Ingredients for Successful Adolescent Development

a.Which of the ingredients for successful adolescent development do you think is hardest for adolescents to successfully achieve? Why? Provide examples and information from the article to support your response.

Adolescent development is a phase in life that every individual encounters. Successful adolescent development is not easily attained by ignorance or a relaxed mind that portrays less worry in life. One has to take a step and put efforts to facilitate the achievement of successful adolescent development. An analysis of Lerner, Fisher and Weinberg shows the importance of an adolescent to adopt the ‘’five C’s’’ positive attributes ingredients (Lerner, 2000). Among these ingredients, some are not that easy to achieve.  The third C for instance is the hardest for any adolescent to achieve successfully. Connection as analyzed by Lerner is an ingredient that focuses on the relation of the adolescent to fellow peers, family and the community at large. The main reason as to why connection is the hardest to achieve is because it involves building and strengthening a good relationship between the adolescent and other individuals. Whereas it is difficult to adjust one’s own attitude and take of things, it is more difficult to influence the response from others and develop a positive relation.

According to the article single parenthood is a major setback for the adolescent to achieve the connection ingredient. Less time is thus available for the parents to share with their adolescent children especially after school (Hofferth & Sandberg, 1998). The time spent away from the parents expose the adolescent to temptation of getting involved in awful behaviors. Similarly if peers and the community are not willing to spend time with the adolescent, it becomes difficult for the establishment of adequate connection and more so a trusting relationship.

b. Which of the settings in which adolescents live is most important to enhancing their well-being? Why do you think this? Provide examples and information from the article to support your response.

The well-being of an adolescent is highly influenced by the settings. The most important among the settings is the family setting. The family setting is basically characterized by the TLC factor. The T represents the time spent between the family and the adolescent. The second factor which is the L represents the limit of the laughter shared and the listening involved between the individual and their family.  The last factor in a family setting is the C. it refers to the connectedness that exists between the family and the individual particularly in communicating and displaying care between them.

Family setting is the most important of the settings since families influence the adolescent’s paths of development greatest. The time spent between the family and the adolescent helps develop a trusting relationship. This leads to the existence openness and additionally promotes the adolescent sharing the issues disturbing them with their parents. This eases the adolescent troubles making them develop upright with the advices given by the parents. The limit of the family and the adolescent offers a listening ground for issues disturbing the adolescent and important information from the parent that the individual needs to put into consideration. Another factor that qualifies the family as the most important setting for the adolescent is due to the fact family connectedness can prevent an individual from going out in the society with ill manners since they are mended within the family setting. This is evident in that showing care and closely monitoring adolescent results to fewer cases of risk-taking decisions (Galambos & Maggs, 1991).

c.What did you learn from this article that you did not learn about yet in class? Why was this important/interesting/surprising/noticeable to you? How would this information about adolescents be beneficial to future students studying adolescents?

The mention of youth programs by the article is a very essential factor that was not clearly shown in class. This is important since the youth programs are necessary for successful development of the adolescent. The youth programs are used for the creation of opportunities to the youth and support the positive influential adolescents. They help participants avoid harm and to attain the best out of every opportunity awarded to them. This information on adolescents would be beneficial to future students studying about adolescent since they may use the youth programs to appreciate the fact that adolescent should be developed as a resource. The youth programs can be utilized by these future students to change the negative views on adolescent from the community and thus develop a healthy relationship between the youths and the society.