Personal Development
Challenges During
Late and Middle Adolescence

I. Prayer
II. Greetings
III. Review
IV. Motivation

What do you think are
the challenges faced by
Filipino middle and late
adolescents today?

Attitudes and behavior toward sexuality
and sexual relationships

Attitudes and behavior toward sexuality and
sexual relationships
• Sexual desires, which often lead them
to experimentation and exploration
• Adolescents exploring their sexuality
should be able to draw their limits in
terms of sexual expressions and should
be responsible enough to see the future
results

What is the proper and
healthy attitude toward
sexuality and sexual
relationship?

Attitude
• Being responsible for one’s actions
is the guiding principle toward a
healthy sexuality.
Responsibility
• Implies dealing with one’s sexuality as
part of establishing a healthy self
concept or self identity.

Love
• Is genuine when the intent is to help the
other person develop his or her talents and
potentials according to personal values,
and to encourage them to become a better
person.
• Based on respect for the others person’s
uniqueness, means accepting and
respecting that he or she is different from
you.

Adolescent
• Prone to exploring pornography-
curiosity
• Unhealthy attitudes towards
opposite sex or toward the sexual
partner like losing respect and love
when performing sexuals acts

Academic Concerns

Academic Concerns
• The role of a student is the primary role of an
adolescent who is still in school.
• Being responsible is called for when dealing with
academic challenges.
• Be aware that academic grades are not only indicators
of learning. Discipline, openness, perseverance,
diligence, excellence, curiousity, cooperation, social
interaction, etc are some of tye more important skills
and values that a student can learn from school.

Academic Concerns
• Memorization and comprehension are necessary
elements in obtaining knowledge. Oftentimes, what is
being tested in schools is the body knowledge and
grades usually reflect this.
• However, some schools are aware that critical thinking
and reasoning are equally important.
• If one wishes to continue academic excellence and
further studies, then grades are critical in achieving
these goals.

Attitude and behavior toward
sexuality and sexual relationship

Attitude and behavior toward sexuality and sexual relationship
• Puberty drives the adolescent experience surges of
sexual desire, which often lead them to
experimentation and exploration.There is danger in
losing control over one's sexual drives which inevitably
end up in lifetime regrets.
• Adolescents exploring sexuality should be able to draw
limits and should be responsible enough to see the
future results or consequences in such behaviors.
• Sexual relationship is healthy when viewed as loving
relationship and not just for exploration or pleasure.

Attitude and behavior toward sexuality and sexual relationship
• Being responsible implies that entering relationship is
all about genuine love and not just to satisfy urges and
needs which can lead to bigger problems and disease.
• Love is based on respect and can be defined as genuine
when the intent is to help the other person to develop
his or her talents and potentials.
• The adolescent is also prone to exploring pornography,
researches found that people who are heavily exposed
to pornography tend to imitate what they have
watched and relive these in real lives.

Group belongingness

Group Belongingness
• An adolescent wants to belong, while there is an urge
to be independent and autonomous from his family and
parents, there is also an urge to seek for replacement
of support system, this time in form of social groups,
such as school friends, membership in organizations and
community.
• An adolescent with low self-esteem might be drawn to
organizations that promise camarederie in the form of
“walang iwanan”, or “do or die” kind of support.

Group Belongingness
• Healthy and wholesome organizations whose objectives
aim to help individuals develop themselves are better
choices.
• Avoiding organizations that adhere to violence and
other anti-soial behaviors is a responsibility of
adolescents because he is responsible for his own
welfare, family , friends and school.
• When joining organizations or informal groups be aware
of peer pressures.

Health and Nutrition

Health and Nutrition
• A healthy mind and body is what everybody else should
strive for.
• However, because of adolescents are gifted with so
much energy that seems inexhuastible, it results to
abuse of one's body and mind.
• Lack of sleep and poor eating habits often result in
disaster.
• Avoid unhealhthy food such as items with bad oils and
fat which are often served in fast food chains.

Health and Nutrition
• Drink plenty of water and regulate intakes of rich
foods, such as desserts and animal meats.
• Dieting might work for some but long term results are
not commendable beacause more often than not, the
person returns to his/her bad eating habits.
• Long exposure to television and screen gadgets are also
unhealthy. Regulate the hours you spend with
techology. Read books and exercise.

Roles

Roles
• All human beings have roles to play in their lives.
• Roles are part of one's identy,such as being a son or
daughter to your parents, brother or sister to your
siblings, a student to your school or a member of your
organization.
• Although these roles seem separate and different from
each other, adolescents must learn to integrate all
these roles and it should be clear that these roles are
related to tasks expected of them by others.

