Adolescence Case

Research Journal

Adolescence is very special life stage since it is the stage when a person is becoming fully independent individual. This is the main reason why I chose this life stage for the research. By the time of adolescence, parents and other close relatives should create all necessary prerequisites for a growing person to become a well-shaped personality as during this time an identity of a person is being fully shaped (Berger 2008). However, if previous four life stages went wrong for some reasons or an adolescent lacks parents' and adults' support, he/she will inevitably feel confused about his aspirations and role in life.

Therefore, this journal entry will be dedicated to Erickson's Life Stage Theory, Adolescence in particular and to the crisis called Identity vs. Role Confusion. I believe adolescence to be absolutely crucial for further person's development. The explanation of such conviction is quite complex: physical development that happens during this period sometimes leaves psychological development far behind, this requires adults' assistance; apart from that, a person begins to consciously establish his/her personal identity which is also very complicated and sometimes controversial process.

In our research we will test the following hypothesis: communication with parents, especially on troublesome subjects such as sex and relationships is crucial for adolescent's psychosocial health and emotional well-being.

In order to test the hypothesis, I conducted a survey in a form of questionnaire at the local school. In order to do this, I asked one of my former teachers to share one of her extracurricular classes with me. Thus, 15 young people aged 14-15 filled in an anonymous questionnaire that consisted of the following questions.

1) How can you describe your relationships with parents?

2) Have you been emotionally close to one or both parents since early childhood?

3) How do your parents treat your friends, classmates? Can you explain why?

4) Do you usually discuss private issues (relationships, sex) with friends or parents, why?

5) If something seriously frustrating happens in your life, who is the first person you talk to about this?

5) Do you consider yourself a happy person overall, why?

The research process went quite well. Taking into consideration the setting, young people reacted to the questionnaire rather reservedly, although boys were making jokes and laughing from time to time while all girls were concentrated. One of the boys filled in a questionnaire and then realized that it was anonymous (he did not listen attentively during the explanation stage). Surprisingly, he asked for another paper and then quietly filled it in and gave to me. This small detail proves that the majority of teenagers are afraid to express themselves freely and openly which