SWK501: The Most Stressful Stage? Adolescent Lifespan Development

This essay delves into the complexities of adolescent stress, examining whether this stage is indeed the most stressful period in human development. It begins by defining adolescence and exploring the various stressors adolescents face, including academic pressures, emotional changes, and social challenges. The essay then presents research findings on adolescent stress, highlighting the impact of factors like peer influence, family dynamics, and biological changes. It integrates a multidimensional social work perspective, considering the interplay of psychological, social, and environmental factors. Several theories, including those of Sigmund Freud and G. Stanley Hall, are discussed to provide a theoretical framework for understanding adolescent stress. The essay concludes by synthesizing the research and theoretical perspectives to evaluate the claim that adolescence is the most stressful stage, offering insights into the prevalence and impact of stress during this critical period.

Running Head: STRESS
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Adolescence
Student

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Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Adolescents and stress.......................................................................................................................2
Theories.............................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Adolescence is the transitional stage of growth and development between childhood
and adulthood (Curtis, 2015). According to the world health organization, the adolescent is
any individual or person between ages ten to nineteen (World Health Organisation, 2019). In
various societies, the adolescence is intently equated with the puberty and the cycle of bodily
alterations culminating in broader terms that encompass mental, moral and social terrain
along with the strictly physical characteristics of maturation. Adolescence is the phase or
period of great changes for young individuals when physical alterations are happening at the
accelerated rate. Throughout this stage, the individual faces various issues or problems like
increased emotional separation from the carers or parents (Curtis, 2015). There are three
different stages in the adolescent period; initial adolescence, middle or central adolescence
and late or last adolescence. The early adolescence is recognized from 10 to 12 years, the
middle one is identified with the age between 12 to 16 and the late adolescence is
characterized by the age group of 16 to 19. In the early phase the growth rate has been
increased, in the middle phase the peak of the height related velocity curve can be seen, and
in the late phase the growth of secondary sex feature is completed (Mandarino, 2014). In this
particular report, the discussion will be made on whether the adolescent stage is the most
stressful period of the human lifespan or not.
Adolescents and stress
The human life is all about joy, sorrows, achievements and failures, wellness and
sickness, poverty and wealth. There is a little or no possibility that a person had no issues or
problems in his or her life. Social, psychological and social issues arise at different stages of
life. Most of the researchers and experts identified and state that the adolescent stage is the
most stressful stage of human life. When alterations occur, people find it difficult to adjust or

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adapt and this might leads to an issue (Seiffge-Krenke, 2013). Education and training are one
of the main phases of adolescents that may cause stress among young people. High school
life at some extent felt stressful by the teenagers and their carers or carers as the curricular
and extra-curricular happenings along with school life and family life leads to stress among
them. There are three dissimilar stages of adolescence as mentioned above. In the early
adolescence, the adolescents start initiating freedom or independence from the guardians or
family and look for privacy. There might be a clash between the parental authority and the
wish for adolescent’s autonomy. In the middle adolescence during this, the body is influenced
by the genetic features and nutrition status. The eruptions if the secondary permanent
menarche and molar closely correspond in timing (Seiffge‐Krenke, Aunola, & Nurmi, 2009).
During this stage the peer and school groups gain more importance, the decisions of
education and vocations are made. The maturation can affect institute performance and
desires for batter achievements as the physical effects of the pubertal developments turned in
to incorporate into the self-image. In the late adolescence stage, the decisions associated with
career are finally traced and the teenager gradually returns to the guardian or family on a
novel footings.
One of the ultimate times of stress for relatives or families is the beginning of the
Adolescent or teen years (Brougham, Zail, Mendoza, & Miller, 2009). In today's multifaceted
communities, this period can be additionally stormy than ever before. The terrifying
actualities of AIDS, drug usage, violence, and destroyed homes enhance a real element to
stress that development being an adolescent one of the highest challenges a youngster may
face. It is known that No parent is faultless. Irrespective of age, all youngsters face the
stresses of lifespan and are just as disposed to stress responses as everyone else (Adkins,
Wang, Dupre, Van den Oord, & Elder Jr, 2009).
Research studies related to adolescence and stress

