Social Discussion-The Case of Dalia

Social Discussion-The Case of Dalia

Working With Children and Adolescents: The Case of Dalia

The self-harming behaviors that Dalia exhibits include overindulgence in alcohol drinking, truancy, staying up during the night drinking alcohol and highly sexual behaviors with male peers. According to Erikson’s Eight Stage Model, during the early stages of development of a child, say industry versus inferiority stage, a child’s need is to be successful and productive in their activities especially in school activities (Zastrow, Kisrt-Ashman & Hessenauer, 2019). That means that understanding material and academic skills are crucial to them. More often than not, comparison with their peers is important. If they fail to experience this success, they tend to feel inferior. In this case, Dalia was often compared to her industrious sister in school, which may explain why she says she has a ‘not cool’ relationship with her sister. She must have felt like she could never match up with her sister’s grades or industrious activities. This is also reflected in her feeling that she is treated differently by her parents, especially in the absence of her sister.

In the identity versus role confusion stage, adolescents try to find out who they are and have an identity (Zastrow, Kisrt-Ashman & Hessenauer, 2019). This is a transition stage where people discover their roles in society as a daughter, sibling, student or biracial individual, for instance. If they fail to adjust to the conflicting roles, they may suffer role confusion. Since, more often than not, Dalia’s parents are hardly home or hardly spend time with their daughter, the role as their daughter may seem theoretical to Dalia. The confusion over being identified as their daughter manifests itself in reckless behavior, as defined by Erikson’s adolescence stage. Zastrow, Kisrt-Ashman & Hessenauer (2019) state that a child in the confused identity stage starts engaging in poorly thought-out activities, in this case drinking alcohol and, missing school and engaging in sexual intercourse with several peer males. The child in this stage also becomes childish in behavior (Zastrow, Kisrt-Ashman & Hessenauer, 2019). Dalia, in this case, is said to be argumentative and physically threatening at home, showing the signs of identity confusion.

Reference

Zastrow, C. H., Kirst-Ashman, K. K., & Hessenauer, S. L. (2019). Understanding human behavior and the social environment (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. Chapter 7, “Psychological Development in Adolescence” (pp. 320-360)

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