Issues in Adolescent
Development
Randy McKain, M.Ed.; L.S.M.
Dean of Student Life / Program Director of Youth Ministry
Oak Hills Christian College
What Defines an Adult?
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Age?
Responsibility?
Having a college degree?
Getting married?
Having a child
Having a job?
Financial independence?
The ability to make difficult choices?
Having a fully developed brain?
A combination of the above?
What is the average length of
adolescence for today?
A – 3 months
B - 5 years
C – 10 years
D – 15 years
E – it depends
An Academic Definition
Adolescence, is a psychosocial,
independent search for a unique identity
or separateness, with the end goal being
a certain knowledge of who one is in
relation to others, a willingness to take
responsibility for who one is becoming,
and a realized commitment to live with
others in community. (Clark, 2011)
Other Definitions
• Adolescence begins in biology and ends in
culture. (Santrock, 2002)
Adolescence is a journey from biological
adulthood to societal adulthood.
• Adolescence begins with the onset of
puberty and ends . . . sometime! (Walsh
2004)
Societal Effect of Adolescence
• 100 years ago – a three month period of
transition
• 50 years ago - a two to three year period (of
transition
• Current – ten to fifteen year period of
transition
What has happened?
The length of
adolescence has
expanded!
Let’s look at some of the
outcomes of this expansion
and its impact on society.
Changes
Adolescence is a cultural phenomenon.
• It did not exist until 100 years ago.
• There was youth, but not adolescence.
• Youth was merely another word for child.
• The age of adolescence has changed.
The gap continues to lengthen.
• In 1900 adolescence was an 18 month period in
which youth wrestled with their; identity,
autonomy and affinity.
• By the age of 16 to 17 most young people were
ready to take control of their lives.
• By the 1960's the end of adolescence was
generally accepted to be around age 18 to 19.
• The social revolution of the late 60's and early
70‘s further lengthened adolescence as college
age students lingered in these stage of life.
• In contemporary society, extended school
(graduate school) or economic stress (no job and
living at home) have become the next catalyst
for lengthening adolescence.
• Adolescence now lasts 15 years or more.
• This reality is both impacted by culture and
has a massive impact on culture.
• Few adults take the time or have the time to
guide someone for this length of time, so they
often feel abandoned and are left to their
own resources or to their peer group to
journey toward adulthood.
From Hurried to Abandonment
Since 1980, we have gone from hurried (child competence)
to abandonment (let someone else help teach and raise
them).
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Victimization (Elkind, Ties That Stress)
•
No one really needs us! (Mahedy & Bernhadi,
Generation Alone)
The adolescents in the 90’s are more isolated and more
unsupervised than any other generation. (Patricia Hersch, A
Tribe Apart)
The Result? Their own world or subculture!
Abandonment Issues
• Since adolescent’s sense emotional and relational
starvation, they seek a home where they know they
are welcome. (Clark, 2011)
• Adolescents believe that they have no choice, but to
create their own world to survive, they need to bind
together and burrow beneath the surface to create a
safe place. (Clark, 2011)
• Adolescents have responded to this sense of
abandonment by creating an underground society –
a subculture – the “world beneath.” (Clark, 2011)
Stages of
Adolescence
Early Adolescence
• Junior High or Middle School
• Ages 10-14
Middle Adolescence
• High School
• Age 14 to 17 or 19
Late Adolescence
• College & Young Adults
• Age 17 or 19 to mid-to-late 20's
Three Questions of Adolescence
1. The question of identity – “Who am I?”
2. The question of autonomy or power –
“What’s my unique contribution?” “Do I
matter?”
3. The question of affinity or belonging –
“Where do I belong and to whom?” “Does
anybody care?”
How did we
get here?
Influencers
• Parenting Styles
• Slower brain development
• Culture
Parenting
Styles
• Helicopter – hovers over student to protect
• Karaoke – want to be like the child
• Dry Cleaner – drop off and fix my child
• Volcano – erupts on minor unpredictable events
• Drop Out – the absentee parent
• Bullied – I give up
• Groupie – the child is the “rock star”
• Collaborative – I’ll work with you for the best
decision
Tim Elmore – Generation iY
Criteria for Adulthood?
