Katie's developmental delays and psychological struggles after early pregnancy

Katie and Corabeth

Katie

Sixteen-year-old Katie, once an excellent student with clear extracurricular interests, at least up to age 13 when she became pregnant with and gave birth to her son Drake, is now withdrawn, severely underweight but with no appetite, and uninterested in her son; her living environment back at home with her parents (at least until two weeks ago, when she moved out of their house and in, along with Drake, with her grandparents instead); resuming or otherwise completing her education, or learning work skills toward becoming autonomous and self-sufficient. For all of these reasons, Katie seems an example, especially under Piaget's (see Huit & Hummel, 1985); Erikson's (see Harris, 2000); and Kohlberg's (see Marcia, 1966) theories of an adolescent female whose various stages of development: either physically; cognitively, or psycho-socially, have not been adequately achieved. According to Erikson there are eight separate human developmental stages, starting with infancy and reaching into late- adulthood (Huitt, 1997). Within each, key developmental work consists of experiencing and mastering new emotional understandings and challenges (Huitt; Marcia, 1966). In emotionally unhealthy individuals, though (clearly, Katie is one of these), various adjustment problems springing from incomplete mastery of core stage-developmentally significant "material" from any earlier stage (or all of them combined). Under Erikson's theory in particular (Marcia, 1966) unresolved challenges and difficulties from an earlier developmental stage or stages will reappear since they are still in need of developmental resolution: even long after the individual ought to be developmentally past that stage, chronologically speaking (Harris, 2000). The latter appears, strongly, to be the case with Katie herself. Moreover, Katie is developmentally and chronologically far too immature to be an adequate care-giver to her baby son Drake, as she clearly is not.

Physical Development

Adolescence is an important time for physical maturation according to Erikson (Marcia, 1966), Piaget (Huitt & Hummel, 1997) and Kohlberg (Huitt, 2003); but Katie's own physical maturation processes at this stage appear to have been stunted, likely for psycho-social rather than (at least currently, now that she is back living with her parents) economic or any other reasons. Before running away from home at 13, Katie had obviously been strong, energetic, and physically healthy enough to have been "a member of the swimming team" and to have also volunteered as a Candy Striper after school and a "leader in her church's youth group." But now "she is underweight and anemic"; these are likely contributing factors also to her current physical listlessness and lack of energy. Her non-eating in and of itself is perhaps another sign that (as the literature on anorexia nearly always suggests) Katie continues to feel overly controlled by her parents (a possible sign, also, of still-unresolved "initiative vs. guilt" from Erickson's Stage 3 (ages 3-5) (Marcia, 1966) and reacts to that feeling by overly-controlling her food intake to the point of becoming malnourished. That in itself continues to impede her continued physical maturation of a healthy kind, a key developmental task at Stage 5, up to age eighteen.

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. 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