Resource Management

Select two stages of the lifespan. Compare the wellbeing of the individuals at both stages with reference to physical, socio-economical, spiritual, economic and political factors.

A person's ability to achieve optimal wellbeing depends on the stage of their life that they are in. The needs and wants of an infant are going to be significantly different to those of an adolescent. Infants are entirely dependent on their parents to obtain all of the components needed to achieve optimal wellbeing, while adolescents are more independent and seek very little guidance from their parents/guardians.

Infants are incompetent and unable to care for themselves so therefore are entirely dependent on their parents to achieve optimal wellbeing. Infants don't have a need or desire to know about politics and economics as those aspects of life are irrelevant to their happiness and healthiness. However if their parents economic state or the political stability of the local community are low then this could affect other aspects of the infants wellbeing. An infant's physical wellbeing again is entirely dependent on the wellbeing of their parents. If the mother of the infant is unable to feed the child appropriately, this could have a major impact on the infant's health. The parent's socio-economic state affects that of the infant. If the parent's socio-economic wellbeing is low than that of the infant is also likely to be poor. As the infant grows and matures their dependence on their parents lessens.

By the time the child reaches adolescence their dependence on their parent's is much lower than when they were younger. Adolescents don't have the ability to vote in elections and therefore don't have much of a say in the political aspect of life. Many adolescents are thinking about, or already have after school or weekend jobs, which are helping them to be partially economically independent as they are earning their own money to spend on things they enjoy or want instead of relying on their parents to buy everything for them. The physical wellbeing of an adolescent teenager is almost completely controlled by the individual. If the teenager decides to eat unhealthily and never exercise than that is their own decision to not do so. Parents do have the ability to encourage their child to be healthy and keep their level of physical wellbeing high; however it is ultimately up to the teenager to make the final decision. As an adolescent you are entitled to your own spiritual values; however if you make the wrong choices because you value the wrong things, then that could put your level of socio-economic, physical or even economic wellbeing at risk. Unlike infants, adolescents make their own friends as they go to school and participate in many activities outside of school. The choice of who they hang out with is entirely up to them, so their socio-economic status depends entirely on their spiritual values.