Changes of adolescence
A development bridge
Adolescence can be seen as the ‘developmental bridge’ from childhood to adulthood, the
move from dependency to autonomy, from shared family bonds to shared bonds with close
friends and intimate partners. As important social relations broaden to peers, school and
work colleagues, romantic partners, family bonds need to be balanced and reorganised to
accommodate these new relationships.
The physical, cognitive and emotional changes of adolescence enable young people to
achieve this ‘development task’ and make the transition to adulthood. However, the
intensity of the changes can, and often does, have a major impact on the young person,
their family relationships and parents.
The changes of adolescence
Growth
The onset of puberty typically begins with a marked growth spurt starting between the ages
of nine and ten and continuing through puberty – at its peak, boys can grow by 10cm a year
and girls by 9cm a year. Hands and feet grow before the trunk, often resulting in the
clumsiness associated with adolescence.
This period of rapid growth may result in changes in both appetite and sleeping habits.
Sleep is an important requirement for growth and adolescents need more sleep through
puberty than in childhood, 9.25 hours for optimal functioning. Changes in the biological
clock, connected with altered timing of melatonin release, also mean that teenagers often
naturally go to sleep later at night and wake up later in the morning.
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Brain development
Recent discoveries in neuroscience suggest that the adolescent brain goes through a
period of major physical reorganisation and that adolescence may be a second ‘critical
period’ in human development, similar in magnitude to infancy.
The connections between brain nerve cells are known as neuronal pathways or synapses.
At around the age of 12, the brain enters a period of ‘synaptic pruning’ whereby the most
frequently used neuronal pathways become strengthened and the less frequently used
connections die off. This process ensures that the most important connections remain
nourished, thus creating an adult brain that has fewer, but stronger and more selective,
neuronal connections than in childhood. As in infancy, this process of synaptic pruning is
also experience dependent; nurture and environment, as well as hormonal and chemical
changes, influence brain development and maturation.
This synaptic activity reduces the adolescent brain’s efficiency in processing information
and controlling impulses. Recent advances in neuro-imaging also show that brain
reorganisation takes place in two stages: firstly in the limbic system, associated with
emotion; and secondly in the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for the ability to control
impulses and underpins judgement and good decision making.
The different rate of change creates periods when the adolescent brain becomes ‘out of
sync’ with itself. The changes in the limbic system, leading to an increase in emotionality,
occur at a time when the prefrontal cortex is least able to balance emotion with calm
judgement, resulting in the mood swings typical of early and mid-adolescence and in
increased willingness to engage in risk taking behaviour. Vulnerability to risk taking
behaviour begins in early adolescence, peaks around the age of 15 and then slowly
decreases as the teenager matures.
To complicate matters further, the brain undergoes shifts in levels of key neurotransmitters
(the chemicals that support synaptic activity between brain cells), particularly serotonin and
dopamine. Serotonin is responsible for inhibiting behaviour and levels appear to drop
temporarily during mid-adolescence. At the same time, the brain appears to crave higher
levels of dopamine that are produced during the elevated arousal states related to
thrillseeking and substance abuse.
Most teenagers survive this period of confusion and develop into adults with brains that can
make well-informed decisions, retrieve important information, plan future activities and
control strong emotions. However, there is growing evidence to suggest that disruptions in
adolescent neurodevelopment contribute to the onset of several serious psychiatric
disorders. For example, some researchers theorise that the adolescent onset of
schizophrenia is caused by congenitally related malfunctions that occur during the synaptic
pruning process.
It appears that many of the difficulties associated with the teenage years are related to
biochemical and structural changes in the brain. However, this brain reorganisation is also
experience dependent; new connections are made, whilst other synapses are pruned, in
response to the teenager’s experiences.
This underscores the importance of ‘nurture’ in determining adolescent outcomes. For
example, some scientists now believe that ongoing verbal and physical abuse during
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adolescence may reinforce the development of less productive neuronal pathways that
interfere with emotional regulation in early adulthood.
