Child and Adolescent Development

Running head: CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
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Child and adolescent development
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CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
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Introduction
For children and adolescents to grow and develop healthily, certain physical, social and
psychological needs must be met. The degree to which these development needs are met by
parents, community, family and the society determines the type of adult a child is likely to
become. Long-lasting effects may be observed in a child or an adolescent due to situations like
armed conflict, separation from family and disruption of normal life might. It is therefore
important to maintain a stable environment around the children and the adolescents to enable
their healthy development and growth. The entire paper intends to discuss certain development
themes and relate these themes to a given scenario. In addition, the discussion will also provide
solutions to the scenario based on the three development themes.
Part 1
In scenario one, the situation that Kyla is in could be due to various reasons. For instance,
she may often be late to school due to problems emanating from the issues in the family, peers
and even schooling. Her difficulty in understanding things could be connected to her cognitive
development and intelligence (Purewal et al., 2017). Her inability to complete class tasks could
also be linked to the family, peers or schooling.

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The behavior of Kyla in school could be explained in terms of Family, peers, media, and
schooling (Nomaguchi, Milkie & Denny, 2016). In their home, for instance, lack of peace in her
home could explain why she is having a hard time concentrating in class. She could be coming
from a family where the parents are ever fighting. This could have negative effects on Kyla. She
could find it hard to concentrate especially when she has flashbacks of the fights the parents have
at their house.
Another family factor which could have contributed to the behavior of Kyla is the
family's economic stability. In most cases, a family with low incomes has troubles with parental
consistency (Beauchaine & Hinshaw, 2017). It is normally difficult for both supervise their kids
since they would always be busy trying to make ends meet. They also lack the ability to act as a
role model for their kids and also the ability to feed the child well. These are the basic activities
which must always be done by a parent to ensure that the child concentrates in class. Kyla's
behavior could also be explained in terms of the attitude of the parents towards education. Most
children would always perform poorly if the parents do not support academic support from the
child (Shute & Hogan, 2017). This could also explain the reason as to why Kyla does not
complete her class assignments. Her inability to comprehend whatever she learns in class could
be linked to child abuse. Any kind of emotional abuse, neglect, physical or sexual abuse is a
possible reason for a child to find it difficult in focusing on her assignment (Entwisle, 2018).
Media could also have a contribution to Kyla's behavior. Children who use the media up
to late night could have difficulty concentrating in class and also would feel sleepy at most times
and also report to school late (Bundy, de Silva, Horton, Patton, Schultz & Jamison, 2017).

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Continuous use of media and technology perhaps could be the reason for her not having the
ability to complete her class tasks as the media could be consuming the time that she needs to
complete her assignments. Peer relations could also be a possible explanation for the behavior of
Kyla. Children who are involved in an early relationship with their peers always tend to have a
behavior that is alike to that of their peers. Suppose Kyla is involved in a relationship with
friends who have a bad attitude towards education, the possibility of Kyla not performing in class
and also not completing her assignments is usually very high. Rejection by her peers in her
school could also contribute to her weird behavior as observed by her friends. Schooling could
also be another way of explaining the behavior of Kyla. The schooling is normally seen to have a
direct effect on the educational achievement of a child. Her late coming to school could be
perhaps due to the distance of her school from home. For instance, if the school is far from her
home, Kyla is likely to constantly come late to school. If she commutes to school via walking,
the possibility of her getting to school while tired is usually very high. This could explain why
she would feel sleepy in class.
The behavior of Kyla could also be explained in terms of her cognitive development.
Cognitive development normally refers to the way a child thinks or figures out things. It is
usually a part of the brain development and it involves the development of knowledge. Cognitive
development is usually fostered by schools. If the cognitive development of the child is affected,
the chances of the child not comprehending whatever she learns in class are usually very high.
Factors like prolonged poverty within a family have been shown to have a negative effect on the
cognitive development of the child. Poor cognitive development could be an explanation as to
why Kyla does not understand whatever she is being taught in class. Poor cognitive development