The issue of teen parenthood is one of the many controversial topics in the United States. Some 11% of teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 19 become pregnant each year, accounting for approximately 1 million pregnancies. It has been found that most teens are being exposed to having unprotected sex at an early age as well as their cognitive development is in a growth stage. Psychology is the seeking to understanding and explaining thought, emotion, and behavior in humans. The most popular criticism is that of young mothers being immature or not well prepared for motherhood, meanwhile, some people can argue that no one can prepare enough to handle raising another human being. It is to our understanding …show more content…
During this time frame, the person can become extremely sensitive and most likely “shape” certain capacities. In the case of teen pregnancy, the mother can develop skills such as cleaning cautiously and becoming more familiar with her surroundings to keep her child safe from any harm. This is when the motherhood kicks in to protect their child at any cost. The mother’s emotions have now shifted towards the child and the relationship has become stronger. “Experiences in early close relationships create internal working models that then influence cognition, affect, and behavior in relationships that involve later attachment figures”(Licht,2014). This allows for an intimate and secure relationship between mother and child. Erik Erikson created theories based upon age groups and emotional development. In this case, the ego identity vs. role confusion speaks to young teens for the age range. The positive resolution compares to the negative because the teen “tries out roles and emerges with a strong sense of belief, values, and goals” (experimenting) while the negatives are “lack of solid identity, experiences, or role confusion” (lack of maturity) (Licht, 2014). Erikson claims that the adolescent may feel uncomfortable about their body for a while until they can adapt and “grow into” the changes. ”Success in this stage will lead to the virtue of …show more content…
As cognitive skills mature, the adolescent becomes more familiar to the adulthood life and can now make decisions that can benefit their child as well as themselves to keep going forward no matter what society has to say. However, being still an adolescent, the teen mother can occasionally still show signs of immature behavior from time to time. Once the adolescent grows into maturity after time, they have developed crystalized intelligence. This is intelligence gained from learning and experience in which can be used to make better decisions along a person’s life. Overall, pregnancy can affect a teenagers developing stage by forcing them to “grow-up” and make important decisions not only for them, but for their child. This leaves a lot of opportunity for improvement as well as determination for a better