These facts have widespread implications for educational and social policies, as well as for
parenting. Authoritative parenting that combines warmth and respect with clear
expectations of responsible behaviour is likely to strengthen the connections in the
adolescent brain that enable empathy and self-control.
Sexual maturation
One of the most obvious transitions of adolescence is the change from child to sexually
mature adult. Physical and sexual changes usually start at about the age of ten and
proceed at a rapid pace until sexual maturity.
The early signs of onset of puberty are:
• Girls:
o development of breasts (typically occurring at age 10.5 years)
o onset of menstrual period (typically between 12 and 13 years)
• Boys:
o descending of testicles (between 11 and 12 years)
o first sperm release (usually between 13 and 14 years).
The rate and timing of sexual maturity often has significant developmental consequences.
11 to 13 year old boys have 800% more testosterone than a toddler. In some boys the
excess testosterone of the early teenage years can convert to oestrogen leading to breast
swelling. This is a normal and temporary process, although it can lead to anxiety if boys are
unaware of the cause.
Children whose sexual maturation occurs at the same time as their peers are likely to
continue to develop competently and confidently. However, the early onset of puberty is
associated with adverse outcomes for both sexes. Early maturing girls are significantly
more likely to suffer from depression or develop eating disorders, whereas early and late
maturing boys are more likely to abuse alcohol and/or struggle academically. The late
onset of puberty in girls appears to play a protective function, however, as it has been
positively linked to higher academic achievement in girls.
Sexual maturation activates an interest in sex and romantic relationships; these may be
linked to certain risks, such as sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies.
Early romantic involvement also appears to trigger moodswings and may lead to
depression and low self-esteem.
However, research also suggests that adolescent romances, in common with adult
relationships can constitute important protective factors in terms of resilience and
wellbeing, providing healthy opportunities for some young people to gain additional
emotional support.
Intellectual development
While the dramatic shift in adolescent thought originally documented by Piaget has been
challenged by many, there is no question that teenagers think differently from both children
and adults.
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They develop the ability to form hypotheses and test thoughts through deductive and
inductive reasoning. This kind of thinking is qualitatively different from younger children and
enables young people to regulate their own thought processes.
During this time of development, many young people demonstrate amazing sophistication
in their ability to grasp complex concepts and reinvent them in creative and innovative
ways. This is due to improvements in the ‘executive functions’ that include a better active
working memory, more efficient information processing skills and greater self-inhibition.
Adolescents are also able to think more flexibly and utilise more sophisticated problem
solving strategies than younger children.
Adolescents’ newly found cognitive skills allow them to engage in ‘higher order’ thought
processes, such as critical analysis, logical reasoning and metacognition - the ability to
think about one’s own thinking. As teenagers mature, they become less egocentric and
better able to appreciate the perspectives of others.
However, these higher levels of rational thought are not achieved by everyone; many
individuals have difficulty understanding evidence that conflicts with their own personal
beliefs. In fact, many adults (of all ages) cease to show any development in higher order
thinking processes beyond the levels typically achieved by 12 year olds.
It would be easy to conclude that some young people are simply ‘smarter’ than others. On
the other hand, thinking skills may well develop in response to use, since experience
ultimately determines which neuronal connections become stronger and which eventually
die off. For example, logical/rational thought processes are routinely reinforced in maths
and the sciences, whilst critical analysis and abstract thinking may be strengthened in the
study of humanities. In this respect, adolescence becomes a period of specialisation, where
what you do directly affects what you know and how you think about it.
In this respect, positive intellectual development is directly related to high quality learning
experiences. It is likely that optimal levels of cognitive stimulation during adolescence
contribute to improved intellectual functioning in adulthood in the same way that
appropriate levels of stimulation during infancy determine improved developmental
outcomes in childhood.
Conversely, a lack of appropriate stimulation (or too much inappropriate stimulation) in
adolescence may reverse or impede otherwise positive childhood trajectories. Indeed,
evidence suggests that experiences in later childhood and adolescence are at least as
influential in determining adult outcomes as they are in infancy.
