Troubled Teens

Adolescence is a challenge

The teenage years give meaning to the expression, “growing pains.” It’s hard to watch a teen you love struggle with contradictory ideas, confusing emotions, and perplexing choices. He seems to make every decision from his gut instead of with his head. Just when it seems that he most needs adult guidance, he shuts himself in his room or storms out the front door.

 

Adolescents often look like adults. Their developing bodies make it possible for them to engage in risky adult activities like driving cars or having sex. But, despite their mature appearances and their impressive vocabularies, teenagers cannot think like adults and they cannot make decisions like adults because their brains aren’t grown up yet.

 

Teens are full of promise. But they have teenage brains, not adult brains. And an adolescent brain is very different from a fully mature brain. 

The teenage brain: A work in progress

The human brain contains over 10 billion neurons and another 100 billion support cells. The 10 billion neurons form over 100 trillion connections with each other—more than all of the Internet connections in the world.

 

By the time we are born, our brains contain many more cells and connections than can possibly survive. During the first few years of life, every child’s brain goes through a process of “use-it-or-lose-it” pruning of the connections and cells it won’t be using; the rest whither.

 

This process is repeated right before puberty. The brain overproduces cells and connections, and, through the teen years the connections are shaped and refined through a second pruning process. Like a computer, the maturing brain grows "circuits"— neural connections—that can perform several tasks simultaneously and with ever-greater efficiency. As it meets increasingly difficult cognitive and emotional challenges, “wiring” becomes more complex and more efficient, especially in the frontal lobe, which is responsible for such skills as setting priorities, organizing plans and ideas, forming strategies, controlling impulses, and allocating attention.

 

This part of the brain does not achieve its adult pattern until an individual is in his late twenties. This means that not only hasn’t a teen fully developed his ability to set mature goals, make sound judgments, and resist temptations, the part of his brain that would enable him to understand that isn’t fully developed enough for him to realize it!

 

In other words, adolescence is a time of profound brain growth and change. These changes have important implications for a teen’s ability to become an independent and successful adult. This is when a teen is learning how to connect his intelligence with his gut, to plan, to learn from the past, to imagine future consequences of his actions, to put feelings into perspective, and to delay gratification. 

Teens need adult support

The more we learn about how the brain develops, the clearer it becomes that learning and positive experiences help build complex, adaptive brains. Adult guidance is essential while an adolescent’s decision-making brain circuitry is being formed.

 

When they are surrounded by caring parents, adults, and institutions that help them learn specific skills and appropriate adult behavior, teens themselves may be able to shape their own brain development.

 

Focus Strategic Solutions’ Rising Stars program can help.

Everything is changing

 

The only thing more difficult than being the parent of a teenager is being an actual teenager. Everything is changing inside you and around you. For example…

Physically

We all talk about raging hormones, but there are lots of things going on with teenagers in addition to their burgeoning sexuality. Teenagers need more sleep. They have bigger appetites. And what is going on with them physically affects their sense of identity and self-esteem. As a teenager’s body begins to grow into its adult shape, a teenager becomes more self-conscious. He might feel more graceful or more clumsy or both at once. He/she might begin desiring more privacy and worrying about other people’s reactions.

Cognitively

Throughout adolescence, teenagers’ brains change. They develop new ways of thinking. They expand their intellectual interests. Their capacity for abstract thought grows – they become better at imagining possibilities, recognizing the principles underlying decisions, and thinking ahead to the consequences of actions. They start thinking about values, engaging in deeper moral thinking, and reflecting upon the meaning of life. They show increased concern for the future and have a greater capacity for setting goals. 

Morally

Adolescence is a time when kids examine their own values and ethics, trying to understand who they are and figure out what kind of adults they want to become. They begin to question social conventions, including the lessons they’ve learned from their parents. As kids mature, they become more able to move beyond their own self-absorption toward a perspective that includes other people. They become better able to take other people’s views and feelings into account. 