Roles
• A healthy adolescent whose self-identity is clear and
whose roles are integrated will understand and accept
a confusing situation. For example, an adolescent being
the eldest in the family may also be requried by his/her
parents to take care of his/her younger siblings.
• The healthy adolescent will recognize not merely the
roles but the values being expected from him/her, such
as personal and family responsibility, love for family
and basic survival.

Roles
• Balancing his/her time and energy in addressing the
responsibilities demanded by each role can be achieved
thrugh discipline and time management.
• When these values are clear in the mind, role confusion
is disminished.

Material Poverty

Material Poverty
• There are adolescents who live in far-flung areas where
infrastracture is not available and of those who do not
have much choice but to walk when going to school.
• Some walk for hours, some cross rivers and streams,
and others go up to reach mountains to reach their
schools.
• Some students cannot go to school because of lack of
money for food and transportation.

Parents Working Abroad

Parents Working Abroad
• In a particular study titled Migration and Filipino
Children Left Behind: A Literature Review by Prof.
Melanie Reyes, it shown how migration of parents
are heartbreaking for children, making them long
for parental care, get confused over gender
roles, be vulnerable to abuse, and even develop
consumerist attitude.

Parents Working Abroad
• How can an adolescent minimize the impact of a
parent's absence?
• There must be recognition of the emotions and
feelings brought by the situation.
• Some may react negatively by being angry to
themselves or feel resenment towards the
absence.
• Some may act rebelious.
• Some children oftentimes do emotional blackmail
to get what they want, like gadgets or expensive
pair of shoes.

Parents Working Abroad
• Those who react in a more positive way will see their
situation as a consequence of the social economic
needs of their family to survive and have better lives.
• Thye see their parents who work abroad as offering so
much sacrifice for their welfare.
• Another positive reaction is turning it into an
opportunity and challenge for growth and improvement
to achieve higher and greater results in whatever they
do.

Career Choice

Career Choice
• The adolescent who is creating identity for himself is
faced with an urgent need to identify what course to
take in college and establish a career path for the
future.
• Many private school provides career counseling and
guidance which involves testing and interview.
• Adolescents can be more proactive by using the
internet and accessing many resources to help him find
his capabilities and skills and the wide choices of work
he can take.

Career Choice
• A resource is now locally available is a career
exploration portal called futureyou.ph by the Philippine
Business for Education (PBEd). It offers information
about indemand jobs and what courses or programs
lead to these jobs.
• When finding the right career, they must know their
interests and what do they found exciting.

Relationships

Relatonships
• Maintaining a healty relationship requires a certain
level of maturity. An adolescent who is still in the
process of acquiring maturity may often find maintaing
relationships challenging.
• At home, a female adolescent who desires autonomy
and indepedence will encounter more parental
objections. When this happens, relationships at home
are strained and the adolescent who does not see the
purpose will react negatively.

Relatonships
• Among friends, adolescents can be more relaxed. This
is the stage when friendships develop easily and
frequently.
• Adolescents find it easier to bond with friends than
their family members who “do not understand them.”
• Envy due to comparisions is also a major cause of
breakdowns in relationships.
• Non-acceptance of differences is another cause of
“unfriending”.

Relatonships
• Romantic relationships are inevitable and equally
challenging to an adolescent. When emotions are
involved, it is often difficult to be objective.
• Breakups often occur among adolescents because of
immaturity.
• There are some relationships that end in conflict. An
adolescent can learn to understand and deal with
conflict by accepting there is conflict existing between
him and another person and to understand what is
causing the conflict.

Values and Beliefs

Values and Beliefs
• Ask a typical adolescent what he believes in or what
values he upholds, and often you get a shrug of
shoulder as a reply.
• However if the question was rephrased as “What will
you die for”, they will have a quick answer, and this is
usually their family or loved ones.
• Ask another question like what they believe in and
often the answer is related to their religious beliefs.

Values and Beliefs
• Beleif is not just limited to religious matters but also to
human needs like a safe and clean environment.

Other Challenges

Other Challenges
• There are many challenges faced by adolescents and
some may not be arare that they are experiencing it,
like depression.
• If you suspect that you are experiencing depression,
talk to your parents, guardian or school guidance
counselor.
• Don't be shy, be open about it.
• Experiencing depression is nothing to be ashamed of, it
happens even to the best of us.

Personal Development
Challenges During
Late and Middle Adolescence