Katie and Corabeth Katie Sixteen-Year-Old Term Paper

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Now, at 16, having returned again to her parents' home with Drake, she "has agreed to earn her GED and enroll in a vocational school to train for a job" and to thereby increase her current cognitive skills. However, "her classes begin a week from now; she has not made arrangements for Drake's care while she is in class." This lack of planning and preparation for long periods of the day away from Drake could be seen as a sign that Katie lacks problem-solving skills for a 16-year-old that should have been mostly learned at Erickson's Stage 4 (6-10 years old). A more likely explanation though is that care-giving, an activity Katie is uninterested in and performs poorly or not at all, properly belongs to Erikson's Stage 6, Early Adulthood (ages 18-34), Katie has not yet reached that stage even chronologically (obviously, she is completely unprepared for it emotionally, or even physically) even though she already has a child.

Psycho-social Development

Katie exhibits fundamental lack-of-trust issues vis-a-vis her parents, probably stemming from as early as Erikson's Stage One (birth through age one); autonomy issues unresolved from Stage 2 (ages 1-3); "initiative vs. guilt" (Harris, 2000) issues from Stage 3 (ages 3-5) "industry" issues (i.e., "Am I able to succeed at what I try to do?") issues from Stage 4 (ages 6-10) (Harris). Further, it appears that Katie struggles now with identity issues at Stage 5 (ages 11-18) (Huitt, 1997; Huitt & Hummel, 2003). For example, Katie neither wants to return to school (she has agreed to complete her GED instead) nor seems to very strongly exhibit eagerness or enthusiasm about beginning her vocational courses next week (e.g., she has not gotten her driver's license, preferring to ride the bus when she (presumably) would not have to if she could drive; and also has taken no initiative in finding daytime care for Drake while she is away from the house.

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In Kohlberg's Stage 3 (Huitt, 1997), adolescents at 12 or 13 (Katie is 13 when she becomes pregnant by an 18-year-old drug user) are more vulnerable than earlier to influences outside the family. Katie's relationships with her own parents (perhaps this is mirrored by her own non-relationship to Drake, and has something to do with Drake's own compliant passivity); since she ran away from home, are unhealthy. As current evidence of the latter, Katie hardly communicates with them verbally, much less confiding in them about her thoughts and feelings. Katie shows various signs of having had (and of still having) not completed important developmental work from each of the first five of Erikson's eight stages (Marcia, 1966); the equivalent also of being stuck in Kohlberg's Stage 2 of moral development, the "Conventional" (Harris, 2000) and having less-than adequately mastered any of the developmental tasks of Piaget's Stage 4 (Huitt & Hummel, 2003) although this stage beings at around age 11.

In Piaget's second stage of childhood/adolescent development (see Huitt, 1997; Huitt & Hummel, 2003), and in Kohlberg's (similar) third stage (see Huitt), rules are not as ironclad as in earlier stages of childhood, and are instead typically regarded more as principles that facilitate peoples' getting along smoothly with one another. Katie, however, has no interest in following her mother's current rules, e.g., pitching in around the house or doing any of her mother's daily list of chores, even though such help (or at least some or most of.....

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