What Science Can Tell You About Raising A Teenager

Sarcasm, incomprehensible grunts, inscrutable choices in music, food, friends. Yes, it’s official: You’re raising a teenager.

It’s easy to make fun of teen behavior and give them a hard time about it. It can be a lot more difficult to make a good faith effort to understand them.

“Teens usually don’t have a good PR service,” explained Michele Borba, parenting expert and author of UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World. “All you hear about are the bad things going on.”

But a growing body of literature and research is coming closer and closer to better explaining the teenage mind, the source of all their bizarre moods, habits, actions, and words. Better yet, experts and researchers can offer advice about the best ways to manage their seemingly unpredictable changes and behaviors. Here are several ways teenagers differ greatly from adults, and what parents can do about it:

Sleep deprivation is common for teens

“According to all of the research, they’re very sleep deprived,” Borba said. “We also know that their melatonin levels are different from ours.”

She even describes teens as if they’re in a different time zone; their bodies simply expect them to sleep in later than adults do, and early school schedules don’t help. Short of lobbying your school board for a later start to the day, there’s little you can do about this as a parent.

However, you should still help your kids develop the best sleep patterns possible. Parents should discourage the use of energy drinks by teens, which often keep them up later than is healthy and perpetuate the cycle of sleep deprivation.

There’s also ample evidence indicating that TV, computer and phone screens all emit blue light that makes it difficult to fall asleep. If at all possible, teens should avoid using these electronics at least an hour before bed. It might be best to schedule that time for any books they have to read, rather than doing computer research.

They’re more stressed than you think

Lack of sleep contributes to another challenge teens struggle with: stress.

“Their stress is absolutely higher than yours,” says Borbas.

According to a survey from the American Psychological Association, teens during the school year are, on average, more stressed than adults. It’s important that parents acknowledge this and realize that their kids aren’t exaggerating the pressure they feel.

“Watch carefully for signs that they’re not happy,” said Vivian Seltzer, professor emerita of human development and behavior at University of Pennsylvania.

If you see behavior you’re worried about, her advice is simple: “Ask. Some of the kids will answer you right away, some of them won’t. Now if you see a really depressed kid, you’ve got to hop to it, and maybe get professional help.”

“Most parents aren’t aware of [the high levels of teen stress],” Borbas pointed out. “What they haven’t done is teach them how to cope.”

Each teenager experiences stress in different ways, and they’ll relieve stress in their own way. But Borbas said that yoga is a very popular stress relieving activity for girls, and boys can benefit from workout routines that they prefer. Journaling and listening to music are also popular methods kids use to unwind.

“What helps a teen may be different than what helps you,” Borbas said, so it’s important to talk to your child and figure out what works for them.

“It’s always good to be normally engaged with them,” added Seltzer, “but not to have them feel like you’re looking over every shoulder or commenting on everything they do.”

Watch out for teenage risk-taking

Everyone knows that teens are often obsessed with fitting in and spending time with their peers. But this drive to be accepted, while healthy to some extent, can be dangerous when kids are pressured into dangerous activity.

Developmental psychologists believe that adolescent brains are underdeveloped and are prone to underestimate and dismiss the risks of certain behaviors, like having unsafe sex, using drugs and alcohol, and driving.

Teens are also suffer greater stress when they face social exclusion; this reaction tends to weaken as we mature. But as teens, humans are extremely susceptible to peer pressure, because the emotional price of resisting it is in fact very high, which may be difficult for parents to understand.

Different children will be at different levels of risk, so Borba advises parents to be aware of their child’s likelihood of behaving in dangerous ways. Children who rarely put themselves in harm’s way can be given more latitude and freedom. Kids who are more at risk require much closer supervision.

“If your teen’s safety is in jeopardy, you’re going to go to 24-hour Mach-10 surveillance mode,” Borba said.

She also suggests creating a code with teens, something simple they can text (such as “123”) or say on the phone, so they can alert you that they’re in an unsafe situation. That way, they can ask you to come pick them up without potentially embarrassing themselves in front of their peers.

And if they do call or text, drop everything and pick them up, no questions asked. If you pry or punish them for letting you know they were in a risky situation, they probably won’t do it the next time.

They develop at different rates

Seltzer points out that there’s a lot of variation in the way adolescents develop physically, cognitively and emotionally. While most people end up maturing to comparable levels, teenagers develop along each of these lines at their own paces — so you might see a 13-year-old who looks like an adult yet has trouble keeping up in school, or a 17-year-old who still looks like a child but is at the top of her class.

“It’s a very individual process, that they all go through together, almost next to each other,” Seltzer said.

Because they’re so oriented toward their peers in these years, it’s likely you’ll find your teenagers comparing themselves to others. It’s important to communicate that differences in maturity are common (though girls tend to mature a bit earlier), and that they are likely to go through many more changes as they reach adulthood.

“You have to go through the first, oh about six years [of adolescence] before that settles out about who you are,” she said.

Teens are striving for autonomy

It’s completely natural and expected that as kids grow older, they’ll form ties and engage in activities away from the home and family. This is a part of growing up.

“They spend a lot of time learning to grow up by themselves,” said Seltzer, “and comparing with [peers] helps you understand yourself.”

But this process can be painful for parents who see their kids pulling away from them, particularly if they feel helpless as their kids struggle.

“You want to stay involved, but you also want to respect that your child’s growing up,” Borba said.

How do you stay involved? Borba recommends relying on shared interests and commonalities that you still have and finding a way to enjoy them together. Doing yoga, taking runs, going to sports games, joining reading groups, even walking the dog together consistently can be fun ways to make sure you’re engaged in one another’s lives.

Photo credit: Seth Dickens via Flickr