Stages of life

Life consists of several stages during which the human being changes, develops and struggles with various obstacles.

Pre-natal period

Birth

Childhood

Adolescence

Young adulthood

Adulthood

Middle Age

Old age

Conception

Life begins with conception

We all start as a single cell, formed when (father's) male´s sperm fertilises (mother's) female´s egg/ovum. Fertilisation normally takes place in the mother's Fallopian tube, which connects the uterus (womb) with the ovary. The uterus is the size and shape of a large pear: it is made of muscle and it stretches to allow the baby's growth throughout the months of pregnancy.

Childbirth

Childbirth (also called labour, birth, partus or parturition) is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus. The process of normal human childbirth is categorised in three stages of labour:

1) the shortening and dilation of the cervix 2) descent and birth of the infant 3) birth of the placenta.

In many cases, with increasing frequency, childbirth is achieved through cesarean section (C section), the removal of the neonate (baby) through a surgical incision in the abdomen, rather than through vaginal birth.

Childhood

Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence

In developmental psychology, childhood is divided into the developmental stages of toddlerhood (learning to walk), early childhood (play age), middle childhood (school age), and adolescence (puberty).

Newborn (1^st month)

Your first month of your life isn‘t so dizzing. You:

sleep (about 16 hours per day and you don‘t know the difference between day and night),

• eat (breast milk is the ideal food for you),

• cry (your first interactions may be limited to

• cries of hunger and cries to be held and cuddled),

• and produce dirty diapers/nappies.

• You don‘t control much of your own movement.

You can see, but only indistinct colours and shapes.

You can hear, but you are unable to understand what these noises all mean.

You‘re just learning about the big, outside world and trying to find how to become part of it.

Infant (1^st year)

• You are getting older. Your muscle tone is more developed and you are able to relax and stretch out. By the sixth month you can lift your chest up using your arms and you are able to roll over when placed on your tummy or back. Later, you can reach for and hold toys, look for a toy that fell, and pass a toy from one hand to the other.

• Your parents are enthusiastic about you – You‘re smiling responsively to them, by the fourth month you might even start laughing and make more „baby talk“ noises. By the seventh months your babble should be more pronounced „gah-gah“, „mah-mah“, „dah-dah“. It‘s also time of separation anxiety – it‘s nature way of keeping you close to mommy.

• The first sign of cognitive development is learning of cause and effect. You touch things, hold, look, listen, taste, feel, bang, and shake everything in sight. For you the sense of time is now and the sense of space is here.

Toddler (2-3year)

Now it‘s starting time of crawling, toddling and starting with walking. When you master it (the average age for walking is 15 months), you will jump and run, even though you may not always stop and land well.

You are able to drink from a cup without spilling, feed yourself with a spoon, take off and begin to put on your own clothes, point and name your own body parts when asked, and at the age of 3, your toilet skills are all over the floor – however you are potty trained and becoming toilet trained.

The world is for you more intelligible now, because you start using recognizable

words. At the age of 3 you have even a vocabulary of 900 or more words

and you also use phrases and around five word sentences. You use the

words „please“ and „thank you“ if prompted and you understand that there

are ways to solve problems. (WHAT DO YOU SAY? HOW DO YOU SAY IT? WHAT IS THE MAGIC WORD?)

You initiate your own play activities, observe other children at play and join

in, but you have a hard time sharing things.

Preschool age (4-6 years old)

• Your parents will go crazy because of your incessant questions How and why.. ? Also „No“ becomes one of your most common words.- AGE OF RESISTANCE.

• Cognitive development is called preoperational period – you think in specifics and it‘s very difficult to generalize for you.

• You love fairytales – by telling and listening stories you mold an opinion about the world.

• When you are 4 years old, you:

  • use future tense,

• tell your full name and address,

  • count ten or more objects,

  • do somersaults,

  • hop on one leg,

  • enjoy singing, dancing and acting

  • want to be like your friends.

• When you are 5 years old, you:

• use past, present and future

tenses accurately,

• understand the idea of today,

tomorrow and yesterday,

• identify most letters and numbers,

• tie your shoes,

• express feelings,

• comfort friends who are sad or hunt.

Young school age (7-11years)

• Your development is supported by school and your new responsibilities. Your ability to speak and express yourself develops rapidly, you are able to learn letters and words and also your attention span is longer. You are easily motivated. This is a great condition to start a school life.

• Your parents are still the most important persons in your life, but by the age of seven you begin to build and understand friendship (tend to prefer playmates of the same sex). Maybe you have a best friend and an enemy.

• Your growth is slow but steady, you have a good sense of balance and like to skip, run, tumble, and dance to music.

• You begin to take responsibility for your own actions. Your moral and your sense of humour develops too.

• Between the ages of 7 to 10 (11) it‘s time of concrete operations period. You take the information at hand and begin to define, compare, and contrast it. But you still think concretely.

