An adult is... What does it mean to be an adult?

Psychology

• What does the term “adult” mean?
• Why doesn't a person become an adult?
• What about teenagers?
• What about adults?
• How to prevent a situation where a loved one does not grow up?

As children, we all dreamed of growing up quickly. We have grown up, some already have children of their own, but have we become adults? Let's try to figure out what this word means.

Complete independence

This is absolute mental, physical and financial independence. There can be no talk of independence if a person is unable to make a choice without instructions, advice or direction from the outside (most often parents act as regulators). Special attention is required by the fact that an independent adult does not need financial support from third parties. By the way, the habit of constantly getting into financial debt is a sign of infantilism.

What does the term “adult” mean?

You can often hear people say that this or that person does not want to become an adult and behaves like a teenager. Another situation arises: when, on the contrary, we observe a minor who admires his adult actions.

The concept of “adulthood” does not depend on the number of years lived

An adult is a person who independently makes adequate decisions , is able to understand the consequences of this and carries out everything according to the plan, without causing harm to himself or others.

An adult takes responsibility, clearly understands that this or that situation depends only on him, and strives to do everything necessary to achieve the goal. Moreover, age, presence of a passport, family do not matter here.

Let's find out why some people never become adults.

When does a person become an adult?

Why does a child need his own main adult?

Once a successful businessman came to me for a consultation. We began to discuss issues related to his company, but the conversation very quickly turned into a different direction: the client began to complain about problems with his five-year-old son and said that they were what bothered him most now. The boy grows up capricious and uncontrollable, throwing tantrums for any reason. He constantly demands his mother's attention, he may start to bite, but having achieved his goal, he immediately loses interest, pushes her away and even becomes rude. His parents can’t take him anywhere with them—he behaves even worse in public. “Whatever we did - we tried with severity and affection, but there was no result. Everyone’s nerves are on edge!” Over the past year, parents have turned to specialists more than once. But instead of a clear diagnosis and specific treatment recommendations, they were told that the child had an “attachment disorder.” Dad was seriously annoyed and upset: he and his wife tried their best, they spared no money, but what happened? We “rewinded the film” five years ago and looked at how it all began. When the baby was born, the parents decided that the mother would continue to spend most of her time in London, where the older daughters study - at this age they need parental attention - and the son would remain in Moscow under the supervision of professional nannies. They were selected carefully, each was strictly instructed. If the nanny was noticed in some kind of misconduct, she was immediately fired. The first nanny was fired for picking up a pacifier from the floor and wiping it on her apron - she was a slob! The second had the audacity to take expired yoghurts from the refrigerator: she saw that they were being thrown away anyway. But the guards noticed this, and as a result, the nanny was expelled in disgrace: “a thief cannot raise our child.” The third was chatting on the phone when it was feeding time; then she explained that she simply did not want to wake the baby, she was waiting for him to wake up, but was fired for neglecting her duties. So in a year the boy had at least ten nannies. Parents with good intentions, trying to provide the baby with comfort and ideal care, left him in the care of strangers, who, moreover, were constantly changing. In this he was no different from an orphanage pupil. "Stop! - said the indignant dad. “What is the connection between the orphans of the orphanage and my son, who is surrounded by attention from all sides?” There is a connection - in both cases, children are deprived of the main thing. What is most important for a child? The answer to this question was a real breakthrough, perhaps the most significant discovery of the twentieth century in the field of child psychology.

Adult Traits

They say, uncover the meaning of the concept of “adult” and understand what a person should be. But one term is not enough; the features of an adult are more important.

• Independent. An adult is capable of taking care of himself.
• Confident. A person is confident in himself not only externally, but also internally.
• Caring. An adult is capable of caring about the lives of other people. He has an adult circle of concerns, and he not only knows how to do it, but wants to do it and does it freely. Taking care of someone is a voluntary choice of an adult, mentally balanced person.
• Responsible and demanding. A person takes responsibility for his actions and demands similar behavior from others. Knows how to control his desires, refers more to the words “need” and “can”, rather than to “I want and urgently.”
• Psychologically literate. Able to look constructively at an obstacle that has arisen and see the situation in its entirety.
• Mentally healthy. An adult knows how to find positive moments in life, calmly accepts criticism, does not feel unreasonable fears and can keep his emotions under control.

Human maturity from the point of view of society and physiology

An adult on the physical level is one who is fully formed, i.e. sexually mature and having ceased its physical growth. A person’s physical maturity comes the earliest, active growth continues until the age of 14-16, then gradually slows down, and may generally stop by the age of 25, but the person retains the ability to grow until the age of 35-40. But after this, growth may begin to decrease.

It turns out that we can call a person physically mature, in general, at about 16 years old - the main processes of active development by this age already end.

An adult at the social level is one who has received the corresponding adult rights available in a given community: the right to earn money, start a family, vote, own property and fully control one’s choices within the framework of the law.

Along with this comes responsibility - the need to be fully responsible for one’s crimes in case of violation of laws, to pay alimony in case of divorce, to interact with the state and other people regarding one’s working relationships, documents, to independently resolve issues of one’s own family, social life and security .