• When we know who we are and are fairly comfortable with
whom we are.
• When we are willing to take responsibility for ourselves.
• When our brain has developed enough to enable us to make
sensible decisions.
• Financial independence
• Vocational commitment
• Living on their own.
Inhibitors
• Addictions / Substance abuse
• Abandonment
• Lack of mentors, adults, elders
• Brain development
Brain
Development and
its Developmental
Impact
Decision Making
Brain development takes place in
stages and is not fully complete in
adolescence. The frontal lobe,
especially the prefrontal cortex, is one
of the last parts of the brain to fully
mature, and undergoes dramatic
development during the teen years.
[i] See, e.g. Jay N. Giedd et al., “Brain Development During Childhood and Adolescence: A Longitudinal MRI Study,” 2 Nature Neuroscience
861 (1999); Jay N. Giedd, “Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Adolescent Brain,” Adolescent Brain Development:
Vulnerabilities and Opportunities, edited by Ronald E. Dahl and Linda Patia Spear, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol.
1021, 2004; Nitin Gogtay et al., “Dynamic Mapping of Human Cortical Development During Childhood Through Early Adulthood,” 101
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 8174 (2004); Paul Thompson, “Time-Lapse Imaging Tracks Brain Maturation from Ages
5 to 20,” National Institute of Mental Health and the University of California, Los Angeles, May 2004.
It is this “executive” part of the
brain that regulates decision
making, planning, judgment,
expression of emotions, and
impulse control. This region of the
brain may not be fully mature
until the mid 20s.
[i] See, e.g. Jay N. Giedd et al., “Brain Development During Childhood and Adolescence: A Longitudinal MRI Study,” 2 Nature
Neuroscience 861 (1999); Jay N. Giedd, “Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Adolescent Brain,” Adolescent Brain
Development: Vulnerabilities and Opportunities, edited by Ronald E. Dahl and Linda Patia Spear, Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1021, 2004; Nitin Gogtay et al., “Dynamic Mapping of Human Cortical Development During
Childhood Through Early Adulthood,” 101 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 8174 (2004); Paul Thompson,
“Time-Lapse Imaging Tracks Brain Maturation from Ages 5 to 20,” National Institute of Mental Health and the University of
California, Los Angeles, May 2004.
Maturation Occurs from Back to Front of the Brain
Images of cortical gray matter density in 13 healthy children scanned longitudinally every 2
years for 8-10 years (age 4 -21)
Gogtay et al. (2004) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
Emotions
The limbic system, which helps to
process and manage emotion, is also
developing during adolescence.
Despite the fact that the limbic
system is not yet fully mature, it
stands in for the underdeveloped
frontal lobe to process emotions.
Rebecca L. McNamee, “An Overview of the Science of Brain Development,” University of Pittsburgh, May 2006.
This causes adolescents to
experience more mood swings and
impulsive behavior than adults.
Rebecca L. McNamee, “An Overview of the Science of Brain Development,” University of Pittsburgh, May 2006
So,
Teenagers make decisions using the emotional
center of the brain, rather than the pre-frontal
cortex.
• Fight, flight or freeze
• Impulsive decisions
• Hot and cold cognition
Feelings
Levels of dopamine production shift
during adolescence, which is a
chemical produced by the brain that
helps link actions to sensations of
pleasure; its redistribution can raise
the threshold needed for stimulation
that leads to feelings of pleasure.
Linda Patia Spear, “Neurodevelopment During Adolescence,” Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms in
Psychopathology, Cambridge University Press, Nov. 2003.
As a result, activities that once were
exciting to youth may not be exciting as
they enter adolescence, and they may seek
excitement through increasingly risky
behavior.
[i] Linda Patia Spear, “Neurodevelopment During Adolescence,” Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms in Psychopathology,
Cambridge University Press, Nov. 2003.
• Drugs and alcohol
• Thrill seeking
• PTSD and soldiers
So,
• Drugs & alcohol and other addictions can mimic
dopamine production.
• As activities become less exciting drugs, alcohol and
risk taking can replace the feelings they once had
from positive events.
• The “need” for the substance continues.