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According to Schraml, Perski, Grossi, & Simonsson-Sarnecki, (2011), higher than
30% of the high school learners reported feeling serious stress indications, while a
subcategory of 8.2 percent were reported to have serious signs, which would be measured a
sign of prolonged stress in than adults and thereby designate an intensified threat for stress-
associated sicknesses later in life. They further revealed that teenage girls have also been
reported to be additional sensitive than the boys to the opinions and assessments of others.
They are likewise more negatively pretentious when they obtain feedback designating that
they are not doing things adequately. Therefore, ladies’ levels of observed self-worth and,
subsequently, even their overall well-being, are more probable to alter contingent on how
they themselves or others, particularly parents assess their successes (Schraml, Perski, Grossi,
& Simonsson-Sarnecki, 2011).
On the other hands Casey, Jones, Levita, Libby, Pattwell, Ruberry, & Somerville
(2010), stated that both atmospheric and hereditary factors can worsen the unevenness
between the limbic and control areas and in turn results in larger storm and stress in certain
persons over other individuals. They also found that augmented risk in puberty for storm and
stress is related to different developing routes of subcortical emotional schemes and cortical
mechanism regions. This distinction growth may results in an inequality in results by
subcortical areas above prefrontal ones and amplified expressive reactivity (Casey et al.,
2010).
Fuhrmann, Knoll, & Blakemore (2015), revealed that the involvement of
acculturation pressure attributable to relocation, for instance, forecasts longitudinally
adopting signs like depression and concern in teenage years. There is an indication; too,
however, that mistreatment or bullying in early teenage years also has permanent effects on
bodily and mental wellbeing in adulthood. Adolescence might also be a profound period for
retrieval from the involvement of communal stress. Distress extinction knowledge is crucial

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point for a strong reaction to stressful events, for instance. For psychiatric situations such as
after trauma stress disorder (PTSD), stress continues even after the stress causing agent does
no longer exist. Fear extermination knowledge has been establish to be lessened in
adolescence as associated with babyhood and maturity in humans.
Another study conducted by Heim, & Binder (2012) reported that adolescence is the
maximum stressful phase of humanoid life. They further found that initial life stress takes
place throughout dissimilar age groups in childhood, with the earliest age group of one to
three years being most exaggerated. The teenage stage is not a relaxed stage by any criteria.
The Teenage struggles between the dependency and freedom. They are held between what
their guardians or parents expect from themselves and what they desire. They are tangled
about what they actually want to sort out and remain. Community on the complete does not
create things easy.
Adolescence is particularly problematic for boys and girls to manage with, for two
causes. First, during childhood, their difficulties were encountered and solved in fragment at
least by parents and educators resulting in numerous Adolescents being inexpert in coping
with difficulties alone (Mueller, Maheu, Dozier, Peloso, Mandell, Leibenluft, & Ernst, 2010).
Second, as Adolescents sense that they are self-governing, they request the right of managing
with their own individuality, they request the right of managing with their own glitches,
regulating the efforts of parents and educators to support them. Their incapability to cope
with glitches or issues results in their discovery that the answers do not every time come up
to their prospects (Mueller, et al., 2010).
Changes in the expression of emotions are another issue of adolescents' experience.
Emotional expressions of teenagers are significantly influenced by adulthood and training.
They do not direct their emotions openly like young kids but have excessive regulation over

