Refection essay in adolescence

The purpose of this paper is to discuss human development in reflection upon my own personal growth. Human development is a set of changes that occur systematically and continuously over the lifespan. In addition it involves gains and losses and neutral changes that is categorised into three different domains; physical, cognitive and psychosocial functioning. ( Sigelman, Rider & De George-Walker, 2012: pg 31) Throughout my childhood the experience of my father beating my mother has dramatically affected my own developmental changes.

In particular it has affected my psychosocial domain in relation to how these specific incidents in certain ageing periods impacted and affected me as an individual, both emotionally and socially. Since birth I have encountered many different psychosocial developmental effects from my father physically abusing my mother. After already suffering from mistrust issues of having the unresponsive parenting behaviour needed as an infant, I found it difficult to adjust socially and became somewhat of an outsider within the school environment through my childhood period.

I suffered from this because my mother would constantly be away from home and unable to provide satisfied needs. This emotional distrust I experienced proves the first stage of Erickson’s psychological theory which is the trust versus mistrust. This is when the infant expects the parents to respond to their needs or otherwise they develop mistrust. ( Sigelman, Rider & De George-Walker, 2012: Pg 43) . In school I felt inferior to my peers and being well aware they used me as a bullying target. Although I have three older brothers and a younger sister, I felt alone and isolated.

Because of my parents constant reminder of ‘ don’t tell anyone’ it enforced fear and disclosure as I had no one to turn to. I felt secluded from whom I was to discuss my problems with and as if there wasn’t already enough conflict within the home environment, I didn’t want to become anymore of a burden. As I got older it helped me become more independent in the transition from the middle childhood into adolescence as I gained more independence. ‘ During the course of childhood the control of behaviour gradually shifts from parents to child.

Middle childhood brings a transitional stage of co-regulation, in which parent and child share power. ’(Papalia, Olds & Feldman, 2009: pg 325) This experience has now affected me as a person, as I have found myself facing complications and life obstacles on my own. And as mentioned I listened as a child but now feel at the same level of authority as my mother since they have split up when I was 12 years old. Because of this impact on my life I have gained more independence, courage and determination, a main reason being that I have pushed aside my consciousness of every particular incident as it was too traumatic to be aware of.

According to Fraud this is a defence mechanism of repression in which I am removing the traumatic memories to defend against anxiety. (Sigelman, Rider & De George-Walker, 2012: Pg42) Therefore this paper has discussed human development in reflection to my own developmental experience. It has additionally mentioned how my growth was impacted by my father physically abusing my mother. And in particular it has focused on the affect of my psychosocial domain in relation to how these specific incidents affected me both emotionally and socially.