As a parent you cannot avoid it. Your child will go through puberty at some point. Suddenly there is nothing left of the sweet, docile child. If you say something, you get a big mouth and you get thrown at your feet for interfering in everything. Are they doing this to harass you? No! That is absolutely not true. Your child is slowly changing from a child into an adult. And that doesn’t happen without a fight. A lot is happening on both a physical and mental level.
- Adolescents
- Puberty
- Girls
- Boys
- Puberty and the adolescent brain: different developments
- Hormonal developments
- Pituitary
- Hypothalamus
- Physical developments
- Girls
- Boys
- Growth spurt
- Cognitive developments
- Social and emotional development
- Sleep pattern
- Adolescent brain
- Development
- Developments in various age groups
- Young people between 10 and 14 years old
- Young people between 14 and 16 years old
- Young people between 16 and 22 years old
- Finally
Adolescents
Until recently you could say a lot to your child, and suddenly it happened. ,Human, don’t get involved!, or ,Stop whining!, could just be a few comments thrown at you from your son or daughter. Your sweet little child is no longer here. It has grown into a full-fledged teenager. Only this teenager is not yet an adult. It’s right in between: it no longer belongs to little children, but also not yet to adults. To put this into an expression: it is between a napkin and a tablecloth. But even though your child is a teenager, he or she is still a sweet person deep in his or her heart. Some people go through puberty more than others. Not only the changed behavior (mental) is a sign of puberty. Changes also occur physically.
Puberty
Puberty? What is that actually? And do boys and girls enter at the same time? Puberty is something that all young people go through, both boys and girls. During this period they change from child to adult and this involves a lot. But boys and girls do not enter puberty at the same time.
Girls
Girls generally reach puberty earlier than boys. The first symptoms of puberty in girls can begin between the ages of eight and thirteen.
Boys
Boys, unlike girls, generally enter puberty later. This often happens to them between the ages of nine and fourteen.
Puberty and the adolescent brain: different developments
During puberty, an adolescent undergoes many different developments, all of which originate in the adolescent brain. Unfortunately, the developments do not take place simultaneously.
So you have:
- hormonal developments
- physical developments
- cognitive developments
- social-emotional developments
Hormonal developments
A lot changes in an adolescent’s body under the influence of hormones. Both the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus are responsible for this.
Pituitary
The pituitary gland – located in the middle of the head, below the brain – produces the hormones. The pituitary gland produces estrogen in girls and testosterone in boys.
Hypothalamus
The hypothalamus is the endocrine organ that actually starts everything. The pituitary gland receives the very first signal from the hypothalamus that puberty has started. This is often around the age of 10. Then the maturation of the genus begins.
Physical developments
First, physical developments towards adulthood take place that an outsider cannot yet see. Further physical developments come a little later.
Girls
For girls, their first menstruation marks invisible physical development. On average, girls experience their first menstruation around the age of 11 or 12. As soon as the breasts start to grow – so the visible physical development – you often hear people say that girls turn into women. Some girls don’t like the fact that their breasts are getting bigger and keep growing. This often makes them feel uncomfortable and boys can make it even more uncomfortable through comments. In addition to their breasts becoming larger, they also grow body hair in the form of armpit and pubic hair. There is also a change in muscle and fat tissue. In girls, fat is stored in several places: buttocks, thighs and hips.
Boys
But things are also changing in boys, but this is not visible for girls! The first physical development in boys that is not visible to an outsider is their first ejaculation (around the age of 13). At a certain point their previously small penis also becomes larger. There is a change in smell. Boys may start to smell more like sweat. Hair also starts to grow in boys – visible physical development. In addition to armpit and pubic hair, they also have to deal with facial hair. And their voice changes. The initially quite high voice changes into a heavier voice, also known as a beard in the throat. Boys also experience a change in muscle and fat tissue. Boys become more muscular and store fat around their waist.
Growth spurt
For example, a girl may have always been the smallest in the class, but suddenly she becomes the tallest in the class. This occurs in girls around the age of 12 and 13. That is the moment when they undergo a huge growth spurt. This happens a little later for boys. They experience a growth spurt around the ages of 14 and 15. The little boy then suddenly becomes a big boy! In total, growth continues for about 4 years until they have really grown. Unfortunately, their brains do not grow at that time!
Did you know that, for example, the feet grow first and then the legs? This is also the case with the poor. First the hands get bigger and then the arms.
