Physical  Development in Teenagers

Before I read information about physical development in teenagers my knowledge about this topic was a little bit different from what I know after reading.

What I knew

I knew that teenagers present many physical changes during the adolescence period and they might start experimenting changes in their body around 11 or 12 years old. Also, I knew that boys usually present physical changes later than girls. In addition to this, I was conscious about the physical changes that boys present, some of them are the voice change and the facial hair. Unlike to girls, they experience radical changes like the period or menstruation and the appearance of  pubic hair.

All this information presented above was a little bit of what I knew before reading about teens but now it is time to explain the information that I have read related to the teenager development.

After reading

According to the Raising Children Network "the period between child hood and young adult is a period of rapid changes". This means that, the physical, cognitive, emotional and social changes are happening during the adolescence period.What I found pretty interesting about the article “Physical Development” is the fact that some girls can start experimenting changes before the age of 12 the same happens with boys they can start as young as nine years old; as a consequence of the puberty the physical changes include: 

in the case of girls:

Breast development

Growth of pubic and body hair

The start of periods

And for boys physical changes include:

Growth of the penis and testes

Growth of body and facial hair

Voice changes.

Something that it is important to point out is that during this period teenagers can have the opportunity to get some skills like playing an instrument, learning a new language or practicing any sport, so it is a good time to encourage teenagers to do something meaningful and useful for them.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, I can say that teens go through many critical changes in their bodies, and they might be very sensitive to how others perceive their physical changes but as a future teacher I have to think about effective lessons and how to keep their self- esteem high by doing meaningful activities like group work where they will be able to take risks easily or as it is mentioned in the book “ Teaching across levels” making competitions between classmates it is a good way to make our students participate in class and keep their self- esteem high.

References

Andrea Ramires.(2007).Learner VariablesI: Teaching across levels.Oxford University press. 

Physical Changes during adolescence. Raising Children Network. (2016).