Rites of Passage/Separation, initiation, and reintegration

Rites of Passage are significant transition points in the lives of people. They occur often and in many ways throughout a lifetime and in all cultures. There is a marking or a celebration of times that are considered to be a special period of growth, a period of separation from the past and a transition or journey forward to a new stage of life often involving a challenge to change and become new, to mature or move into a different period of growth. These times are celebrated with rituals or ceremonies that include whole communities. A mythologist named Joseph Campbell “put forward the idea of a threefold rite of passage called the monomyth”. He used it in hero roles in legends and myths to illustrate how it applies to humanity as well. A rite of passage included three parts, separation, initiation, and reintegration. It had to do with the coming of a time to separate oneself from family, friends, old ways, or an old life. It is a time when one separates themselves from everyday surroundings and society and takes a ‘sacred voyage’ or journey to a special place, a sacred place. This place is often where one endures hardships or tests that cause a person to think about all they have learned and have been and who they really are and intend to be. This stage is often called the initiation and is marked by a challenge or struggle. It is a time of overcoming, a time of accomplishment and at its end one emerges a changed person returning to their daily existence. They are reintegrated into society in a new way, a new person. An example of a rite of passage here in the United States among adolescents could be found in the Catholic Church practice of confirmation. In the Catholic Church, babies are baptized at birth. This is the parents and congregations commitment to raise the child and teach the beliefs of the church. Around the time of puberty usually about 7th grade, the child then is able to make their confirmation. Throughout that school year they are set apart as “the confirmands”. They spend the year learning about what confirmation is and considering what that means to them as young Catholic adults. At the end of the year there is a Confirmation ceremony. At that time they are taking their baptismal promises, to follow the ways of the Catholic beliefs, upon themselves. Their parents are no longer responsible for them. They are acknowledging and accepting responsibility for their own lives and receiving the power of the Holy Spirit to help them. If this is a real experience for the young adult they are separating themselves from their naïve youth and declaring their independence from their parents and their dependence on the Holy Spirit to fill them, change them and guide them. They even choose a new name, their confirmation name, which is usually that of a chosen Saint. This is a time of rebirth, a death to the sinful youth, now forgiven and renewed by the Holy Spirit and born again. They have become confirmed members of the congregation. Our created rite of passage offers an appropriate means for adolescents to transition into adulthood by gathering the age group that would be getting ready to enter the Jr. or Sr. High School. Distinguishing them from the rest of the school and uniting them as a class so that as a group they can acknowledge and develop their physical strengths through games and challenges. They will be able to talk about the demands and issues that concern them and be educated in ways that will offer solutions and help them to meet the challenges of moving on to young adulthood. Through coaching, modeling and reinforcement of social skills we would guide them through this initiation phase. At the end of their time there would by a celebration and then they would be reintegrated into the new school year as the next class of hopefully well prepared young adults.

There are many more elaborate examples of rites of passage with great celebration and diverse rituals. These celebrations happen all over the world in many different ways but they all include a separation from an old self, an initiation or challenge and testing period on the way to the new self, and a victory celebrated emerging with a new self ready to reintegrate their new identity as a member of their old society.

Strength and Changeability of Peer Relations

Adolescents are one of the most influential and vulnerable groups in society today. These young people are dealing with some of most difficult choices during this time such as gangs, drugs, sex and alcohol. Depending on whom they have chosen to socialize with and the environment they are in can have a deciding factor on how they began the transition into young adulthood. The family is his or her initial influence and most likely who he or she has chosen to pattern themselves after. But once they start to become more sociable, most young people are looking to identify with people like themselves. They thrive on companionship from their peers and the opposite sex. Self value is placed on how many friends they have and the roles that define who they are by who they are associated with. The strengths in a peer group have the ability to change a positive young person into a negative young person and vice versa. Some of these strengths are used to help in organizing, controlling, supporting and developing its young people into competent, confident and productive members of society. Unfortunately these same characteristics can be used in the same way with negative results due to how some young people are looking for a non-productive group of people to socialize with. During the transitional phase from a childhood to a young adult, the need to recognize and address the role of peers is vital to preparing a young person for success. Peers have the ability to break a young person’s spirit by not accepting them for who they are which can challenge his or her self worth. But peers can also help this same young person to soar and encourage and empower him or her to make wise choices and promote a positive attitude while building their character. According to an article on children’s peer relationships which states “to effectively change children’s peer relationships especially undesirable relationships or reputations that have been entrenched for many years, it may not be sufficient to increase children’s social competence without also altering their peer and family environments.” (Ladd) This statement summarizes why the need to acknowledge the role of strength and changeability and its value in peer relations especially during a transitional phase.

Biological Changes and Effects on Physical, Emotional, Social and Cognitive Development

There are three main areas of human development, physical, cognitive, and social-emotional. There are several difrences between each area of development while at the same time, they also influence one another. Physical growth and maturation are characterized patterns which atribute to Physical development. Some forms of physical development that occur due to the genetic basis for humans are neurological brain development, human characteristics and , and the acquisition of motor skills. Some developments also show themselves in the healthy and unhealthy behaviors of an individual.
The development that is associated with changes in a person's reasoning is known as cognitive development. Cognitive developments can be expressed in the changing of ones language. Two other cognative developments are memory growth and more complex concepts. An example of this would be that a young child cannot reason when told to do something and a young adult will quickly whey the pros and cons in their head before acting out a given task.
Developments that relate to the changes that occur in a person's ability to handle feelings, actual feelings, situations, and moral ideas are called socila-emotional developments. Many social-emotional developments also occur in a person's day to day social relationships. A specific example of social-emotional development would be an increase or decrease in self confidence of an individual.
It may seem as if all of these areas are separate, but they actually go hand in hand. For example "physical development (e.g., neurological growth) allows cognitive advancements to take place, and increases in the ability to look at situations from multiple perspectives (a cognitive ability) make possible more effective socialrelationships" (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, p. 6).

Reference:
McDevitt, T., & Ormrod, J. (2004). Child Development: Educating and Working with Children and Adolescents (2nd ed.). : Prentice Hall