Essay on Adolescent Development in Mean Girls

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Adolescent development in Mean Girls The movie Mean Girls is filled with characters that are easy to relate with, quotable lines, and a hilarious but realistic plot line. One other major thing that the movie has is concepts of the development that occurs during late adolescences including social, emotional, and cognitive development. Mean Girls is about a girl named Cady that is attending a public high school for the first time after being home schooled in Africa for all of her life. She knows nothing of the American teenage culture or customs or about the public school system. During her first week of school Cady becomes friends with two people in one of her classes named Janis and Damien, who unbeknownst to her are a part of the…show more content…
During the opening scenes of the movie Cady’s dad is shown handing her a brown paper sack lunch and telling her that there is a dollar inside so that she will be able to buy milk during lunch, he then tells her that she can ask “one of the big kids” where to buy the milk at. This sounds more like a dad talking to his kindergartner on the first day of school, not a sixteen year old on her first day of high school. This is showing the relationship between Cady and her parents. You always see that even though they are not directly controlling her they are still babying her, which is a part of balancing freedom and control (Santrock 395). A big part of adolescent develop is their need to become independent and their aversion to authority figures because of the mind set that are always right and they know best because they are now growing up. One thing that parents have to strive to achieve is the balance of supporting the child’s newfound independence and their desire to still have control over what is best for their child. Another time that you see Cady’s relationship with her parents is when she asks if she can stay home one weekend without them because they have tickets to a show but she wants to go to Janis’ art show. They protest telling her that she always comes, but then change their minds because they think she is responsible enough to stay home by
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