• More is needed to prompt dopamine to be released
into the body to feel pleasure.
Risk taking
• Emotional decisions are made in a different
part of the brain than cognitive or intellectual
decisions.
• The brain system responsible for logical
reasoning and basic information processing
matures earlier (back of brain) than the
system responsible for self regulation and the
coordination of emotions and thinking.
An Immature Brain =
Less Brakes on the “Go” System
(Winters)
Peer Groups
Because of the changes in the
emotional and decision-making
centers of the brain, adolescents
behave differently in circumstances of
“hot cognition” (situations of high
emotional context) and “cold
cognition” (situations of lower
emotional context).
A teen surrounded by friends in a
loud, stimulating environment
may make a more emotionallybased decision versus a teen in a
calm, quiet environment with her
parents, who may make a more
intellectual, consequence-based
decision.
• Decision making for adolescents is
heavily influenced by context and cluster
groups.
• An adolescent’s intellectual capabilities
can be as developed as adults; they are
capable of making reasoned decisions
and often will make better decisions than
adults.
However . . .
When youth are placed in environments where
they may be susceptible to peer pressure,
where there is pressure to make a decision
quickly, where there is an opportunity for riskseeking behavior, and/or where there is high
emotionality, they have increased potential for
their judgment to be driven by emotion rather
than by reason.
• This may explain why youth are often arrested for violent
acts in groups.
• Or it may indicate the power of the need to do whatever it
takes to belong to a cluster group.
So,
• Many crimes committed by adolescents are done in
groups with other teens and are not premeditated.
(Lawrence Steinberg, Ph.D. Temple University)
• Illustrates the need for “de-escalation,” the need to
remove the audience, and change the environment
for teenagers, so they can make informed choices.
• Need for coping and decision making skills.
• Illustrates the need for a one-on-one mentoring and
intergenerational relationships with adolescents.
Guide by the side, not a sage on the stage!
Trauma
Youth who are victims of emotional
or physical trauma may suffer from
a delay in brain maturation because
of the disruption in brain
development.
[Rebecca L. McNamee, supra, note 2.
So . . .
• When trauma is combined with drugs and alcohol,
it’s a ineffective way of making a decisions and
causes developmental delays.
• Adolescents may “use” drugs and alcohol to mask,
reduce or control “feelings” that they don’t know
how to manage.
• Heavy substance abuse can affect future decision
making and brain development.
Hazards and costs of alcohol
and drug abuse
• 40 percent of those who started drinking at age 13 or
younger developed alcohol dependence later in life.
Ten percent of teens who began drinking after the age
of 17 developed dependence.
• The overwhelming majority of youth (74% of 8-17
year-olds; 74% of 8-12 year-olds; 74% of 13-17 yearolds) cite their parents as the primary influence in
their decisions about whether they drink alcohol or
not.
• Underage drinking costs the United States more than
$58 billion every year.
• The 25.9% of underage drinkers in the United States
who are alcohol abusers and alcohol dependent drink
47.3% of the alcohol that is consumed by all
underage drinkers.
• Those who are most vulnerable to excessive alcohol
and drug abuse are young adults between the ages of
18-25.
• Fifty percent of U.S. homicides are alcohol
related.
• Over all, about three-quarters of all prisoners
in 1997 were involved in alcohol or drug
abuse in some way in the time leading up to
their current offense.
• If an adolescent has his first drink before the
age of 15 there is a 55% chance of developing
chemical use problems as an adult.
(Falkowski, 2008)
• If an adolescent has his or her first drink at
the age of 21 or 22 the chances of developing
chemical use concerns as an adult drops to
10-15%. (Falkowski, 2008)
So what?
• Alcohol and drug abuse has many legal, health
and safety factors.
• Delaying alcohol use until age 20 or 21 has
significant benefits on one’s life.
• When it comes to adolescent brains, research
suggests that drugs and alcohol can cause
permanent damage to the adolescent brain.
(Walsh, 2004 & Winters, 2009)
• Toxic substances damage the brain and
cause holes similar to taking a chunk out
of our brain with an ice cream scoop.
(Amen, 2004)
• Toxic substances (teratogens) include;
drugs, alcohol, caffeine and nicotine.
