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Female Versus Male .
It is very clear that females and males are very different, not only physically but emotionally and mentally as well. The onset of puberty makes these differences very clear, for instance: the first sign of sexual maturity for girls is the budding of the breast while for the boys it is the growth of the testes (Berk, 2010). There are many more differences that can be seen as females and males grow. One example is when the adult stature is met, for girls this is roughly by the age of thirteen but for boys this is not typically reached until fifteen and a half (Berk, 2010)! There are many visible differences in boys and girls at the time such as facial hair, deepening of the voice, and the muscle that begins to develop in boys. These things do not happen in girls and the physical things are much harder to see as girls mature in different ways such as menstruation and similar reproductive changes. There are also major differences to be seen in the way adolescents eat; boys tend to eat much more at this point than girls although nutrition is extremely important to both genders. .
A History of Adolescence.
In the early 1900's "adolescence was a time of overcoming one's beast-like impulses as one was engulfed in a period of "storm and stress"" (Massachusetts Cultural, 2014, p.1). Thus it was thought that adolescence was a series of impulses that one had to overcome and simply get through, although this has some truth to it, it was not very accurate when compared to todays studies of adolescent development. It was not until the late 1950-1970's that adolescent development actually became a field of study which Erik Erickson had a great deal of helping with (Massachusetts Cultural, 2014). Erikson has made great contributions to this field of study and is very well known for his stages of life. It has always been a basic thought that adolescents seek to dependence form their parents but at the same point are seeking to still depend upon the parents thus causing the adolescent stage to be quite difficult to struggle through.