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them. Feelings become less common and more particular in expressions. With mature
guidance, they are capable to control childish anger, distrust, panic etc (Skeer, McCormick,
Normand, Buka, & Gilman, 2009). They learn from them to use those feelings, which are
additional likely to be publically accepted; in case of a Teenage, the amplified emotionality
occurs from the bodily and glandular alterations (Chawla, Keena, Pevec, & Stanley, 2014).
Occasionally, these alterations make it problematic for them to make essential adjustments to
novel forms of behavior and new communal expectation. As an outcome, the Teenage may
suffer from concern and social stress. Hence this phase is also called the age of storm and
stress (Skeer, et al., 2009)
Theories
According to Sigmund Freud theory, conflict is the critical part of the bodily
variations of Adolescence; Freud observed conflict as the preparatory sensation to the genital
phase of matured grown-up’s sexuality. Anna Freud reflected the Teenage years additional
important for the creation of personality. She supposed that the libido that quieted during the
latency years revives in Adolescence and intimidates to distress the subtle stabilize the ego
and id. The subsequent anxiety appeals forth such an ego protection mechanism as
intellectualization and the asceticism (Rudolph, & Flynn, 2009).
G. Stanley Hall clarifies the "storm and stress" of Puberty. Hall, the chief psychologist
to express a theory of Adolescence suggested that the main physical variations that happen at
this period cause major mental changes. He supposed that young individual’s efforts to
regulate their altering bodies escorted in a time of "storm and stress" (Hollenstein, &
Lougheed, 2013). Hall observed Adolescence as the period of penetrating, fluctuating
feelings from which young persons might emerge ethically stronger. Though this opinion of
Adolescence as a customarily stormy phase of life was broadly accepted for numerous years,

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the leading opinion nowadays is that storm and stress are not predictable for most Teenagers
(Hashmi, 2013).
According to Yusoff, M. S. B. (2010) the occurrence of stress amongst secondary
school learners in a Malaysian supervision school was great. Academic-associated difficulties
were the main stressor amongst the scholars. The most recurrent managing approaches being
used by the learners were optimistic coping approaches. A study conducted by Ang et al.
(2009), on 289 Canadian and 310 Singaporean adolescents and found that Singaporean
teenagers have shown that burdens to succeed academically reproduce the stress to excel in
the institute and to acquire a high paying occupation with high position. Singaporean
youngsters reported a considerably advanced level of educational stress ascending from self-
hopes, other prospects, and overall educational stress paralleled to Canadian teen-agers.
On the other hand, Doremus-Fitzwater, Varlinskaya, & Spear (2009), reported that
even though Teenage years is linked with possibly stressful encounters, and teen-agers might
vary from grown-ups in their pressure quickly, nonetheless it is not clear that whether the
adolescents experience more stress than adults or not. Social encounter at numerous levels,
changeable from shared levels to particular social assemblies, like the family or friend
groups, can upsurge stress that has destructive significances for healthiness and the well-
being of kids and teen-agers
Conclusion
Adolescence stage is defined as the transitional phase of progress and development of
human lifespan. The prevalence of stress among adolescents is more serious than other
epidemiological studies associated with the child or adults stress. The stress among the
secondary school learners of government schools in Malaysia was recorded high. An
individual in his or her life experiences various adverse situations that lead to psychological

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or emotional problems. Adolescents face more different or issues in their life like emotional
serration. This particular discussed whether the adolescents' phase more stressful events in
their life span or not. Various researchers and experts supported the fact that adolescence is
the most stressful stage of human lifespan development and found that the stress can occur
from different sources such as academics, love life, family conflicts, biological factors,
parents separations, and changes in the emotions and expressions. Some of the theories
related to stress in adolescents like Sigmund Freud theory and storm and stress theory
suggested that adolescents face more stress in their life span. Sigmund Freud theory
suggested that in this stage the ego ad id balance is usually disturbing and the anxiety occurs
due to this cause activation of ego defense mechanisms which ultimately results in stress.
Although different studies do not support the statement after reviewing different articles and
theories it can be concluded that the statement “Adolescent stage is by large the most
stressful period of human life-span development” is relatively correct and convincing.

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References
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Fuhrmann, D., Knoll, L. J., & Blakemore, S. J. (2015). Adolescence as a sensitive period of
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