Developmental Tasks for Adolescents

The term "developmental task", refers to those problems that individuals typically face at different periods during their life. An infant or a small child must master the complexities of learning to walk, learning to talk, and controlling the elimination of waste products of the body. In middle childhood such skills as learning to play games and learning to read become of major importance.

So, for as adolescents are concerned, the developmental tasks present the vital problems which must be met and solved during the transition from childhood to adulthood. These problems are not entirely unique to the adolescent period, but they are ones upon which the adolescent must work if he eventually expects to achieve a successful adult role.

Havinghurst has listed the following tasks:

  1. Achieving new and more mature relations with age mates of both sexes.

  2. Achieving a masculine or feminine social role.

  3. Accepting one’s physique and using the body effectively.

  4. Achieving emotional independence of parents and other adults.

  5. Achieving assurance of economic independence.

  6. Selecting and preparing for an occupation.

  7. Preparing for marriage and family life.

  8. Developing intellectual skills and concepts necessary for civic competence.

  9. Desiring and achieving socially responsible behaviour.

  10. Acquiring a set of values and an ethical system as a guide to behaviour.

Adolescence is a long period, and many young adolescents have little motivation to master the developmental tasks for their age. In the later period, however, they realise that adulthood is rapidly approaching. This provides them the necessary motivation to prepare for their new status. As a result, they make greater strides toward the goal of maturity than they did during early adolescence.

Successful achievement of the developmental tasks for one period in life leads to success with later tasks, while failure leads not only to personal unhappiness and disappointment but also to difficulties with later tasks.

Regardless of whether the adolescent has successfully mastered the developmental tasks of adolescence, he or she is, in most advanced cultures, automatically given the status of adult when he or she reaches the age of legal maturity. This is in direct contrast to more simple cultures where young people must demonstrate adult status to their elders, in "puberty rites", privileges, and the responsibilities.