(Amen,2004)
• When our brain works right we work
right, when our brain is troubled we are
troubled. (Amen,2004)
• The brain will begin to heal itself once we
stop using toxic substances. (Amen,
2004)

Brain Development
Volum
e
RATE OF CHANGE
Adolescence
Metabolis
m
Myelination
Blood
Flow
Receptors
Synaptic
Refinemen
t
1
Prenatal
Tapert & Schweinsburg (2005)
2
7
16
Post-birth Age
30
Susceptibility to Alcohol
• Adolescents are over-sensitive to damage and
under-sensitive to the warning signs of abuse.
(Walsh, 2004)
• It takes an adolescent drinker a lot more
alcohol before sedation and motor
coordination problems take effect By then
they can be dangerously drunk. (Walsh, 2004)
Percentages of Past Year Alcohol Use Disorder
(Abuse or Dependence) Among Adults Aged 21 or
Older, by Age of First Use (SAMHSA, 2005)
20
16
15
15
Fewer Problems in Those
Who Start Later
%
9
10
4.2
5
0
<12 yrs
12-14 yrs
15-17 yrs
18-20 yrs
Age Started Drinking
2.6
21+ yrs
So . . .
• Adolescents who drink together substantially
increase their probability of making a poor
decision. (Binging)
• When with a group, the ability of a teen to
think for himself or herself is compromised.
Summary
It takes longer to grow up.
The upcoming generation seems to have
been abandoned by our society.
Our young adults don’t know
who they are or what to do.
Our young people struggle to make
healthy decisions and choices.
They don’t know where or who to turn to.
Models of Human
Development
What can we
do?
Help Teens Answer these Questions
1. The question of identity – “Who am I?”
2. The question of autonomy or power –
“What’s my unique contribution?” “Do
I matter?”
3. The question of affinity or belonging –
“Where do I belong and to whom?”
“Does anybody care?”
Developmental Assets™
(Search Institute, 2004)
Developmental assets are positive
experiences, relationships, opportunities,
and personal qualities that young people
need to grow up healthy, caring,
competent, and responsible.
The Power of Assets
(Search Institute, 2004)
 Reduce and protect from risk-taking behaviors
 Promote thriving behaviors
 Boost student achievement
 Engage a community in care the for
adolescents. (It takes a village)
The Power of Assets to Protect
70
60
50
0-10 Assets
11-20 Assets
21-30 Assets
31-40 Assets
40
30
20
10
0
Alcohol Use
Violence
Drug Use
Sexual Activity
“Building relationships with young
people is at least as successful in
increasing their academic performance
as any other single documented
strategy.” (Search Institute)
Assets for Ages 5-12
Counseling Helps
Developmental Folder
Assets for Ages 12-18
Counseling Helps
Developmental Folder
Practical Tools for
Building Positive
Relationships
with Others
1. Go to them.
 School events
 Sporting events
 Other extracurricular activities
 Community events
 Their job
2. Create a conversation.
 S chool
 L ikes
 I nterests
 R ules & relationships
Crucial Conversations – Joseph Grenny
• Be available, as best you can for the crucial
moment of disproportionate influence.
• My interpretation - Be ready to talk, at the
right time, in the right place regarding
“tough” issues.
3. Be real
 Apologize
 Know your boundaries and limitations
 Keep your promises and know what you can
promise.
 More is caught than taught
 No one cares how much you know until they
know how much you care.
4. Ninety minutes that can make a
difference in the life of an
adolescent.
 15 minutes = one telephone call
 15 minutes = three notes of encouragement
 60 minutes = one personal visit
There is no word in a
teenager’s vocabulary more
enjoyed than the sound of
his or her name.
(Mayo)
Rules without
relationships lead to
rebellion.
(McDowell)
Resource List
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Hurt 2.0 by Chap Clark, 2011
Why Do they Act that Way?, David Walsh, 2004
The Price of Privilege, Madeline Levine, 2006
Generation iY, Tim Elmore,
The Adolescent Journey, Amy Jacobson, 2011
Growing Leaders Website, Tim Elmore
Search Institute
A Tribe Apart, Patricia Hersch