1ST Quarter_Week 4_Discussion Q3

Processing Questions:

1. What kind of adolescent did the two students portray in the two situations?

             The kind of adolescence that the two students experienced is middle adolescence, in which they start caring about how other people saw them. As sad as it may sounds, what they’re experiencing is normal for most people in their age group. Discrimination, self-loathing, bullying, and baseless assumptions are normal for kids going through this stage. Although not all adolescence will experience everything that was mentioned, they will at least experience one or two from the list. But of course, these are all necessary so that they will be able to learn from each of their respective experiences. Sadly, not all of them pass through this stage completely unharmed.

2. What challenges did John and Erica experience?

            John experienced psychological challenges from the accusation that he was a part of LGBTQ+. People just assumed that he was gay, and this hurt him so badly, and it made him question himself and other people. It affected him considerably that he even wants to give up on his schooling. Meanwhile, Erica suffered the same types of challenges that John has with the addition of cognitive challenges. She has a bad body image that affects the way she sees herself and the way she thinks other people saw her. She has also experienced biological challenges with regards to her eating disorder and her sudden outbreak. This led her to become a part of a vicious cycle that consists of self-loathing and self-blame.

3. What challenges do Filipino adolescents face most?

            The challenges that adolescents face varies hugely, ranging from biological to psychological. For me, I think that all Filipino teenagers have experienced, are experiencing, and will experience all of them.

It all usually starts with biological challenges that cause them to become self-conscious of their own appearance. This is where they will start taking care of how they look so that they won’t embarrass themselves. This is also the part where they will start having emotional outbursts due to the hormone imbalance they have in their body.

Then comes the cognitive challenges where they care about how other people saw them. For them, they are the protagonist of their own world with the world as their audience. This is why they will go through so much to satisfy their nonexistent audiences. They will do everything to not make a fool out of themselves.

Lastly, the most difficult challenge that they will face (in my own opinion) would be the psychological challenges. As we all know, adolescence is the stage in life where a person is half a step away from adulthood. This is where the hard choices will be made for them to find a career that they will be set on for life. This is where their journey of self-discovery truly starts in which they will face many changes in almost every aspect of their life. Pressure and expectations come together into one big ball of anxiety. This is why I think that psychological challenges are the hardest ones to overcome.