Question

What would you identify as the "markers" of when later adolescence ends and early adulthood begins?  

How do you know when you have moved on to the next "chapter"?

How would you define "success" in this time frame?

Answer 1

1.The "markers" of when later adolescence ends and early adulthood begins are
1. the age of identity explorations;
2. the age of instability;
3. the self-focused age;
4. the age of feeling in-between; and
5. the age of possibilities.
All of these features begin to develop before emerging adulthood and continue to develop afterwards, but it is during emerging adulthood that they reach their peak
The most distinctive 'markers' of emerging adulthood is that it is the age of identity explorations. This means that it is an age when people explore various possibilities in love and work as they move toward making enduring choices. Through trying out these different possibilities they develop a more definite identity, that is, an understanding of who they are, what their capabilities and limitations are, what their beliefs and values are, and how they fit into the society around them. Erik Erikson who was the first to develop the idea of an identity asserted that identity is mainly an issue in adolescence, but that was over 50 years ago, and today
it is mainly occurs emerging adulthood that identity explorations take place.

The other one of the markers of emerging adulthood also make it the age of instability. As they explore different possibilities in love and work, emerging adults’ lives are often unstable. Some move out of their parents’ household for the first time in their late teens to attend a residential college, others move out simply to be independent. They may move to cohabit with a romantic partner, then move out when the relationship ends. Some may move out to another part of the country or the world to study or work. For nearly half of American emerging adults, their residential changes include moving back in with their parents at least once. In countries where emerging adults remain home rather than moving out, such as in most of southern Europe and Asian, they may nevertheless experience instability in education, work, and love relationships.

Emerging adulthood is also a self-focused age, a time in between adolescents’ reliance on parents and young adults’ long-term commitments in love and work. During these years, emerging adults tend to focus on themselves as they develop the knowledge, skills, and self-understanding they will need for adult life. In the course of emerging adulthood, they learn to make independent decisions small and large, about everything from what to have for dinner to whether or not to marry their current partner. To say that emerging adulthood is a self-focused time is not meant critically. Being self-focused does not mean being selfish, and emerging adults are generally less egocentric than adolescents and more capable of taking the perspectives of others. The goal of their self-focusing is learning to stand alone as a self-sufficient person or independent person, but emerging adults do not see self-sufficiency as a permanent state. Rather, they view it as a necessary step before committing themselves to lasting relationships with others, in love and work.

Another distinctive feature of emerging adulthood is that it is an age of feeling inbetween, no longer an adolescent but not fully an adult, either. It is only when people reach their late twenties and early thirties that a clear majority feel they have reached adulthood. Most emerging adults have their own subjective feeling of being in a transitional period of life, on the way to adulthood but not there yet. This “in-between” feeling in emerging adulthood has been found across the globe.

Final marker of emerging adulthood is the age of possibilities, when many different futures remain possible when little about a person’s direction in life has been decided for certain, like an age of high hopes and great expectations. It is because few of their dreams have been tested in the fires of real life. It is also the age of possibilities because it is a time that holds the potential for dramatic changes. For those who have come from a troubled family, this is their chance to try to straighten the parts of themselves that have become twisted. No longer dependent on their parents, no longer subject to their parents’ problems on a daily basis, they may be able to make independent decisions—perhaps to move to a different area or go to college—that turn their lives in a dramatically different direction. Even for those who have come from families that are happy and healthy, emerging adulthood is an opportunity to transform themselves so that they are not merely made in their parents’ images but have to make independent decisions about what kind of person they wish to be and how they wish to live.

2. We would know we have moved to the next chapter of adulthood when we have found our Identity as a person in our career life & love life and have secured some stability in both career & love life. Indicates that we have moved from emerging adulthood to adulthood.

3. Success in this stage is securing a good and stable job with steady income and married happily and starting a family.