Dating in Adolescent Age - Essay Example

Adolescent dating The objective of this paper is to understand the reasons behind adolescents and their dating attitudes; why is it that they begin to look for love and affection in people other than their families when they begin to come of age, and how the same affects their lives. Adolescent age is a transitional part of life where most young children are trying to suppress their curiosity by answering questions regarding the opposite sex (in most cases) and understand the purpose of their physical as well as mental feelings with regard to one another. The various aspects and effects of adolescent dating have been discussed within the purview of this paper. Keywords: adolescent, dating, feelings, emotions Adolescent dating Emotional needs are a part and parcel of a person’s life and right from the adolescent age, most people begin to find their interests in other people and begin to date them in order to rest the curiosity that they contain in their minds regarding the opposite sex and dealing with the idea of a relationship. Adolescent dating is one major life stage in human development. The stage predisposes the adolescents to several challenges which have been explained further within the purview of the paper. These major challenges at this stage are mainly emotional. The main aspects to be considered in adolescent stage may include, accepting that adolescence is a normal transitional stage; parental and peer influence during adolescent stage; the dating anxiety and social distress among adolescents and lastly dating violence among adolescents, to name a few. The main objective of this paper is to understand the emotional needs of adolescents with respect to their personal habits and desire to have someone in their life to share their experiences with. Dating is a very normal part of adolescence stage where most young adults try and get to know one another in order to form a possible relationship with them. This occurs because of reasons like familial or peer pressure, as well as a friend as an outlet for one’s feelings. Furthermore, at this age, dating is seemingly impossible to eradicate or even prevent because almost everyone goes through it and children that don’t are considered to be left out in groups. This kind of dating is normally done in response to the growing emotional, physical and social needs of adolescents. Furthermore, it must be understood that the motives and perspective of adolescents toward dating are different from those of adults due to different levels of maturity. Dating has various effects on adolescents because it ends up having young people get mixed up with their emotions; since they just begin to test the water of understanding affection and relationships around them, they tend to get confused however do end up yielding positive results in the form of experiences for themselves in order to mature into smart individuals during the course of time. However, they must be talked to regarding dating so that they take enough precautions in order to refrain from committing any mistakes that they might physically. The entire experience and interaction that dating brings to the platform is providing a deeper and meaningful way of understanding the emotions of other people with respect to one’s own. (Glickman & La Greca, 2004). Parents have a huge hand in their adolescents dating as well; however, even though they try to guide their children through their relationships, adolescents end up discussing this aspect of their lives with their friends as they feel more comfortable talking to people their own age who are going through the same thing. Sometimes, parents can also be harsh or judgmental and thus this keeps children from approaching them with ease. (Daddis & Randolph, 2010). Adolescence is a significant and transitional phase that everyone goes through in life because of the sole reason that it is extremely exciting and daunting at the same time what with meeting so many new people and interacting with others; it helps to build positive and negative relationship for people to learn from; it helps young adults explore themselves and their identities; it helps a person to feel the need for social recognition and a stance in society; finally, it helps adolescents to understand their role as children as well as adults, while understanding their parents as well as their friends and making some of the most important decisions of their lives while dealing with the harshest of feelings and situations. Sometimes, they may feel the lack of security at home and thus they approach their friends and not their parents. In situations where an adolescent comes from a nuclear or a divorced family, he feels more the need to be in a relationship with someone for the only reason of wanting affection from another source. Also, adolescents feel that disclosure of dating issues to parents becomes limited most of the time. (Daddis & Randolph, 2010). Adolescents normally worry on building themselves up with a dating partner, particularly with regard to their outfit, manners and quality of conversation. This leads to them becoming nervous, losing out on confidence and self-esteem and having anxiety issues. In general social situations, adolescents normally feel pressure in trying to fit in the crowd. (Glickman & Greca, 2004). Dating tends to cause a great amoutn of negative situations among adolescents as well; sometimes when people have to deal with other kinds of people, they tend to lean towards violent means because of their immature nature. They get into fights which might turn out to be dangerous in some situations, and this may be detrimental to one’s health as well. There are a number of girls that are prone to being on the receiving end of violence than boys. (Sutherland, M. A., 2011) This further causes problems like drinking, smoking and taking to drugs in order to feel better. Many girls have been known to considerharmful sexual practixes and even entertain thoughts of suicide in order to escape the complication of emotions that arise between them and their partners. In many cases girls are also subject to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections are also among the sexual risks resulting from dating violence. According to research conducted, perpetrators of dating violence were found to manifest signs of depression, aggressiveness and poor emotional and social skills. (Sutherland., 2011). The various corrective actions to prevent, if not eradicate, the negative consequences of adolescent dating are; 1. Nurses should educate the families of victims about the important facets of dating violence. 2. They should also familiarize themselves with the terminology used by adolescents in illustrating their dating experiences. (Boekeloo, B., Howard, D., & Qiu, Y). A. Personal and sociodemographic factors affecting dating violence 1. Adolescents who are exposed to drinking are more prone to dating victimization. 2. Alcohol use is a great contributor to difficult behaviour among adolescents. B. Importance of parental monitoring and social involvement 1. Parental monitoring and religious involvement help in decreasing chances of dating victimization. 2. Parental monitoring includes having the parents know the activities of their children outside school. 3. Reduce the likelihood of risk behaviours such as fighting, harmful sexual conduct and alcoholism. 4. Religious service attendance (e.g. hearing messages from religious authority) has impact to the behavior of adolescents (Boekeloo, B., Howard, D., & Qiu, Y). In conclusion, adolescent dating has various positive effects and leads to building relationships and helping people understand each other better. It helps adolescents to build their social skills and interact while looking for a potential partner who would understand them and provide them with positive energy and love. It helps an individual to inculcate within him responsibilities however shirking of the same often leads to violence among the partners. Adolescents are immature and thus they need to give themselves and their feelings a little time to develop and understand the aim of being with someone rather than taking to violent means. Counselling should be given priority where adolescents can be taught about the merits and demerits of dating and parents should also model their children and understand their feelings rather than demean them so that they would be closer to them and act as guides and friends, by understanding their children’s emotional vulnerability. References Boekeloo, B., Howard, D., & Qiu, Y. (2003). Personal and Social Contextual Correlates of Adolescent Dating Violence. Journal of Adolescent Health , 9-17. Daddis, C. & Randolph, D. (2010). Dating and Disclosure: Adolescent Management of Information. Journal of Adolescence , 309-320. Glickman, A. R. & La Greca, A. M. (2004). The Dating Anxiety Scale for Adolescents: Scale Development and Associations with Adolescent Functioning. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology , 566-578. Sutherland, M. A. (2011). Implications for Violence in Adolescent Dating Experiences. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing , 225-234. 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