Adult Life Cycle

Young Adulthood (19-30 years) It is a time when most of us finish school, find a career we enjoy and create a family of our own. Early adulthood is the period between adolescence and adulthood where we live in limbo. We are not quite adults, and we haven't left some of our adolescent games behind! Physically it is a time where we are our healthiest and will reach our peak performance.

Cognitively it is a time to grow up and make life decisions. Housing – Mortgage vs. Rent Financials Marriage Socioemotionally it is a time to take on roles of independence, lifestyles, marriage, and family. Often relationships with our parents change, we feel too old to live with them, but we are not quite ready to form a family of our own, we should try to form an identity as an individual apart from our families.

Try to find our own strengths and weaknesses. We need to accept who we are, self esteem can make a world of difference. As a young adult, you need freedom to take steps into the world, explore all possibilities, and make independent choices.

Adults are expected to be financially, socially, and emotionally independent. The transition to adulthood is generally considered to be complete at about 34 years. Many changes happen during this time of life especially our physical development and health, career and finances, marriage, and leisure activities. They should be employed, and formed intimate couple relationships, and if they choose to, have children.

A time when they start to think about "how much time they have left” They re-examine their lives, relationships, work and question the meaning of it all....MID LIFE CRISIS!!

Physical Developmental Changes: Most noticeable changes are seeing and hearing, first sign of hearing loss is a 40 year olds difficulty hearing a doorbell or a telephone ringing. Height - people gradually get shorter and shorter. Hair – graying. Skin – wrinkling. Bodies – sagging. Teeth – yellowing. Some strive to make themselves look younger - plastic surgery, dying hair, wigs, exercise programs, vitamins.

Career and Finances: By this time most individuals have settled into their careers and between the ages of have ceased to advance up the career ladder. Adults adjust their idealistic hopes to realistic possibilities for retirement which is a major concern and can lead to stress and sadness over unaccomplished goals.

Marriage and Family: Many marriages either improve or deteriorate during middle age, if the couple can not adapt to the new conditions of their lives, their marriage may develop problems. Intimacy, marriage, and family concerns should still be a priority.

Leisure: Leisure holds an important place in helping adults deal with life experiences. It enhances one's well being, and is a buffer to the stresses of life.

Accepting responsibility for your life and being able to undo the past and achieve satisfaction with self is essential. On the other hand, some may look back at their lives with a sense of doubt or gloom over their life's worth.

Physically: Most elderly experience declines in hearing, caused by prolonged exposure to noise. Vision begins to deteriorate requiring glasses for reading. Some adults require bifocals or trifocals. Also the sense of taste, and smell become to weaken as well. They also experience some declines in their ability to detect pain and notice temperature changes. As people age, their metabolism begins to slow down by about 1/3 causing a ballooning weight gain. Exercise is important to help keep weight gain down and reduces the risk of serious illness and death.

Socially: Many older adults place a high value on spending time with friends and family, sometimes more so with friends than family, perhaps because they don't want to feel they are a burden or do not want to interfere with their extended family.

Grand Parenting: Being a grandparent can mean giving oneself a sense of continuity and involves emotional self- fulfillment. Depending on how old you are when you become a grand parent, some may not feel any real importance.

Finances: There is a great concern about financial security at this stage as healthcare and residential care costs arise. Some have not made wise choices to invest for their future, other have, and this has allowed them to travel and live more extravagantly.