“I’m on strike! Yep I am on strike with my teenage son and
it’s a battle of wills ”
I have been getting really frustrated with my fourteen year
old son over the last few of months and have even started a hash tag on Twitter
called #teenlogic - although it’s not exactly trending there are tweets there
from both parents and teenagers. If you
are reading this and have a teen yourself have a tweet on this hashtag and
alleviate some of your inner stress and laugh at the same time!
“Mum you said l've
done nothing all day so why are you so cross with me?” #teenlogic
Yes, I know I am not alone in this parenting game of
bringing up a teenager, the problem is I’m a single mother and I think sometimes
it makes it doubly difficult especially when I am also a working mum and recovering
from cancer let alone all the other daily issues that affect us both but
things that a teenager just doesn’t seem able to think about!
“Mother Nature is
providential. She gives us twelve years to develop a love for our children
before turning them into teenagers.” - William Galvin
On my son’s thirteenth birthday it was as if an instant transformation
took place and now he is fourteen its wow it’s like he is another being, an
alien species - irresponsible, selfish, lazy, insensitive and grumpy – although, on the
plus side, also someone with a developing formulation of opinion, humour, and
someone capable of great creativity, and inspiration.
“In the time it
takes you to understand a 14-year-old, he turns 15” - Robert Brault
It’s not just that I am picking up his dirty clothes (some
of which have been washed and have just ended up on the floor getting dirty
again), wet towels and cleaning the bath out after him, throwing away crisp
packets or empty packets in the cupboard -
searching out for an accumulation of dirty plates, cups, glasses from his
bedroom - his inability to wash up even a fork to eat with, or to put things away; it’s also the lack of conversation, forward thinking, insensitivity, deliberate
misunderstandings, selective hearing in the way he never hears me when I ask
him to do something and when he does it’s always in a minute or when I am ready to
do it but it never happens so I end up doing the tasks myself! I end up nagging and shouting at him which I really don’t like doing as it stresses
me out. And yes I did go on strike for a little while, refused to cook for him and do his washing - it worked for about a minute but then again I did give in!
“Saying you’ll do it later...never
gets down. Story of a teenager’s life.”
And when I do manage to have some kind of conversation with
him I only get sound bites back or a conversation which goes over my head as sometimes
he talks in a different language! We
also fight over access to the laptop and guess who loses (yes I know I should
get him one but when he wants a top of a range laptop and nothing else it is
not going to happen!). As a single
mother I sometimes feel unappreciated, unable to relax when I come home from
work knowing I can’t do everything myself and getting very annoyed - it feels
as if am always going around in circles and arrive exactly at the same point
where I started. What does it take for me to teach him that he has to take some
responsibility for his home environment, and to be more sensitive?
“Teenagers who are
never required to vacuum are living in one.”
Ok, I know his hormones are certainly responsible for many things
such as his fixation on sex (although x-box holds more fascination at the
moment) and social standing. The onslaught
of testosterone in both male and female adolescents at puberty literally swells
the amygdala - the brain center associated with the emotion – so I can blame that
for the slammed doors, sudden up and downs in emotions but hormones apparently
have nothing to do with behavioural changes, i.e the fact that your daughter or
son can’t bear your singing voice, even if you don’t sing out of tune! I have a friend whose daughter will not let
her play her music in the house without her getting annoyed!
“One of the most embarrassing things
for teens is their parents!”
As I said I know that
I not alone with this problem – and in fact apparently I have it quite easy
compared to other parents out there. However,
there is a part of me that is at loss on how to deal with the changes which are
going on, so I thought it may help me to know about the on-going research on
the teenage brain and to understand (not to make excuses mind) that his brain
is in overdrive and has started to work in a different and illogical way
and thus this knowledge may give me some parenting tips on how to
raise a teen, also relieving me of some stress as well.
“The biggest test
for parents is not how they parent their teen, but how they respond to the disorder
and unpredictability.”― Sarah Newton
By the age of six the
brain is already 95% of its adult size. But the grey matter, the thinking part
of the brain, continues to thicken throughout childhood as the brain cells get
extra connections, much like a tree growing extra branches, twigs and
roots. It was once thought that the brain was fully formed by the end
of childhood but now it is believed that between childhood and adulthood the
brain’s “wiring diagram” becomes more complex and more efficient, especially in
the brain’s prefrontal cortex. This is
the part of brain that is responsible for impulse-control, judgement,
decision-making, planning, and organization and involved in other functions
like emotions, and that the teenage/adolescent brain does not reach full
maturity until around the age of 25 with the area of the brain responsible for
reasoning and problem solving, developing last.
Oh my not until 25 the mind boggles of what I have to go through yet!
"Mothers of teenagers know why animals eat their young"
The process of thickening of the grey matter peaks at about 11
years old in girls and 12 in boys, roughly about the same time as puberty
starts. After that peak the grey matter thins as the excess connections are
eliminated or pruned and the "use it or lose it" principle come into
play. Those cells and connections that are used will survive and flourish and
those cells and connections that are not used wither and die. During the
teenage years they lose about one per cent of their brain's grey matter every
year so basically what is happening in the teenage years is that their brains are
being de-cluttered. Wish mine could be de-cluttered again!
“Adolescence is a
period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent
ages as much as 20 years.”
So think about it, if your teen is doing music, sports or
academics these are the cells and connections that will be hard-wired. If
they're lying on the couch or playing video games or watching TV those are the
cells and connections that are going to survive. Not sure where my son falls into this
category – although he is constantly on the computer or X-Box he is building up
a You Tube Network Channel (DoubleupGaming) creating videos and sound bites,
learning about how an You Tube business can develop and knows more about
copyright then I will ever know!
“Teenagers...dey tink dey know
everything. You give dem an inch, dey swim all over you.” –Sebastian, Little Mermaid
The last to process in the brain is the fatty myelin
insulation - the brain's white matter that speeds transmission needed for those
areas for the complex task of entering the world. This period is thought to be
a crucial period of learning because although the wiring is getting upgraded
once it’s done, it's harder for us to change. This is uniquely a human
development and although it seems a bit crazy that we humans don't do this a bit
earlier in life - apparently, though, if we did we wouldn’t be so smart.
“Teens do NOT think the way adults
think because they absolutely, positively can't do that yet. Adolescent brains
just aren't ''hard wired'' like adult brains. ”
Over the past decade, scientists have started to grasp
exactly how distinctive the adolescent brain is and how crucial the years
between ten and twenty- five are in terms of its development. The research that has been undertaken are
starting to change the way that parents, teachers, the medical community and
policymakers are raising and managing their teenagers in many societies.
“Teenagers are the
most misunderstood people on earth. Treated like children but expected to act
like adults.”
Part II of Teenage Brain looks at what this all means and
some tips for parents (and me!) for raising and understanding their teen
better. Meanwhile one more thing on the hashtag
#teenlogic
"No really I wasn't invading your territory I only went into your room to hunt down the missing, plates, forks and cups." #teenlogic
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