Assessment Answers | Childhood And Adolescence: PC70055W

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CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
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Introduction
“Childhood and Adolescence ”is a concept of ‘Growing up phase â€.It is vital to
know and understand the concepts of childhood and adolescence from the
perspectives of cultures and societies (Tumkur University 2022) .Childhood and
adolescence are the experiences of a person passing through various stages
(Rathus 2021) .The word ‘Childhood â€describes the state of being a child. Each child
varies from experiences, interests, learning styles and knowledge. From the
perspectives of children, they socialize to learn and disseminate various norms and
customs. Children must be treated as the small adults in the process of making;
moulded by the parents as well as adults in a community, in regards of sustaining
the society culture. Children â€s personalities are to be considered as the natural
reactions from the aspects of anxiety and cultures in the growing phase.
This paper describes about the life course approach and its relevance of
childhood and adolescence life stage. This paper focuses to explain how the
childhood to adolescence phase is affected by the determinants of health; individual
as well as community beliefs and attitudes. This will help us to understand the key
diseases experienced and its impacts of health in childhood and adolescence life
stages. This will provide us with the knowledge of nature; nurture; sociological;
psychological and cultural theories which impacts the health problems. This will also
provide understanding of the health promotion interventions to prevent disease and
improvise the health and well- being of an individual.
Background
From the perspectives of childhood and adolescence, childhood refers to the
growing phase of a child through various stages of life. Understandings will provide
the knowledge of various impacts of health in childhood and adolescence stages of
life. Determinants of health; community beliefs and attitudes provide us the insights
to understand the phase of childhood to adolescence stages. Understanding the
nature of a child and how they are nurtured along with sociological; psychological as
well as cultural theories is an important aspect of childhood and adolescence phase.
This brings out the better outcomes of an individual â€shealth and well- being.
From the perspectives of bio-psychosocial approach for the development of a
child in regards of social factors including biological as well as psychological factors
which is quite important in understanding how children grows and matures
throughout their span of life (Aldeas Infantiles 2017) .Bio- psychosocial approach can
be described as the integrated approaches of psychology that is incorporated of
three varied perspectives and analysis types such as: biological; psychological as
well as socio- cultural. Bio-psychosocial model approach helps in motivating
multilevel research that includes indicator factors such as biological and behavioural
(Aldeas Infantiles 2017) .This may implicate in developmental pathways complexity
to the outcomes of child psychopathology. This model implies for wellness and
disease medication that signifies roles of health and disease as interconnectedness.
Perspectives of adolescence by World Health Organization (WHO) in 2017,
describes that the adolescence is the growth and developmental phase that includes
the stage after childhood and before adulthood; indicates the age between 10 and 19
years. This can be characterized by the accelerated growth rhythm and the changes,
experienced in different stages of life. Children when enters adolescence goes
through several changes such as physical, intellectual, personality development and
social development. Adolescence is considered to begin at the stage of puberty and
is a very important phase in which children gets exposed to the society and begins to
feel as ‘grown up â€and tries to experiment various influential things, that may be good
and bad; surrounded in the society (Waddell 2018 ).
Childhood and adolescents stage affected by the determinants of health
includes few structural factors such as- income inequality, wealth and access to
education. Social determinant reflects the health along with social and physical
factors that includes wide range of health and its functioning as well as outcomes for
quality of life. During the phase of adolescence, children grow with various aspects
includes- physically, cognitively and emotionally through the changing process of a
child to an adult (Reavley et al. 2017) .Adolescents have high thinking level than that
of children. Children can think only logically regarding the concrete matters, here and
now. Whereas, adolescents can think beyond the limits and can analyse what might
be real or true, instead of just what they observe is true. They have the ability to deal
with the obstructions; testing hypotheses and find out infinite possibilities. At times,
adolescents are being noticed that they display egocentric attitudes and behaviours
(Hjerm et al. 2018 ). Some children are associated with religious connections and
some are with sexual maturity. Hence, adolescence is not as such fixed; rather it
varies from the aspects of place, time and culture.
Main Body
This paper focuses on the “Childhood and Adolescence ”stage of life course
and how it is affected by the determinants of health in this phase of life. There are
several responsible factors such as physical, social, emotional and many others
which impact the children â€sattitudes and behaviours.
One health issue typically experienced during childhood and adolescence
stage in the life course is “substance use disorders ” (Winters et al. 2018) .Age
groups of childhood to adolescence include 10- 19 years old. They are considered
as the growing children of transition phase with various physical, psychological and
emotional health conditions. There are certain leading causes of illnesses as well as
disabilities among adolescents due to alcohol or drug abuse (Bachman et al. 2018 ).
Addiction of drug is known as “substance use disorders ”that describes a disease
which affects the person â€sbehaviour and brain functions (LeTendre and Reed 2017) .
This leads to control inability for the use of legal or illegal medications or may be
drugs. Substances involves are alcohol, nicotine, marijuana and many others
(Healthy People 2020) .Cause of substance use disorder is idiopathic, i.e., unknown
cause. But this probably involves the drugs action; peer pressure; anxiety;
depression; emotional distress as well as environmental stress as the contributing
reasons behind this (WHO 2021) .
When children are entering the phase of adolescents from the childhood
stage, they get exposed to various drugs or substance use and are involved into it
addictively (Reavley et al. 2017) .Adolescent children develop several substances
use issues that may cause depression, anxiety, attention- deficit disorder, post-
traumatic stress disorder, psychological disorder, emotional problems and other
mental health disorders (Healthypeople 2020) .This leads to stressful and chaotic
lifestyle as well as self- low esteem. Children use drugs and develop high risk of
substance use problem which also affects in later life from the aspects of
environment and genetic reasons. The regular use of drugs leads to the addiction
influenced by the peer pressure, recreational usage, and many other factors
(Reavley et al. 2017) . This can lead to psychological and mental problems.
