Surrey Homes | SH71 | Sept & Oct 2020 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

A Parents’ Guide to Teenagers
by Hilary Wilce
Why are teenagers so, you know, teenager-y? Why
are they so messy, angry and impulsive? And
so funny, irreverent and interesting? Mainly, of
course, because this is a time of massive social, physical and
mental growth as children get ready to fly the nest and launch
out into life on their own. To do this, they need to acquire all
sorts of things, from physical strength to the ability to make
logical decisions, and they need to do it
fast because the bulk of these changes
are squashed into just a handful of hectic
years. Change and development carries
on – the adult brain isn’t fully cooked
until we hit our mid-twenties – but if
you consider the difference between
a spindly, biddable ten-year-old and
a developed, bolshy sixteen-year-old,
you can see how much happens fast.
THE TEENAGE BODY
The teenage body is morphing rapidly from a child’s body
to an adult one. Emerging sexual maturity throws teens into
a world of turbulent hormones and violent mood swings,
while sudden growth spurts mean that many young teens
simply don’t know where they are in the world. They take
up more space than they used to, trip over their own feet,
and maybe even talk more loudly than before. They’re
beset by new problems – acne, body odour – and, at the
same time, they and their friends are coming to these
changes at different rates, so a teen may feel awkwardly
ahead of the body curve, or shamingly behind it.
“Teens are painfully aware
of their peers. Uncertain
about their adult selves,
they suffer and burn as they
try and fit in with others”
THE TEENAGE BRAIN
We now know much more about the teenage
brain than we used to, and this new knowledge
explains much about teenage behavior.
The teenage brain is programmed to start exploring
and pushing limits and as it does so it prunes synapses
and builds more efficient neural networks.
Scientists believe this is nature’s
way of helping young adults learn to
confront the world on their own – and
if laboratory mice are anything to go
by, healthy teenage exploration seems
to lead to a longer life later on.
The teenage brain is also busy releasing
dopamine, the ‘feel-good’ hormone,
which is why teens are more likely than
adults to give into impulsive desires.
But this ‘reward’ centre in the brain is in a constant tussle
with the more sensible ‘planning and organising’ part. The
reward centre says ‘Yay! Let’s do it! It’ll be brilliant!’ The
logic centre says, ‘But if we do, we could get drunk/hurt/
pregnant/picked up by the police.’ Unfortunately, the logic
centre lags behind in development, so the early teenage years
can be short on things like empathy, risk analysis and insight
– although thankfully they start to kick in after about 17.
The teenage brain is also fabulously plastic. It
is ready to learn, adapt and change according to
anything thrown at it, which means this can be a
peak time for academic engagement, as well as for
creative development and sporting challenges.
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