This age varies slightly by state, but in most countries it occurs between 18 and 21 years of age.

If we cannot slow down, stop or speed up growth and physical maturation in any way, then a person’s social maturity in fact turns out to be very blurred.

For example, if a person has the formal rights of an adult, but at the same time enjoys the support of his parents and lives on their territory, can we call him an adult? No. Because he does not fully manage his time, has practically no property of his own and is dependent.

Psychological maturity is precisely what allows a physically and formally mature person to fully enjoy his rights in society, bear his responsibilities and achieve a relative, comfortable balance in this, managing his life, on the one hand, and on the other, without violating the boundaries of others and being able to find common ground with others.

So, what is psychological maturity and how to become an adult in reality, at a deep level?

Law is law

Forming a stable, secure attachment is one of the most important tasks in the first year of a child’s life. But how to do this in the modern dynamic world, with our constant employment? There is probably no universal formula. But there are certain psychological laws that exist beyond our will and desire, and ignorance of which, as they say, “does not exempt us from responsibility.” Whether we want to take into account attachment theory or not, “Bowlby’s law” works the same way as all other laws: when we follow it, there is a chance that everything will be fine, when we break it, we will certainly “get it to the fullest.” And then we must clearly understand how tragic the consequences can be, so that we don’t throw up our hands and shift the blame to others. If we want to raise children strong, resilient, capable of deep relationships, and self-confident, it is important that in the first year of a child’s life there is always a close, reliable adult next to him. It could be one of us, parents (of course, it’s better if it’s mom). If for some reason we are not ready to take care of the baby ourselves, we need to find someone who can treat him like a mother and be with him constantly. I don’t like to give advice, but the question is so important that I will deviate from the rule and still give one piece of advice: let the child have not the most professional, not the most careful, not the most intelligent and well-mannered, but a permanent nanny to whom he will get used , to which it will become attached. This is better than ten of the most amazing nannies, through whose hands we “drive” the child through the gauntlet (remember the boy I talked about at the beginning of the chapter). If the nanny has already managed to become a close person to him, let’s try to close our eyes to her shortcomings and accept the fact that our baby forms a deep emotional connection with her. In the end, a child’s peace of mind, health and future are more valuable.

"Insecure" attachment

Attachment disorders can manifest themselves in different ways and are noticeable as early as one year of age. Scientists have identified two main types of such disorders: avoidant and unstable. And they gave them a common name - “insecure attachment”, in contrast to “reliable”, “confident”.

"Avoidant attachment"

Children with this type of attachment do not seek to communicate with adults; they are much more interested in toys, and even in a frightening, unfamiliar situation, they do not seek support from adults. With age, children with avoidant attachment become secretive, detached, and get used to hiding their feelings, but if they need to get something from another, they can imitate bright, strong positive emotions. They can also exhibit “forced yielding” behavior: be surprisingly submissive and meek, fulfill all the demands of their parents. When necessary, they know how to remain silent, pretend to listen, and say the right words in response. Outwardly everything looks quite good. But this is precisely “forced” behavior - they have learned to behave this way so that their parents will “get rid of them.” Close relationships are uncomfortable for them, because in early childhood adults rejected and ignored them. Such a child seems to be telling us: “I am not needed and unloved. Leave me alone!"

"Unstable attachment"

A child with an “unstable” attachment shows severe anxiety in an unfamiliar situation, even if someone close to him is nearby. He is capricious, excitable, restless. When his mother leaves, even for a short time, he gets very upset and cannot calm down for a long time, crying. But when mom returns, she first reaches out to her, and then immediately rejects her. Such children develop an acute and never satisfied need for love, affection and approval. It seems that they actively strive for contact, demand it, “cling,” “stick,” but as soon as attention is paid to them, they avoid any communication. It is probably this type of attachment that experts had in mind in the case of the capricious and uncontrollable boy that I talked about at the beginning of the chapter. Such children quickly learn to manipulate - to seek the attention of adults in any way. They have two types of behavior in their repertoire: active-aggressive or passive-helpless. Sometimes they are combined. For example, a child behaves demonstratively, defiantly, may throw toys, scream if the mother is talking to someone else. But as soon as he has achieved his goal - he has caused a negative reaction from an adult, he immediately switches to disarming behavior and becomes shy, fearful, submissive in order to avoid punishment. Such manipulations are an effective way to gain the attention of parents, and it does not matter what their reaction will be - positive or negative. Teenagers with unstable attachments do not know how to make friends, but they easily make new acquaintances (usually short and superficial), often based on the desire to gain some benefit. This position can be formulated as follows: “I am unloved, but I really want to get closer to you!” Any violations of attachment lead to the fact that, as an adult, the child cannot establish truly deep, long-term relationships. He does not trust those around him, does not have warm feelings for them, and does not pay attention to their desires and aspirations. He is unlikely to develop empathy and patience; he will learn to hide his real feelings, but he will skillfully manipulate others. He will treat people as a consumer, because they interest him only from the point of view of what he can get from them. This is exactly the picture that psychologists describe when observing the development of children in orphanages. Today, the same problems arise in children from wealthy families who lacked parental warmth and attention at a very early age.