Psychological affects also lead these children for self- harm tendencies or suicidal
thoughts. Children at teenage or adolescent age are mostly influenced from friends
or peers and at first (Savage 2021) ,they gets involved in recreational usage of drugs,
which later becomes addictive for them. These drug addiction behaviour impacts
their physical as well as mental health which further is responsible for various turmoil
of life causing depression, anxiety, emotional feelings, sadness, mental and
psychological issues (Libraries 2022) .
From the perspectives of impact of nature, nurture, sociological, psychological
and cultural theories in regards of substance use disorders which are faced by their
family. Drug abuse disorders are developed by the adolescent children that can
negatively influence in the life of an individual. Substance use disorders led an
impact in the patterns of emotional and behavioural perceptions resulting in the poor
outcomes for the children and adolescents with drug abuse (Libraries 2022) .Nature
and nurture of a drug abuse implicates the role of environment as well as mental
health for which drug users are responsible. Excessive drug abuse may lead the
person to attempt certain crimes which ultimately get them caught to lock up which
affects their family as well as the person â€sown life and career.
Nature and nurture play a role of addiction case that advocates that the
environment is responsible or to some extent plays an important role for addiction
(American Addiction Centers 2022) . For example- People who have any
experiences due to trauma or who have certain financial problems are probably at
higher risk of drug abuse or are more addictive towards drugs and alcohol use
(American Addiction Centers 2022) . Sociological theories comprise of certain
attributes of drug addiction that results personality traits or issues.
Sociological theories imply use of drugs from various aspects of social
environment consisting of influences from the peers or friends, weak social bonding
and the drug culture (Allen 2017 ). Sociological aspect explains the importance of
social environment structure, social bonding with family and school, other social or
community interactions, cultural factors and so on, involvement of drug and type of
drug. For example: drugs such as heroin is tended to be used mostly in the urban
areas that are large, the social structure, social inequality and other factors that
matters for the drug abuse.
Psychological theories explain regarding different theories responsible for
drug abuse person in regards of treating through motivating and reviewing using
different approaches such as- decision theory, drive theory as well as behaviourism
(Wubbolding and Brickell 2017 ). Other than that, other psychological theories include
are- psychodynamic, attachment theory as well as self- medication perspectives
which are needed to be considered in regards of drug addiction. Therefore, these
approaches suggest an individual using drug for creating terrific void leading to
emotional aspect in their life and quitting inner voice conflicts.
From the perspectives of culture, it plays an important role in treating drug
abuse persons as culture of a person leads or influences the clinical experience.
This involves treatment setting, coping styles, stigma, social support and various
other factors related to drug use disorders, even if individual seeks for help are
directly or indirectly influenced by the culture of a person. Therefore, socio- cultural
beliefs helps in shaping the approach and behaviour in regards of drug abuse
(Thombs and Osborn 2019 ). Culture of a person or family plays a chief role in
forming various expectations of a person for potential issues they face while using
drugs.
From the perspectives of intervention strategy: services such as treatment
and rehabilitation strategies are focused to minimize the self- harm thoughts and
reduce the illicit drugs consequences (Kertesz and Gordon 2019 ). Minimization
strategies such as drug substitution program direct the users from black market for
dispensing legal drugs by different health professionals. Other intervention strategies
involving family- based; community- based; online- based as well as personal- based;
through various counselling techniques and procedures. This intervention supports
an individual using various screening as well as motivational interventions. Such
programs must be formed in a small group as the strategies of part of the
comprehensive forms for preventing use of drugs. Interventions for controlling
psychological and emotional issues, few other strategies are recommended which
includes- exercise, prayer, meditation, yoga and other psychosocial therapies (Laird
et al. 2019 ). This can balance a person in a healthy nurturing way with a positive
attitude as well as balancing of natural inclination towards drugs abuse.
Intervention strategies are important from the perspectives of a person â€s
health and well- being. These include- information dissemination, community- based
approaches, problem identification and referrals, preventive education,
environmental- based approach and so on. Interventions are required to reduce the
self- harm, improving safety as well as promoting better health and wellness.
Intervention program may also involve family or friends who can let the drug addict
person to confront with the counsellor or psychologist in order to seek treatment
(Todd and Selekman 2018 ). Several organizations or interventionists can get
involved in encouraging drug addict person to undergo various treatment procedures
or counselling procedures (Berridge et al. 2018 ). Therefore, substance use disorders
can be treat with a various combination of medications or under medical care; detox
support; psychotherapy as well as lifestyle changes.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that the childhood and adolescence is an
important stage of life of an individual. The transition phase of childhood into an adult
is affected by various determinants of health, religious beliefs as well as attitudes
and behaviours (Goldman 2022) .This provides with the understandings of cognitive,
social, emotional and many other factors impacting childhood and adolescence
phase.
Hence, from the health aspect understanding, it implies that childhood and
adolescent is the phase which can influence children both positive as well as
negative factors from community, social, peers and sometimes from family. Children
at teenage or adolescent age gets addicted to drug through these above- mentioned
influential factors, at first as recreational and later gets addicted of it. These factors
further impact mental and physical health adversely. Children mainly get affected
from different perspectives such as emotional, mental disorders, depression, anxiety
and sometimes self- harm tendency or suicides.
Therefore, it is well understood that nature vs. nurture along with cultural
aspects have a great influence in substance use disorders which involves social or
community factors; peers or friends support and other several factors. Appropriate
interventions in this regard for childhood and adolescent groups are for making them
undergo combination of medications or therapies including psychotherapy,
counselling, detox support, counselling and changing life styles from the aspects of
better health and well- being.
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