Early adolescence: what it is and what changes occur in it

The human being stops at different stages throughout his life. Broadly speaking, these stages are three: childhood, adolescence and adult life. However, each of them includes substages or brief sections in which different changes occur in our development, both physical, psychological and social.

At the beginning of adolescence there are important physical changes, especially between the ages of 10 and 14, changes that are known as the "spurt". This growth spurt and other processes that occur at these ages make up what is called early adolescence.

Next we will discover what are the main changes and characteristics of this first stage of adolescence, in addition to understanding its importance on an emotional level for the young Teen.

• Related article: "The 9 stages of the life of human beings"

What is early adolescence?

Adolescence is the transition period between childhood and adulthood and in it one of the most important changes in a person's life occurs: sexual maturity is reached, the prelude to adulthood and reproductive capacity.

This maturity begins with puberty, a set of physical changes that bring about the development of secondary sexual characteristics, some of which are not directly related to the development of the sexual organs, such as the change of the voice in the male sex or the widening of the hips in the female.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), adolescence is a stage that could be placed more or less between the ages of 10 and 19, although it can be said that each one begins, lives and ends it at moments different.

As with childhood and adulthood, adolescence occurs gradually, with changes that appear at different ages depending on the person since each one matures at their own rhythm. That is, there are individual differences in how and when we human beings develop.

Within adolescence there three stages that indicate the ages at which certain changes are most likely to occur and occur at a faster rate: early adolescence, middle adolescence and late adolescence.

The physical changes that occur in the first stage are so important that they influence the psychological, social and emotional aspects, causing the person to form expectations about how he is maturing, which also generates anxiety and doubts, emotions that also arise in his relatives who are second-person witnesses of the entry into the adolescence.

• You may be interested in: "Late adolescence: what it is and physical and psychological characteristics"

Changes in this period

As we mentioned, the first stage of adolescence brings with it several changes on a physical level, changes which they represent a moment of certain crisis for the child, who ceases to be a pre-adolescent and enters, albeit gradually, puberty.

His way of seeing the world changes radically and leaves behind the innocence of childhood. Next we will see the main changes at a physical, social, psychological, cognitive and sexual level that occur during this period, although not before talking about what ages it takes.

Early adolescence is considered to be a sub-period of adolescence that goes from the age of 10 to 14., although as with any other stage there are people who start it and finish it sooner or later.

In fact, there are cases of boys and girls who could be said to have begun to show the first changes typical of adolescence when they were only 8 years old; and adolescents who are already in middle adolescence with 12 or 13 years. Others can start it later, but it is rare that it takes until the age of 13 to start early adolescence.

Physical and neurophysiological changes

The most characteristic physical change of early adolescence is the famous “pubertal growth spurt”, something that many mothers and fathers identify as the sign that their sons and daughters have entered this turbulent period.

We call "spurt" the fact that the bones begin to grow very quickly and unevenly, causing some joint pain as well of giving a somewhat clumsy appearance and problems in the coordination of movements, something that, although it is annoying, is not serious or cause for concern. worry.

In this phase the secondary sexual characteristics appear.. The body begins to manufacture sex hormones which induce physical changes that occur progressively. Among these changes we have mammary development and the appearance of menstruation in girls, which It usually appears at age 12, while in boys the size of the testicles increases and the penis. Normally, girls begin to present these physical changes about 2 years before boys.

Body hair appears, especially in the armpits and in the genital area, in addition to increased sweating and consequently a change in body odor. The skin becomes oilier which causes many teenagers to develop acne, especially on the face and back.

But in addition to external physical changes, there are also internal ones, less evident but equally profound. It is during early adolescence a time when the brain undergoes a great change on an electrical and physiological level. The number of brain cells can even double in less than a year and the neural networks are completely reorganized, something that influences both a physical, cognitive and emotional level.

The frontal lobe, which is the part of the brain that is responsible for executive functions such as reasoning and decision making, begins to develop in early adolescence. On average, boys start this stage later than girls and their brains also mature later, which is typical of male adolescents behave in a more impulsive and uncritical way with their way of acting compared to females girls.

social changes

Social changes do not have a great development during early adolescence if they are compared with those typical of middle and late adolescence, although it can be said that some occur. These changes are rather consequences or derive from physical changes and how these are perceived both by the individual and by the people around him, both his own age and Adults.

