Dave was laughing as he described a recent encounter with his son Matt. “I woke up in the middle of the night, and I went to get a glass of water. When I walked by Matt’s door, I could see that the light was on. I knocked, and when he said to come in, I saw that he was arranging and categorizing his music CDs. I said, ‘Matt, why on earth are you playing with your music? You’ve got school tomorrow!’ Matt looked up at me and said, ‘I don’t know.’ I realized he was telling the truth. He had no clue why; he was just doing it.”
While “I don’t know” can be a teen’s intentional means to shut out or provoke a grown-up, it can also be the truth. Teens often don’t know what they think or feel, because on an almost daily basis, they are becoming a different person.
An adolescent’s values, opinions, and perceptions are fluid and unpredictable. Your teen is going through several momentous changes, in several areas, simultaneously. She is in a chaotic storm of trying to figure out who she is, how she feels, and whom she loves. But if you are aware of the specific ways your adolescent is changing, you can take these developmental changes into account when you address problem behaviors and attitudes.
Adolescents go through tremendous changes in four major areas: physical, mental, personal, and social. Let’s take a look at each of these.
Physical Changes
Almost overnight, your teen looks more like a grown-up than a kid. During this period, his body weight almost doubles, and his height increases by about a quarter. He quickly outgrows his clothes, becomes less coordinated in sports because he’s growing so quickly, and eats monstrous amounts of food to fuel his fast-burning metabolism.
I remember when my sons’ voices started changing. I got home from work and my wife’s car was the only car in the driveway, so I figured no one was there but Barbi and the kids. But when I opened the door, I heard strange men’s voices, and I wondered, Did Barbi give somebody a ride home, or is a neighbor visiting? Then I realized those sounds were coming out of my sons’ heads. I would never again be the only deep voice in our home.
Even more problematic can be the sexual changes you see in your teen. During adolescence, secondary sexual characteristics emerge, triggered by estrogen in girls and testosterone in boys. All of a sudden your child is living in a body that’s ready for sex and babies. Your little girl has breasts and has begun menstruation; your little boy has a different voice and body hair. It’s time for you to explain to your daughter how to use feminine supplies and to talk to your son about nocturnal emissions.
Even though your teen’s body is mature, his emotions are not. His insides need to catch up with his outsides. If you find this challenging, think what it must be like for your teen. This is his life and his body, after all!
So get over the awkwardness and step up to the plate. Don’t avoid a frank discussion about the physical changes that take place during adolescence.
Mental Changes
Teens think and process information at more conceptual levels than they could as children. Adolescents can use abstract reasoning, make hypotheses, and use deduction. These changes help get them ready to function successfully in the adult world, where they will need to draw conclusions from information, exercise judgment, and make all decisions that they will be held accountable for having made. These changes also increase your teen’s ability to challenge and argue with you. Teens can be logical, persuasive, and manipulative. Sometimes they can even be right!
Personal Changes
Adolescents are undergoing complex emotional and personal changes. They are wrestling with many conflicting urges as they move toward becoming more emotionally mature. For example, your teen:
Is both independent and dependent on you. Adolescents want to have no rules, but they also need to know their parents are on their side.
Questions the beliefs and values of your family and challenges authority. Adolescents are beginning to think more about “why” than “what” they believe. “Because I said so” no longer satisfies as an answer.
Feels more confident about dislikes than about likes. The phrase “that sucks” allows teens to dismiss events, ideas, and people, without having to make an alliance with something they do believe in.
Feels intense and extreme emotions. These strong emotions, which are important to teens, affect their judgment.
Is more invested in “today” than “tomorrow.” Adolescents feel alive when they are into something right now that is meaningful to them, which makes it difficult for teens to postpone gratification.
Good parenting involves giving your teen the structure, consistency, and love she needs so that she can successfully navigate all of these emotional and personal changes.
Social Changes
The center of the adolescent’s life shifts from the family to his peer group. His friends become the focus and main interest of his life. He spends more time with them, on the phone with them, and instant messaging them.
This shift can often be difficult for parents. They may feel unloved, unappreciated, or abandoned. However, this shift is part of God’s plan. It gradually prepares teens to be able to connect with the outside world and join their own supportive social or family group. The Bible talks about the process of “leaving and cleaving,”17 referring to the way in which adults leave their parents’ home, physically and emotionally, so that they can cleave to their own adult home.
Teens who don’t make the shift from family to friends often have difficulty with jobs, dating, and friendships after they leave home. They are still tied into the home environment and don’t have the tools to function outside of it.
Developing Empathy for Your Teen
As you can see, your teen is undergoing some titanic developmental changes. Take some time to think about what that must be like for her so that you feel for what she is going through.
Here’s an exercise that can help you do this. Write down every problem that you see your teen going through in a week. It doesn’t matter whether the problem is of her own doing. Include school problems, family conflicts, bad habits, friendship conflicts, and the like. Then ask yourself how you would feel with that set of problems, and if you had very little skill or understanding to help you deal with them. Welcome to a week in the turbulent world of the teen.
So do your best to be a safe place for your adolescent to return to when she feels insecure or fails, and offer her plenty of patience, love, and guidance so that she will gradually make better choices as she transitions from childhood to adulthood.