“It enables us to better identify the mechanisms of continuity and discontinuity, and it makes visible when transitions in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood work in conjunction with one another.In doing so, however, we cannot ignore that the social ties that help to define adolescence connect adolescents to significant others who themselves often occupy other life stages.” (Johnson, Crosnoe & Elder, 2011, p.278)

I found this quote interesting because, first, I was surprised that the history of human development has been so closed off to only focusing on early childhood or only adolescence, and not at how these different life stages, including early adulthood, are fluid and should be examined as a whole and as segments impacted by other life stages. This is especially noted through the generational differences that have obscured the boundaries of when different life stages, such as those of adolescence, begin and end. It especially got me thinking about how we are constantly interacting with people from different life stages and how socioeconomic pressures change. As a small example, I’m always thinking about how my grandparents got married at 21 years old and my parents at 25 (my current age). I personally still feel way too young for something like marriage, but mainly because I have the mindset of my generation, which is directly influenced by the current socioeconomic climate and expectations. This can possibly be seen in a positive light in terms of the more modern focus on building careers and reaching higher education goals instead of rushing into making families, but mainly it is horrible for individuals who have less financial support in a country where university tuition is extremely high compared to other countries and the job market has become far more selective. As teachers, we must keep in mind these fluctuating boundaries between early childhood, adolescence and early adulthood and how our students have to independently deal with societal expectations that may have been different from our own at their age. One way of remaining updated is by staying on top of human development research so we can understand the full scope of what children and adolescents are going through that may be unique to their generation. Of course, this research needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since we ourselves need to understand our students as individual people living through unique circumstances and not generalize them as just an age group.