Adolescence

Adolescence (from Latin: adolescere meaning "to grow up") is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood (age of majority).

Physical Changes

• The process of rapid physical changes in adolescence is called puberty. It starts gradually, from around eleven years for girls and thirteen for boys. The age at which puberty starts has been dropping in most countries, probably due to better nutrition. So, your children may hit puberty earlier than you did. The hormone changes responsible actually begin some years earlier and may produce periods of moodiness and restlessness. Girls start these changes before boys and will, for the first three or four years, appear to be maturing much faster. After this, boys catch up.

• These changes include:

• For girls: menstrual periods, growth of under-arm, body and pubic hair, breast development, menstruation and fertility

• For boys: voice breaks (becomes deeper), growth of body and pubic hair, facial hair, erections and wet dreams.

• For both: Rapid physical growth.

Differences between male and female puberty

• Two of the most significant differences between puberty in girls and puberty in boys are the age at which it begins, and the major sex steroids involved.

• Although there is a wide range of normal ages, girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10, boys at age 12. Girls usually complete puberty by ages 15–17, while boys usually complete puberty by ages 16–18.

• For boys, an androgen called testosterone is the principal sex hormone

• The hormone that dominates female development is an estrogen called estradiol

Psychological

• As well as growing taller, starting to shave or having periods, people of this age start to think and feel differently. They make close relationships outside the family, with friends of their own age. Relationships within the family also change. Parents become less important in their children's eyes as their life outside the family develops.

• Being upset, feeling ill or lacking confidence can make them feel vulnerable. They may show this with sulky behaviour rather than obvious distress. Parents have to be rather flexible and understanding to deal with all this, and may feel under considerable pressure themselves.

• Adolescence is the time when people first start in earnest to learn about the world and to find their place in it. This involves trying out new experiences, some of which may be risky or even dangerous – drugs, drinking, promiscuity.

• Parents often feel rejected, and in a sense they are. But this is often necessary for young people to develop their own identity. Even if you have raws and arguments, your children will usually think a lot of you. The rejections and conflicts are often not to do with your personalities, but simply with the fact that you are parents, from whom your children must become independent if they are to have their own life. As they become more independent, young people want to try out new things, but often recognise that they have little experience to learn fromwhen things get difficult. This may produce rapid changes in self-confidence and behaviour - feeling very adult one minute, very young and inexperienced the next – suffering from mood swings.

Emotional Problems

• Over-eating, excessive sleepiness and a persistent over-concern with appearance may be signs of emotional distress.

• Anxiety may produce phobias and panic attacks. Recent research suggests that emotional disorders are often not recognised, even by family and friends.

• Depression

At some time, 4 out of 10 adolescents have felt so miserable that they have cried and have wanted to get away from everyone and everything.

During their adolescence, more than 1 in 5 teenagers think so little of themselves that life does not seem worth living. In spite of these powerful feelings, depression may not be obvious to other people.

Behaviour Problems

• Teenagers and their parents complain about each other's behaviour. Parents often feel they have lost any control or influence over their child.

• Adolescents want their parents to be clear and consistent about rules and boundaries, but at the same time may resent any restrictions on their growing freedom and ability to decide for themselves.

• If disagreements are common and normal, when should you worry? Experience suggests that children are at greater risk of getting into trouble if their parents don't know where they are. So, try to make sure that you know where they are going and what they are up to.

Eating problems

• Weight can be a real problem. If an adolescent is overweight and is criticised or made fun of, they are more likely to dislike themselves and to become depressed. This can lead to inactivity and comfort eating, which worsens the weight problem - dieting can actually aggravate the situation. It is more important to ensure that they feel happy with themselves, fat or thin.

• Many adolescents diet. Fortunately, few will develop serious eating disorders - only around 1 in 100 teenagers develop anorexia, 1 in 50 have bulimia. However, these are more likely to occur in those who take up serious dieting, think very little of themselves, are under stress and who have been over-weight as a child.

Institutions

• If everything goes well in your life, you could visit these institutions:

• a nursery (a school for infants where they are looked after),

• a kindergarten (a school for children in preschool age, where they can play)

• a school (a place where children are learnt),

• an after-school clubs (a place where children go after school and where they can play or do their homework),

• a hobby group (a several people that are related to each other in some hobby),

• a youth centre (a place where young people can go to meet and take part in activities).

• If there is something wrong in your life, you could be in these institutions:

• toddler‘s home (an institution for children with development in danger or who have no parents; maximum age is 3),

• children‘s home (an institution for children who have no parents, or whose parents are unable to look after them; maximum age is 18),

• low-threshold services (a place for „street kids“ where they can spend their free time),

- correctional institution (a place like a prison for young offender),

• services in contact centers for drug addicts,

• emergency assistance (an urgent kind of assistance for people who fail to cope alone with a bad experience or situation in life).

