What were you doing

What I Was Doing in 2011
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What I Was Doing in 2011
Besides the usual physical development, humans also go through psychosocial development as outlined by Erik Erikson (Santrock, 2009). At every stage, Erikson highlights particular development tasks, skills acquired, potential crisis and possible consequences of the decisions made.
Seven years ago, in 2011 (the year on the coin), I had just turned twelve, and in my seventh grade, I was not working. I was raised by a single mum; I am her only kid. I recall how active I had become. Alongside my academic work, I developed an interest in sports, and I also enrolled in karate training. With time, I noticed I had become more confident, talked more than before and could quickly make friends, more of which were of the opposite sex. Contrary to my expectations, I discovered that many of my friends take drugs and are sex addicts, this was nonconforming to my Christian principles. My mum, a psychologist, had noted the sudden change in my behaviour. From her standpoint, I had become more jovial, more careless and kept so many unnecessary friends.
Mum did what mothers do the best, giving lectures about virtues and advice, however, she did it from a psychologist’s point of view. “Every decision has a consequence son, keep off bad friends,” she repeated the statement twice, it still rings in my ears to date. I followed mum`s advice, and as we speak today, two of my classmates were convicted and imprisoned for drug trafficking.

Manzoni et al. (2011) emphasized that adolescence is the stage where most youth lose direction due to peer pressure. What I was going through is the fifth stage of Erikson`s theory of development, identity versus identity confusion, adolescence. During this phase, the youth are undeniably energetic; they discover new things in life through their friends and the Internet. Because of lack of self-control and peer pressure, some end up abusing drugs, alcoholism, dropping out of school and contracting deadly disease due to irresponsible sexual indulgence.
References
Manzoni, M. L., Lotar, M., & Ricijaš, N. (2011). Peer Pressure in Adolescence. Lap Lambert Academic Publ.
Santrock, J. W. (2009). Life-span development (No. Sirsi) i9780073370217). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.