Psychosocial development
The reorganisation of thought in an adolescent’s brain development often results in
questioning – family, culture, society and ultimately themselves. Many adolescents
experience a ‘loss of innocence’ as their maturing intellect forces them to confront the
uncertainties of life and their own vulnerability. They may also go through an identity crisis
as they ‘try on’ a variety of roles and ideas as a way of understanding who they are and
how they best fit into society. In fact, teenagers may need to go through a period of
rebellion and experimentation to develop a strong sense of self and a high degree of
emotional autonomy.
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In a recent reworking of Erikson and Marcia’s ideas, Nurmi (2004) suggests that
adolescents need to learn how they fit into society on two levels: in terms of production and
reproduction:
Production involves learning how to contribute to society as an economically
independent individual. Teenagers need to assess their strengths, so they can make
decisions about education and careers.
Reproduction involves becoming able to produce and raise children. Individuals
must form romantic relationships and remain in them, as well as engage in the activities
required for maintaining a family and caring for children.
The ways in which adolescents meet these two general challenges defines the
individuation process (ie the emotional and economic separation from the childhood family)
and lays the foundation for adulthood and the formation of a stable identity.
According to Nurmi, four sequential processes are involved in adolescent psychosocial
development: channeling, selection, adjustment and reflection:
Channeling describes the socio-cultural environments that define the range of educational
and relationship opportunities that adolescents have to choose from that, in effect, channel
adolescents’ developmental trajectories. These environments consist of the social
expectations held by parents, teachers and peers who, in turn, set standards for behaviour
and determine the options adolescents have to choose from. Within this pre-defined (or
channelled) set of opportunities, adolescents then make decisions or:
Selections regarding their future life goals. Selections are informed by personal motives
and interests that determine the choices adolescents make regarding their education, peer
group and leisure time. Teenagers achieve specific outcomes that are accompanied by
feedback from parents, teachers and friends. This feedback is then used to make:
Adjustments to behaviour and goals, as adolescents continue to engage in educational
and personal activities. At various points during this process, adolescents make use of their
newly found meta-cognitive skills to:
Reflect on their characteristics, achievements and social position. These reflections then
inform the teenager’s evolving self-concept or identity.
It is clear that parents play a critical role in each one of these processes:
Parents lay the foundation for the channelling process through their beliefs and
values, as well as the educational opportunities they provide for their teenagers. For
example, mothers’ beliefs regarding traditional sex roles are significantly related to their
daughters’ educational choices and their career goals.
Parents are instrumental during the selection process, particularly when it comes to
their teenagers’ goal setting, which in turn, determines how they spend their time and who
they spend their time with. Parents also inform the strategies teenagers use to pursue
these goals. Parents who adopted a flexible approach to problem solving and consistently
provide positive emotional support were significantly more likely to have teenagers who
could flexibly solve problems and engage in effective planning.
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Through feedback, parents also play a critical role in helping their teenagers adjust
their attitudes and reformulate strategies, especially when it comes to coping with failure.
For example, authoritative parenting is associated with a problem-focussed approach to
dealing with failure, whereas more negative parental styles are linked with emotion-based
forms of coping. Parents also influence their teenager’s causal attributions regarding
success and failure High levels of achievement are related to adolescents’ ability to
attribute success to their own efforts rather than external factors. The ability to take credit
for one’s successes has its roots in a positive attachment history, as well as parents who
adopt an authoritative approach to caregiving.
Parents’ attitudes are key to reflection and identity formation. Adolescents’ beliefs
about themselves are linked to their perceptions of their parents’ attitudes towards them.
For example, teenagers’ self-concepts are more likely to be based on their parents’
attitudes towards them than on their actual school grades.
Peer influence
Although parents remain highly influential throughout their children’s lives, the role of peers
and the peer group becomes increasingly significant during early adolescence and remains
so throughout the teenage years. Within their peer group, teenagers seek emotional
support and learn how to develop and maintain relationships as well as experiment with
different personas.
The importance of the peer group appears to peak at the age of 15 and then gradually
diminishes. In addition, peer influence is consistently stronger amongst boys than it is girls.
