Research Essay

Topic: When Do You Become an Adult?

A person who is fully grown or developed, we have known that boys became men around twelve or thirteen, girls became women when their bodies were capable of bearing children (Jonathan Malm, 2015). Many scientists, lectures, and researching center have been studying and researching about
this point. However, there are at least three theory about child become adult age, period of growth, and child development.

Age of adult is very necessary when we talk about dividing between childhood and adulthood like we are completely distinct phases of life. Between childhood and adulthood is adolescence, a time when one’s decisions and experiences determine the type of adult will become. According to our legal system, there is a definitive age of adulthood. Lawmakers have determined that people who are 18 or 20 should be able to take adult privileges like gambling, voting, owning a gun, and marrying. But this does not necessarily imply that 18 or 21 year-old are adult; nor does it even imply that lawmakers consider them so (Evan Bailyn, 2012). Another theory explained that adulthood has typically defined biologically by the start of puberty. This age is around 10 or 11 for girls and 12 or 13 boys. In the legal sense, adulthood, or age of majority, is 18 years old in the United States. In terms of crime, there is not standard age upon which a child/person is accountable, but in some states it is as low at 10 years old (Neuroscience and Juvenile Justice, 2007). I am more concerned with the issue of maturity than I am with the technical age of majority. Researchers and observers have noted that while our children are getting brighter (I.Q. scores have been going up for the last two decades), they are relatively immature for their ages in comparison to earlier generations

Not only age of adult is necessary, but also period of growth. First, different brain regions and systems mature along different timetables. There is no single age at which the adolescent brain becomes an adult brain. Systems responsible for logical reasoning mature by the time people are 16, but those involved in self-regulation are still developing in young adulthood. This is why 16-year-olds are just as competent as adults when it comes to granting informed medical consent, but still immature in ways that diminish their criminal responsibility, as the Supreme Court has noted in several recent cases. Using different ages for different legal boundaries seems odd, but it would make neuroscientific sense if we did it rationally. Second, science has never had much of an influence on these sorts of decisions. If it did, we wouldn’t have ended up with a society that permits teenagers to drive before they can see R-rated movies on their own, or go to war before they can buy beer. Surely the maturity required to operate a car or face combat exceeds that required to handle sexy movies or drinking. Age boundaries are drawn for mainly political reasons, not scientific ones. It’s unlikely that brain science will have much of an impact on these thresholds, no matter what the science says (Daniel E. Slotnik, 2012). Being a teenager comes with a lot of responsibilities and expectations. You need to have regular mood swings, attention cravings and anger outbursts.

Even with all these points, child development make children at a certain age could solve problems that children earlier age could never solve. According to Jean Piaget, scientist, have divided four stage of child development. There are Sensorimotor 18 months or 2 years babies do not know how things will react, and so they are always experimenting- shaking things, putting things in their mouths, throwing. They are learning by experience, Pre-operational thought 24 months or 7 years children learn to speak. They can pretend and they can understand past and future. However, they cannot understand cause and effect, Concrete operation thought From 7 years to 12 years children can understand that real things stay the same, even if you move them around. For example, a litre of water is a litre of water in a small bottle or a big bottle, and Formal operational thought After about 12 years old children can understand algebra_ for example, a + b = c, and they can understand hypotheses and abstract ideas like fairness and justice (Terry Phillips and Anna Phillips, 2011). In my opinion, all children go through these four stages more or less at the same age.

There is no clear determinant for determining when a person becomes an adult, some say it’s when you turn eighteen others say it’s when you get your drivers license. One thing is for sure though to become an adult you must be mature and ready to take on the world. Being an adult means achieving a separate identity, being able to support yourself and/or your family financially, and being able to provide yourself with a house or a place to call home. Adulthood consists of many different aspects, and is not an easy part of life.

  

To sum up, I think that there is no specific period of time or age when teens become adults. It’s possible to become an adult in any time of life, because it’s doesn’t depend on your age, it depends on your “self-creation” and “self-realization”. I want to add two more very important aspects which are also required in order to become an adult: responsibility and self-independence. Moreover when we talk about we should talk about age, period of growing, and child development. 

Reference

1. Terry Phillips and Anna Phillips (2011). Developing Skills (1^st edition). British: Garnet Publishing Ltd. 
2. Neuroscience and Juvenile Justice (2007). Child Development. (4^th edition). University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, United Starts: Jay D. Aronson 
3. Daniel E. Slotnik (2012). When do become adult? The Learning Network. Retrieved September 19, 2015, from
4. http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/when-do-you-become-an-adult/ 
5. Evan Bailyb (2012). When Does A Child Become An Adult? Early Writing of Even Bailyn. Retrieved September 20, 2015, from
6. http://evanbailyn.net/thoughts-on-childhood/when-does-a-child-become-an-adult/ 
7. Jonathan Malm (2015). When Do You Become An Adult? Retrieved September 19, 2015, from http://www.jonathanmalm.com/when-do-you-become-an-adult/