stage, from that gorgeous little baby to who they are now with their own opinions and ideas. From the age of thirteen to eighteen you should delight in watching their ideas and thoughts mature. How your sixteen year old views the world, a totally different world to the one you knew at that age, is stimulating and even inspiring. Now’s the time you hear of their hopes for their future, from the thirteen year old determined to be a pop diva to the same child five years later who wants to go into medicine; this is a fantastic time.
The child who has reached the start of puberty is not some sort of alien but your beautiful little baby, who you sat up with all night and happily let vomit all over you. (And yes, this may well happen again but it probably won’t be milk!)
Their teenage behaviour is a barometer of how we dealt with them as children and how we deal with them now. So, always remember we only get the teenagers we deserve.
These final years will fly by (apart from on a few occasions) and soon your children will be gone – either to university, travelling, or out to work – and by then they have virtually left home. My daughter is now at university and sometimes I just go and throw wet towels on her bedroom floor to make it seem more like home.
So on the eve of your child’s thirteenth birthday when you kiss them goodnight, remembering what a darling child they have been and wondering what tomorrow and the next seven years will hold, don’t worry, relax, you can all enjoy it. Although admittedly some times will be more enjoyable than others!
Teenagers are half adult and half child and the needs of both must be met, regardless of the fact that they think they are fully adult and you are simply there to fill their every need, as chauffeur, bank, clothing and music sponsor.
Three factors which affect teenage behaviour are puberty, the struggle for independence and their under-developed prefrontal cortex (part of their brain). Any of these on their own could cause problems but the three together makes a potent cocktail which needs to be handled with care. Throw in to the boiling cauldron peer pressure, exams and new relationships and you may start to understand why they feel frustrated, angry, moody and unreasonable.
puberty
Puberty brings with it raging hormones, and anyone who has ever experienced bad PMT will know what hormones can do (even men experience it because they are usually on the receiving end!). Irritability, aggression, irrationality and even depression are all symptoms of fluctuating hormones. So try and empathize with their feelings, imagine
‘Go out with my friend tonight? Why no. mother. I’d much rather sit here and agree with you.’
PMT with serious attitude and suddenly you’ll know how they’re feeling.
independence
When children become teenagers they enter another development stage of battling for their independence. It’s the final push to wean themselves off you and at times this can be very painful for parents. For the past twelve years they wanted to be with you, now they want to be on their own or with their friends. The key is to give teenagers more control over their own lives and a wider freedom of choice, while remaining supportive, reassuring, loving and still having boundaries in place.
the teenage brain
Now, in contrast to many parents’ popular belief, teenagers do actually have brains, it’s just that they don’t function like an adult’s and that’s not out of our children’s choice.
In the last ten years, neuroscientists have come up with some extremely interesting results which may go a long way towards explaining partly why our teenagers behave the way they do. For most of the past century, it has been assumed that the brain was fully mature by the time a child reached puberty and that teenage angst was caused by their need to assert their independence and fluctuating hormones.
Not unlike our adolescents’ changing body shape, different regions of the brain mature at different times and the prefrontal cortex, which has been likened to the brain police, does not fully develop until early twenties. This region of the brain checks all the information coming from other parts of the brain before releasing it. For instance, we might read something which will arouse a murderous rage in us, but the prefrontal cortex will come along and tell that part of the brain to ‘quieten down’.
As Karl Pibrab, the director of Brain Research and Informational Sciences at Radford University in Virginia, puts it, ‘The prefrontal cortex is the seat of civilization.’
So until the prefrontal cortex is fully developed, most teenagers don’t have the ability to make good judgements, control their emotions, prioritize, or multi-task, as in make the right decision between watching TV, ringing a friend, doing a chore they’ve been asked to do or finishing their homework. This means that they do not intentionally do the wrong thing just to wind parents up. As Richard Restak, a neuropsychiatrist and author of The Secret Life of the Brain said, ‘The teenage brain is a work in progress that we’re only beginning to understand.’ (So what chance do we have?!)
Work by Marvin Zuckerman, a professor of psychology, has found that new experiences, especially those with an element of risk, tap into a part of the teenager’s brain which links with emotional centres that produce feelings of intense pleasure. Add to that the research which shows that during adolescence, the temporary decline in the production of serotonin in their brain will probably make
‘It’s not my fault I haven’t done my English, washed up or let the dog out – it’s my under-developed prefrontal cortex!’
them act more impulsively, and you may begin to realize why our adolescents might still jump into a car with a friend who’s had a drink despite our warnings.
Finally, findings of Francine Benes, a neuroscientist, show that one of the last developments of the adult brain is the nerve coating called myelin, which acts like the insulation on an electric cord, allowing electrical impulses to travel down a nerve quicker and more efficiently. That is why a toddler is less co-ordinated than a ten year old. But this process may not be complete until their early twenties. Some of these nerves that become sheathed during adolescence connect regions of the brain that control emotion, judgement and impulse control. This happens earlier in girls than boys, which probably explains why girls are more emotionally mature than boys, whose myelin levels may not reach the same level until the age of thirty. (Thirty? Surely scientists mean seventy!)
Healthy Sources of Stimulation
Trying new experiences is a normal and healthy part of growing up, and as parents we need to try and encourage fairly safe sources of stimulation. Where one child may find it in a drama production at school, another will prefer the excitement of a BMX trick bike, and some children will be lucky enough to go skiing, or diving. Unfortunately, many children don’t have the option or encouragement to find a sport or interest to stimulate them, and resort to crime or drugs.
So try and encourage your teenagers to take up new interests if they don’t already have any.
The good news is that if all this scientific research is proven over a length of time, even very troubled teenagers can still learn good judgement and restraint.
Anyway, even if all this scientific research is absolutely correct, it’s best we don’t let our teenagers know, otherwise every time we ask them why they haven’t done their homework or cleared the dishes, they’ll reply, ‘But it’s not my fault, mum, it’s my under-developed prefrontal cortex!’