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Coming of Age Rituals

As a part of my Adolescent Development class, I have the pleasure of working with two lovely ladies on different projects and course work. Today’s blog post is a joint post written by myself, Kayla Carew, and Rylee Booth (Check out their blogs if you have time, linked below!). We recently completed a project that challenged us to design our own coming of age ritual, as explained below. Let us know what you think: Would you have benefitted from a coming of age ritual like “What Would You Do?” ***

Adolescence is a time when emotions essentially control the mind and make it difficult to think rationally. There comes a time when an adolescent begins his or her journey into adulthood and must learn how to think, act, and regulate emotional impulses for his or herself. The purpose of a coming of age ritual is to break from the norms that characterize adolescence. While some coming of age transitions are planned and purposeful, some events force adolescents into their transition to adulthood.

As Maslow’s hierarchy illustrates, safety is imperative, on all levels, for self-actualization to occur. In accordance with this philosophy, Vygotsky emphasizes the importance of social interaction through his concept of scaffolding, and how it is essential to cognitive development, especially throughout adolescence. Using the various philosophies of Maslow and Vygotsky to guide our design, while also addressing the characteristics of adolescents in this stage, our coming of age ritual is geared toward the development of self awareness, balance, and patience while also instilling perseverance.

Source: https://lifeasimprov.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.jpg


The basis of our coming of age ritual stems from the premise of the ABC News show called “What Would You Do?” The show uses hidden cameras to observe people in staged situations while host John Quinones narrates and comments on their behavior. The show’s purpose is to highlight and analyze human nature and essentially determine people’s character, delving more deeply into the rationale behind their decisions. Following a similar format, our ritual designs scenarios to teach adolescents about the character traits and values needed to enter into adulthood as they prepare for their senior year of high school. We decided to use the show’s premise in our coming of age ritual because we think that, while it will be staged, the adolescent will have a natural and authentic response since they are unaware that they are involved in a coming of age ritual.

Over the course of the adolescent’s junior year of high school, three teaching moments will occur and will be secretly filmed. To reduce anxieties from anticipation, the adolescent will have some warning on the timing of these situations. Important adult figures in the adolescent’s life will meet with the adolescent two to three weeks prior to share their wisdom and give them an indication as to when the situation will occur. This sharing of wisdom prepares the adolescent so they are not paranoid or laden with fear about the coming of age experience.

Below is the link to our PowToon explaining the Coming of Age ritual. We hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for reading!

Kayla, Rylee, and Allison

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