slowly form their own independent understanding. We know that the psychology is
always unstable and easily influenced by the surrounding environment. So, the ideas,
concepts, and the perception of the world of the early adulthood is very susceptible to
suffer the influence of the surrounding environment, just as Craig has defined "the
personal, social and cultural events and forces" will affect the change of the thinking
and behavior in the developmental process of early adulthood, so this developmental
process of the children is very important. If during this period the environment which
the child is in cannot give the children right, healthy and active guide, there will
appear a lot of issues when the children grow up. For example, if parents overindulge
their children in this period, which is also like the childhood to think and do
everything for them, it will make the children lack the thinking habits of independent
thinking and have no capacity to handle things independently. When children have
grown up, it will appear the phenomenon described in the beginning of the article that
when they go to work, they cannot adapt to the independent living and work.
In addition, Craig has also quoted the opinions of Datan& Ginsberg (1975) in the
book which is "A positive resolution of contradictions and difficulties is the basis of
adult the activity and has also expressed his own point of view, namely," ... Not All
adults progress.in the same way or structure their live in a similar fashion.
Nevertheless, there are some commonalities in the developmental processes of
adulthood ". For their opinions, we can understand them like this, which is that their
viewpoints are just proving the role and importance of early adulthood from the
negative description. According to the opinion of Datan& Ginsberg (1975), “a
positive resolution of the contradictions and difficulties” can be seen as a flag of
mature and adult, and a positive attitude is to start training from the early adulthood,
so it is obvious that the important role of the early adulthood is for the mature of a
person. Although the process of growing up is not exactly the same for everyone, but
they all will inevitably encounter all kinds of difficulties and setbacks in the process
of growth. If a person cannot learn to accurately handle and deal with the events or
force in early adulthood when facing the impact of these surroundings, then they will
develop a negative attitude and habit of relying on other people in the process of
growing up. Therefore, although they have matured in the body, they are still not
mature in thought and behavior, and then they will never become a real adult.
At last, Craig was also through describing a study conducted by a psychologist
called Roger Gould to quote his opinion that”....he believesthat an individual’s system
of “meaning making” shapes his or her behavior and life decisions.”(Page, 47)
From this description by Gould, we can also see the importance of the early
adulthood and the important impact on a person's life. Through the analysis above, we
have already known that the biggest difference between early adulthood and
childhood is that it is the period of the formation and development of a person's
independent thinking and behavior. Gould, through their own investigation, found that
a person's behavior and life decisions are shaped by an individual's system of
"meaning making". By the article we can know that the "meaning making" here is the
person's ideas, which is beginning to form in the early adulthood. So, when a person
has formed what ideas in early adulthood, he will form what kind of a system of
"meaning making" to shape their own behavior and life decisions. If the system of
"meaning making" is positive, when difficulties or things coming, he will actively
seek to overcome and resolve them, so he can constantly get success; if the system of
"meaning making" is negative and to escape the society, then he will wince when he
encounters difficulties and will evade or shirk when facing things rather than take the
initiative to find ways to deal with them, so he would not know what to do in the
continuous failure.
In short, the article by three different theorists’ views illustrated the importance
and value of a healthy environment and a healthy developmental process of early
adulthood. In early adulthood, as the children themselves, they need to pay attention
to exclude the unhealthy environmental factors, learn to think independently, and
cultivate a positive attitude, and only by so, will they become adults of being truly
mature, owning thinking and the ability to live; as parents, they do not replace their
children to solve problems and difficulties like in the childhood, but to enable them to
learn to live independently, independently think, otherwise, they will not be able to do
anything but only to only rely on their parents when they are adult.
Reference:
Grace J. Craig, "Early Adulthood: Roles and Issues", The world of the self, Publicationpalce,
Publishing house,Years,46-49