Research suggests that peers are highly influential in terms of teenagers’ decisions
regarding risk taking behaviour, misconduct, drug abuse, sexual activity and gender
identification.
Peer approval may be a natural part of the individualisation process, as peers also provide
valuable feedback which adolescents use to inform their developing self-concepts. The
need for peer approval may well create tensions at home, however, as the values of the
peer group may be different to parents’ values.
The desire to ‘fit in’ also causes many teenagers to become hypersensitive to the opinions
of others and in some cases, extremely self-conscious. While self-consciousness is
common amongst both sexes, girls tend to rate themselves as more self-conscious than
boys, most likely because of a greater concern for interpersonal relationships. Whilst this
self-consciousness diminishes, for some young adults it may be enduring.
Despite this heightened reliance on peers for external validation, the power of the peer
group may not be as strong as some parents fear. Teenagers rarely use overt pressure to
force each other to engage in specific kinds of behaviours. Drug, tobacco and alcohol use
is more strongly predicted by the presence of peers and family members who model these
behaviours, rather than by any direct ‘pressure’ peers might use with each other.
Peers also influence each other through conversations that include gossip and teasing.
These conversations often reinforce the normative expectations of the group, but rarely
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contain any overt pressure for compliance. For example, Paxton et al (1999) found that
friendship cliques reinforced eating and dieting habits – not through direct pressure, but
through conversations regarding other people’s weight and comparisons of body shapes.
While these conversations predicted group members’ preoccupation with body image and
extreme weight loss behaviour, the authors noted that there appeared to be a certain
degree of self-selection amongst the teenage girls participating in these groups, suggesting
that they were likely formed by individuals who already shared similar values regarding
body image and appearance.
It therefore appears that adolescents actively seek out peers who share similar values to
their own, but it is also likely that parents play a critical role in this process (Malmberg,
1996; Ryan, 2001). Brown and his colleagues (1993) have identified a pattern of parenting
practices that suggests that while parents rarely choose their teenagers’ friends, parental
values and practices (especially those that encourage academic achievement and joint
parent-child decision making) indirectly determine their adolescents’ choice of peer group
or ‘crowd.’ Once these peer groups are established, parental values receive further
reinforcement through the activities of the group.
What teenagers need
The extent to which teenagers avoid the risks associated with adolescence and develop
emotionally, socially and intellectually is largely influenced by environmental factors that
include the quality of their home life and their relationship with their parents.
A recent literature review by the Policy Research Bureau (Research Report RR830,
Asmussen et al) highlighted that:
While peers are more influential during adolescence than they are during any other
point in child development, they are still not nearly as influential as parents are. In fact,
parenting processes moderate the effects peers have on their teenage children.
Experiences in adolescence are at least as influential in determining adult outcomes
as they are in infancy.
High quality educational and homelife experiences are key in determining positive
adolescent outcomes.
Attachment and adolescence
Attachment security in adolescence (Ainsworth, 1990; Kobak et al, 1991) is dependent on:
1. Primary caregivers being available for open communication.
2. Primary caregivers being accessible.
3. Primary caregivers providing protection and help if needed.
Whilst attachment in the early years is dependent on physical interactions with parents and
caregivers, in adolescence conversation becomes the vehicle through which attachment
security (or lack of it) is negotiated.
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Parenting style
Adolescents benefit from a set of parental practices that include both an authoritative style
of parenting and consistent age-appropriate supervision. Parental practices that are either
highly punitive or extremely lax are likely to put teenagers at risk, both developmentally and
in terms of behaviour.
Young people need what they have always needed from their parents: love, support,
encouragement, nurture, acceptance and attention. Parents can provide this by:
.
thinking about what things are like from their teenager’s point of view
.
taking action on their behalf, when asked
.
providing a positive role model and not operating double standards, ie behaving one
way and expecting teenagers to behave differently
.
listening without judgement or criticism and treating them with respect
.
noticing their positive qualities and telling them
.
encouraging them to join in family activities (without pressurising)
.
encouraging contact with other wise adults, eg family friend, older sibling, aunt or
uncle, grandparent
.
encouraging and accepting self expression, eg listening to/playing music, drama, art,
physical outlets
.
letting them know about other people’s needs and how to get along together.