Adulthood

• An adult is a human being or living organism that is of relatively mature age, typically associated with sexual maturity and the attainment of reproductiv age. In human context, the term has other subordinate meanings associated to social and legal concepts, for example a legal adult is a legal concept for a person who has attained the age of majority and is therefore regarded as independent, self-sufficient, and responsible (contrast with "minor"). Adulthood can be defined in terms of physiology, psychological adult development, law, personal character, or social status.

Biological adulthood

• After the social construct of adolescence was created, adulthood split into two forms: social adulthood and biological adulthood

• social adults (people who are recognized by their culture and/or law as being adults)

• biological adults (people who have attained reproductive ability, are fertile, or who evidence secondary sex characteristics)

• Do they necessarily coincide?

Legal adulthood

• Legally it means that one can engage in a contract.

• In a way parents lose their parenting rights and duties regarding the person concerned, parents also lose financial responsibility.

• Marriage, voting, having a job, serving in the military, buying/possessing firearms (if legal at all), driving, traveling abroad, involvement with alcoholic beverages (if legal at all), smoking, sex, gambling (both lottery and casino) etc become legal.

• In most of the world, including most of the United States, parts of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Wales), India and China, the legal adult age is 18 (historically 21).

• The age of maturity or the legal age in the Czech republic is 18.

Young adult

• Young adult is generally a person between the ages of 20 and 40

• Young adults are generally in good health, suffering neither disease nor the problems of senescence. Biological function and physical performance reach their peak at 20-35 years of age, waning after 35. Strength peaks around 25 years of age, plateaus through 35 or 40 years of age, and then declines.

• Flexibility also decreases with age throughout adulthood.

• According to Erikson, the young adult stage involves personal need for intimacy and sex.

• Failure to achieve this need results in isolation, which is avoided, and as a result the young adult strives for love and compassion. The young adult learns that love and compassion may get him what he wants.

Settling down!

• After the upheaval of the early 30s, the middle to late 30s (roughly ages 34-39) are often characterized by settling down. People in their 30s may increase the financial and emotional posession.

• Many people have been employed long enough to gain promotions and raises. They often become more focused on advancing their careers and gaining stability in their personal lives.

• Many people have started a family by this time.

Middle age

• Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age. Various attempts have been made to define this age, which is around the third quarter of the average life span of human beings.

Health

• Middle-aged adults often show visible signs of aging such as loss of skin elasticity and greying of the hair.

• Physical fitness usually wanes, with a 5–10 kg (10-20 lb) accumulation of body fat, reduction in aerobic performance and a decrease in maximal heart rate.

• Strength and flexibility also decrease throughout middle age. However, people age at different rates and there can be significant differences between individuals of the same age

• Both male and female fertility declines with advancing age. Advanced maternal age ( being an older mother) increases the risk of a child being born with some disorders such as Down syndrome.

• Advanced paternal age sharply increases the risk of miscarriage and many birth defects, including Down syndrome, schizophrenia, autism, decreased intellectual capacity, and bipolar disorder.

• Most women go through menopause, which ends their natural fertility, in their late 40s or 50s.

• Men usually remain fertile until death.

Old age

• Old age consists of ages nearing or surpassing the average life span of human beings. The average life span in the CR in men is 74 and in women 80.

• Euphemisms and terms for old people include seniors (American usage), senior citizens (British and American usage) and the elderly.

• Some people will hold a prejudice against others — in this case, against old people. This is one form of ageism. (= discrimination of a certain age group based on their age. Does not concern old people only!)

Physical changes

• There is often a general physical decline and people become less active. Old age can cause, amongst other things:

• Wrinkles and liver spots on the skin

• Change of hair color to gray or white

• Hair loss

• Lessened/worsened hearing

• Diminished eyesight

• Slower reaction times and agility

• Reduced ability to think clearly

• Difficulty recalling memories

• Lessening or cessation of sex, sometimes because of physical symptoms such as erectile dysfunction in men, but often simply a decline in libido

• Greater susceptibility to bone diseases such as osteoarthritis.

Life expectancy

• In most parts of the world, women live, on average, longer than men; even so, the differences vary between 9 years or more in countries such as Sweden and the United States (so called developed countries) to no difference or higher life expectancy for men in countries such as Zimbabwe and Uganda (developing countries where life is generally very hard and even more so for a woman).

Psychosocial aspects

• Erikson characterises old age as a period of "Integrity vs. Despair", during which a person focuses on reflecting back on their life.

• Those who are unsuccessful during this phase will feel that their life has been wasted and will experience many regrets. The individual will be left with feelings of bitterness and despair. Those who feel proud of their accomplishments will feel a sense of integrity.

• Successfully completing this phase means looking back with few regrets and a general feeling of satisfaction. These individuals will attain wisdom, even when confronting death.