Page 23 - Blue Valley Issue 6 2022

TODAY’S CHILD

taste for adventure and risk-taking; this may be UNDERSTANDING THE CHAOS often challenge authority and boundaries. Yet
spurred on by the need for peer approval, which During adolescence, teens start to develop they crave approval from the adults in their lives
becomes paramount at this age. more sophisticated ways of thinking. Abstract as well as their peers. This period of conflict is
reasoning comes into play. However, it’s also a normal and may be less evident in teens with
By the same measure, they seem incapable of time when teenagers are experimenting; they stronger self-esteem who come from stable,
considering the consequences of their actions. are often judged for risky behaviour and for supportive homes where the communication
And all this happens while having to cope with being impulsive and irritable. This behaviour is channels are open.
academic pressure. Given these factors, coupled attributed to raging hormones, an increased sex
with the inner conflicts and emotions that define drive and immaturity. How teens interpret their world is based on
adolescence, many teenagers may not realise their changing social environment, the physical
their full intellectual potential. Teenagers feel misunderstood and isolated. Their transformation their bodies undergo and the
turmoil is often ridiculed. As neuroscientist Sarah- shifting expectations placed on them. These can
In a bid to decode and understand the brain’s Jayne Blakemore, author of Inventing Ourselves: contribute to them feeling alienated.
evolution, scientists have been charting the The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain, says: “It is not
neural changes that occur during adolescence. socially acceptable to mock and demonise other Mood swings can be explained by the
Insights from this research are helping to explain sectors of society ... but it is strangely acceptable interplay of psychological and physiological
why teens behave the way they do. Moreover, to mock and demonise teenagers.” processes associated with maturing. Teenagers
researchers suggest that certain traits or skills experience greater fluctuations in hormones and
learnt during the teen years – traits which even On the one hand, teens seem to be doing all they neurotransmitters such as serotonin (one of the
an adult would find challenging – can be turned can to separate themselves from their families feelgood hormones), GABA and cortisol, which
into strengths. in an effort to assert their independence. They affect mood.

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