Age-appropriate and respectful use of parental authority is also key to positive outcomes
during the teenage years. Whilst a key element of the parenting task during adolescence is
allowing and supporting the young person to take on a greater degree of independence,
this needs to happen within a framework that provides adequate levels of supervision and
guidance.
Parents can provide this framework by:
.
being aware of what their teenagers are doing, where they are and who they are
with
.
chatting and showing an interest in their teenager’s life: as well as showing
teenagers that their parents care, this keeps communication channels open and makes it
easier to resolve conflict when it arises
.
negotiating agreements and boundaries
.
reviewing boundaries in accordance with their teenager’s age
.
communicating clear values and expectations about responsible behaviour
.
communicating positive but realistic expectations about achievement in and out of
school
.
accepting that teenagers will make mistakes and helping them learn from their
mistakes without unduly criticising them
.
being willing to step in and provide a ‘safety net’ when teenagers get out of their
depth
.
accepting that teenagers are very likely to experiment with drugs, alcohol and sex
and talking to them about how to reduce the risks and stay safe
.
seeing the bigger picture: recognising that young people need appropriate
boundaries, even though they may fight against them
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.
separating the behaviour from the teenager and holding faith in their teenager’s
positive qualities, whilst limiting behaviour.
Supporting parents of teenagers
The teenage years are often a challenging time for parents, as they cope with new issues
and changes. Even parents who have felt effective and confident when their children were
younger may feel out of their depth as they struggle to keep up with a rapidly changing
reality and its impact on family life. For parents who have already experienced difficulties in
the parenting role or who are experiencing other stresses in their life, adolescence can
precipitate a crisis.
The Policy Research Bureau report highlighted the following key messages for service
providers and practitioners:
.
Universal services are needed to improve parents’ awareness of adolescent
development and the needs of teenagers.
.
Parents need and want to be able to access information about adolescence,
including brain development, and how they can best fulfil the important role they play in
their teenagers’ lives. Organisations such as Parentline Plus are particularly well suited to
provide all parents with general guidance and advice on the needs of adolescents through
their website, helpline and information materials.
.
.
Preventative support should be universally available at community level
.
Parents want universally offered preventative support, in the form of parenting
groups, especially during the transition to secondary school. Such support should offer a
mixture of advice, as well as provide parents with the opportunity to share their own
experiences.
.
Targeted support needs to be sufficiently resourced so that it can flexibly
address the needs of families with teenagers confronting very serious problems.
.
.
Different parents have different needs: a wide range of services needs to be
available to families with teenagers of all ages.
.
Parents benefit from a mixture of support, that includes:
o advice and information about adolescent development, including brain development, and
parenting strategies
o knowledge and understanding to build their confidence as a parent
o validation and the opportunity to share their concerns
o support to address issues and learn new skills.
.
Parents will not use services that they perceive as judgemental or
stigmatising: services should adopt a strength based approach, rather than highlight
inadequacies.
.
Services need to be accessible and friendly, provided in a way that is convenient,
preferably in the local community and at a time that is convenient for both working and
nonworking parents. In addition, parents are more likely to value support from non-
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judgemental professionals who have an established history of working with teenagers and
their families.
Resources to support work with teenagers
www.gotateenager.org.uk
Parentline Plus website to support parents of teenagers, including:
.
Information about teenagers and parenting
.
Message boards for parents
.
Question and answer section
.
Interactive e-learning modules that parents can undertake alone or with support to
help them understand the changes of adolescence and how they can provide effective
parenting support
.
Information about other Parentline Plus services such as the freephone helpline,
email support and parenting groups
www.studyofadolescence.org.uk
Young People in Focus website (formerly Trust for the Study of Adolescence or TSA) which
provides information and resources to helps individuals and organisations working with
young people and families to provide better services.
Adapted from Supporting Parents of Teenagers, Asmussen, Corlyon, Harauri, La Placa.
Policy Research Bureau, 2007.
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