Self-concept

Teenagers are people who are not only trying to figure out who they want to be but also trying to become who they want to be. They begin to establish their own identity separate from their family, which increases the importance they place on their peers. Their growing awareness of other people’s opinions can make them concerned about peer acceptance and popularity. Their self-concept might be challenged by body changes, and this is the time when sensitivity about their body image can lead to dieting, steroid use, or eating disorders. Adolescence is a time for experimentation with different roles -- looks, sexuality, friendships, ethnicity, and occupations.

Emotionally and socially

For people who claim they don’t care what anybody thinks, teenagers sure worry a lot about what other people think, don’t they? Adolescence is a time of intense self-focus as teens try to figure who they want to be, who they don’t want to be, what they think about themselves, what other people think of them, who they want to attach themselves to, and who they want to distance themselves from, beginning with their parents. They begin to object to parental limitations and begin to test rules and limits. Their new thinking skills are often practiced as humor, smarting off, and back talk. Peer relationships take on greater importance, as their friends help them explore and develop their own identity. They show an increased interest in making their own decisions and independence, there is more rule and limit testing. They show an increased desire for privacy. They can be sensitive about how their bodies are changing. And, as their brains go through their changes, so do their moods. Forgetfulness and emotion swings are constant companions to the typical teenager.

Adolescence is even more challenging because of the world teens live in

Being a teenager is as tough as it has ever been. All around them, they see others making impulsive, unhealthy choices.   Stressors ranging from negative media messages to peer pressure to sheer information overload are all pulling at their attention, undermining their self-esteem, and eroding their social skills.

 

Over a third of kids are exposed to hateful graffiti every day. One in every two rape victims is under age 18, and teens 16-19 are three-and-a-half times more likely to be victims of sexual assault than the general public. A third of all victims of violent crime are teenagers. Homicide is the second leading cause of death for 15-24, and the leading cause of death for African-American and Hispanics youths in this age group. Suicide is the third leading cause. 

Teenaged choices can have a lifelong impact

Even when parents and teachers do all they can to raise their kids right, sometimes kids still make impulsive, emotional, life-damaging decisions.   Parents can’t protect their kids from every bad experience, bad influence, or risky decision. But they can help them, while their brains and bodies are maturing, to learn to make thoughtful, healthy choices.

They need to graduate

On average, working-age dropouts in Wisconsin earn $10,000 less each year than those who graduate from high school. The unemployment rate of high school dropouts is almost three times higher than those who have graduated from high school or college. Wisconsin’s dropouts are almost 2.5 times more likely to require Medicaid assistance than high school graduates. High school dropouts are twice as likely to be incarcerated as high school graduates. African American male dropouts are four times more likely to be incarcerated than African Americans who have graduated from high school.

 

They need to stay clean and sober

In Wisconsin, over 16,000 arrests are made every year related to drug abuse, violation of liquor laws, and driving under the influence. Alcohol kills 6-1/2 times more teenagers than all other illicit drugs combined. 64 percent of youth who drink say they initially got the alcohol from their own or the 40 percent of kids who start drinking before 13 develop alcohol dependence later in life. Teens who drink are 50 times more likely to use cocaine. 80% of adult smokers became addicted to nicotine before age 18. Tobacco is the first drug used by young people who use alcohol and illegal drugs. Eight young people a day die in alcohol-related crashes.

They need to make responsible sexual decisions

The United States has the highest levels of teen pregnancy among developed nations. Nationally, half of all new HIV infections occur in teenagers, and nearly 50 percent of new STD cases happen to young people between the ages of 15 and 24. Teenage youth who are sexually active are more likely to use alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs. 2,800 teens get pregnant each day. One in four sexually active teens becomes infected with an STD. Nearly a third of girls age 15-19 who have had sex become pregnant.

 

Focus Strategic Solutions’ Rising Stars program can help.