Watching his body develop and change, the teenager develops curiosity and also a strange feeling towards him. These transformations bring you closer to your group of friends, who are also probably experiencing the same changes that help them to strut around or claim that they are already in adolescence, fostering an identification group. Boys and girls stop seeing themselves as children and, although they know they are not adults, they are getting closer to adulthood.

Thanks to the fact that they identify with their reference group of adolescents and look to them for psychological and emotional support, the boys and girls they begin to give more importance to their friends than to their parents, who pass into the background and, even, they begin to question their authority. With 11 or 12 years is when they begin to not obey the orders of the parents or break some rules. They ignore what they are told and look for ways to be more independent from their family, as well as valuing privacy.

Cognitive and psychological changes

Associated with physical changes, especially the development of sexual organs and secondary sexual characteristics, adolescents can experience important psychological and emotional changes. The reason for this is that these physical changes are external, very obvious and notorious, and depending on what expectations you have, how you perceive these changes, how you perceived by their peers and how advanced they are for their age, the adolescent can experience it with great anxiety, confusion and fear or with great enthusiasm and swagger.

It is also normal for young people to focus their thoughts on themselves at this stage., what we could well call as egocentrism. As a result of this, and combined with how physical changes are experienced, many tweens and teens tend to feeling self-conscious about their appearance, thinking that everyone is judging them because everyone is noticing them they.

As we have commented, the frontal lobe begins to mature during this stage, which has some consequences at the cognitive level. However, most adolescents in this period continue to think specifically, without having developed the abstraction of thought. They do not perceive the future implications of their actions and are still a long way from thinking like an adult. In fact, the youngest have very dichotomous thinking and without nuances (p. g., good or bad, white or black, terrible or fantastic...).

Sexual changes: sexual orientation and gender identity

In principle it is rare that in early adolescence sexuality is a very important aspect of girls and boys. In fact, contacts with the other sex in the case of being heterosexual have a rather exploratory character, far removed from adult sexual desire. It is quite likely that the individual assumes that he is heterosexual because it is statistically most likely, without feeling sexual attraction of any kind. It will be a little later when he suspects if he is heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or asexual.

But despite the fact that sexual orientation is not very well formed, there is beginning to be a greater awareness of the gender to which one belongs compared to when they were boys and girls.

Boys and girls adjust their behavior and appearance to the sociocultural norms associated with the gender with which they identify or have been raised, being typical of these ages that children try to appear more "masculine" like doing more sports, especially contact, and girls try to appear more "feminine", giving importance to aspects such as image facial.

It should also be said that what is considered "masculine" and "feminine" in terms of gender depends a lot on the society and, of course, over the decades the typical behavior of adolescent boys and girls varies a lot. While girls are likely to place importance on beauty and boys on sport, this is just a broad generalization.

as we commented bodily changes generate curiosity and anxiety, and can induce the individual to form a gender identity, which may or may not be more in tune with the physical changes you observe. Some individuals begin to question their gender identity at this stage, experiencing a very difficult time, especially if they are is a transgender boy or girl, being potential victims of bullying and psychological discomfort associated with feeling confused about their gender.

Reflection on early adolescence

Given the physical changes that occur in early adolescence, synonymous with the definitive end of the childhood, the individual can suffer emotionally when seeing the great bodily changes that he is undergoing. living.

Whether it's a boy or a girl, puberty, The growth spurt and some changes at a social level can be experienced with equal parts curiosity and anxiety. This stage is also the beginning of a period of great stress for transgender people, a discomfort that will not get better in the next two stages of adolescence.

Taking all this into account, it is necessary to be aware that adolescence, unlike what many considered, does not It is not a social construct, but a physiological reality that implies great consequences at an emotional, psychological and social level.

For this reason, people who work with children-preadolescents between 9-14 years old should pay special attention to the changes that these boys and girls are going through, to so that it is a period that is lived with the minimum possible discomfort, a discomfort that could ruin its development if it is very badly handled and condition the rest of the life. adolescence.

Bibliographic references:

• Gaette, Veronica. (2015). Psychosocial development of the adolescent. Chilean Journal of Pediatrics, 86(6), 436-443. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rchipe.2015.07.005
• Águila Calero, Grettel, Díaz Quiñones, José, & Díaz Martínez, Paula. (2017). Early adolescence and parenting. Theoretical and methodological foundations about this stage and its management. MediSur, 15(5), 694-700. Retrieved on November 30, 2020, from http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php? script=sci_arttext&pid=S1727-897X2017000500015&lng=es&tlng=en.