Example Of Report On Adolescent Observation

For this assignment, I went with a friend to a basketball game at a local high school. I found a group of 5 students (3 females, 2 males, all Caucasian) at the end of the gymnasium who seemed more focused on socializing (loudly) with each other than watching the game.
One of the males had a large build with broad shoulders and facial hair. He was dressed athletically, and his sneakers and baseball cap were color -coordinated. Another male looked younger, had no facial hair, and while he was as tall as his friend, was lanky and not muscular. He wore tight black jeans and t-shirt with Converse sneakers, and had a trendy haircut and thick-rimmed glasses. Two of the females were similar in dress and appearance - they had long, straight hair, wore leggings, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt, and wore gold accessories. The way that these girls dressed suggested that they felt pressure to conform and “fit in” with their peer counterparts, perhaps more than the two boys in the group did. The remaining girl in the group had a very unique, colorful style, wore her hair in a “retro” fashion accessorized with a fake flower, and wore heavy make-up including dark eyeliner and red lipstick. She, more than any others in the group, appeared to be experimenting with her appearance as a way of developing and achieving a separate sense of identity, which is a critical part of adolescence.
The group was very cheerful and friendly with each other, and spent over an hour talking and laughing about the party they had all attended the weekend before. The party was at a friend’s house whose parents were gone, and it sounded like all had drank at the party and smoked marijuana, two of the girls for the first time. The party was ultimately broken up by the cops which the group agreed was “lame.” Several of them had reportedly gotten “wasted” and one of the girls had driven home early in the evening; when one of her friends pointed out that her driving had been a terrible idea, she responded “I live four streets away so it’s not that big of a deal.” The group was playfully teasing the more uniquely styled girl and the tall, lanky boy for “disappearing” for a period of time. While neither of them admitted to any sexual activity initially, when the three girls got up and went to the bathroom (together), the athletic boy began teasing his friend about it until his friend blushed and admitted that they had only kissed but didn’t “hook up,” because according to the lanky boy, he had only had one beer (as he was also driving home) and she was more intoxicated than he was. The athletic friend high-fived him and was very congratulatory about the kiss, and even though the lanky friend returned his high-five and the athletic friend encouraged him to “go for it,” he still was pretty shy and did not offer any more details to his friend other than admitting that he did really like the girl.
This conversation highlighted a very common behavior that teens engage in during adolescence in their quest to develop their own identity and autonomy- risk-taking. Engaging in underage drinking, experimentation with drugs, and sexual activity is inherently risky. Adolescents have not yet fully developed their abstract reasoning capabilities and are often not fully considering all the potential consequences of their actions; this was illustrated perfectly by the girl that drove home drunk because she was so close to home without fully considering what would happen to her personally and academically if she were caught drunk driving - a DUI that remains on one’s record for life, getting kicked out of extracurricular activities, not getting accepted to college, etc - let alone the potential ramifications of hurting someone else while drunk driving.
After the conversation about the party died down, the group separated into the two boys and the three girls. The athletic boy spent a lot of time talking about the football programs at the colleges he was applying to and bragging about his last season on the high school team. It seemed like he derived much of his sense of identity from his sense of being an “athlete,” which is also easily understandable within the developmental process- adolescents are seeking out sources of self-identity or self-esteem, and may derive it from their social connections or personal accomplishments. The girls were talking too quietly for me to hear what they were saying; they were huddled together, legs touching, and keeping their voices very low. They appeared serious at times, but did sort of erupt into giggles fairly frequently before returning to their ‘serious’ conversation. They did take several “selfies” together and uploaded them to Instagram, and then spent about ten minutes showing each other photos and discussing (gossiping) about the people in their respective feeds. The girls appeared very close, which is predictable given that during adolescence peer relationships become critically important to teens.
The group that I observed fit my expectations of “normal adolescence;” all appeared to be dealing with an aspect of typical adolescent development- experimentation with style and dress in an effort to develop a unique social identity; pressure to fit in with peers; risky behavior to carve out one’s identity, challenge authority, or fit in with peers, etc. They were an interesting cross-section of adolescents to observe, as not all fit into a ‘stereotype’ (jock, emo, etc), and seemed pretty similar in both dress, behavior, and action to peers I encountered during my own adolescence.