Cognitive developments
Cognitive developments relate to thinking and doing or not doing something. A young person often acts first and thinks about the consequences later, while many adults think first and then act. As a young person gets older, he/she first thinks before acting.
Social and emotional development
These developments are associated with, among other things, self-image and self-confidence, but also relate to emotions. Adolescents can experience widely varying emotions. In addition, they sometimes do not know how to behave (adopt an attitude).
Sleep pattern
Suddenly your child wants to go to bed a lot later. As a parent, you want your child to get enough sleep. This means they perform better at school. But your child prefers to go to bed late and sleep in late. If he/she has to go to school, that is not convenient. From the age of fifteen, your son or daughter suddenly realizes in his or her brain much later that it is time to go to sleep. The biorhythm shifts. As a parent, you probably don’t like it when your child sleeps in for ages at the weekend, but allow this anyway. During sleep, your teenage son or daughter processes everything he/she has experienced that day. Sleeping for a long time is therefore good for development!
Adolescent brain
The process that young people have to go through to eventually become adults is not easy. Sometimes as a parent you are completely in the dark and you understand absolutely nothing about your child. Your son or daughter does things that you are not happy with at all:
- experimenting with alcohol and drugs
- riding irresponsibly fast on a moped and without a helmet
- suddenly pay extreme attention to the figure (because other girls are also that thin)
A negative self-image can also cause them to do strange things. For example, a girl thinks she has floppy ears. She then decides to glue her ears to her head! This drives her parents mad.
Development
The brain of adolescents is not fully developed until the age of 25. Young people who are not yet that age do not actually know where their limits are. Although they don’t think so themselves, they do need their parents. A parent who forbids something and is therefore strict in the eyes of an adolescent is actually acting responsibly. To keep the peace, you would like to agree with your teenage child on everything, but it is better not to always do that.
Young people up to the age of 15 find it very difficult, even difficult, to perform multiple tasks at the same time, even though they would like to do so. It is the supporting role of parents to pay close attention to this. This can be done very easily by agreeing on clear times when the teenager can play games, use the computer and when homework is done. Although teenagers do not always like this, of course.
Adolescents have no empathy for fellow adolescents. Not because they don’t want to, but this part has not yet been developed in the brain of teenagers. Just like the imagination. They cannot put themselves in the shoes of others. Your own ,I, is central.
A strict but loving upbringing: teenagers thrive better on that. Parents would be better off imposing clear rules and continuing to apply these imposed rules! Even if your teenage son or daughter doesn’t like those rules at all, they will later find out that you did the right thing as a parent.
In brief:
- keep setting clear boundaries and explain why you want that
- provide a clear structure, but also be loving
- Do not drink or smoke in the presence of your child if you do not want your child to smoke or drink, because seeing you smoke also makes you smoke.
- let go of your child; After all, the intention is for them to become independent
- Even though your child is slowly pulling away from you, remain involved in his/her life. Show interest in the sport and do fun things together
- Remember that you still have influence on your child, even if you don’t think so
Developments in various age groups
There is a difference in the development of young people in terms of age. This is divided into certain age categories.
Young people between 10 and 14 years old
- Children aged 10 to 14 break away from their parents and therefore socialize more with their peers. This detachment from parents is not always pleasant for the parents, but it is extremely necessary for the young people.
- They may seem very strong, but they can often react very emotionally to anything and everything.
- If there’s one thing they absolutely don’t want, it’s standing out.
- Young people in this age category do not think about the future, but live in the here and now.
- As a parent, you probably recognize that your child also wants to participate in the latest trends and therefore acts immediately: the here and now.
Young people between 14 and 16 years old
- Young people between the ages of 14 and 16 no longer have to join the crowd as necessary. They create their own ,I,, but are not mentally stable.
- Mood swings are common.
- Unfortunately, they see no danger and take quite a lot of risks and love to experiment with, for example, drink and drugs. However, they do think more than young people in the 10-14 age category.
- As a parent, you probably recognize that your child is suddenly very sad because a good friend suddenly wants nothing to do with him/her anymore. Rode? Something was said about that person that should have been left unsaid.
Young people between 16 and 22 years old
- Young people between the ages of 16 and 22 are suddenly thinking about the future.
- They are less concerned with peers and therefore no longer necessarily need to belong to a specific group.
- They become more and more sure of themselves. This manifests itself in no longer putting oneself down (a positive view of oneself).
- They are much more emotionally stable than young people in the 14-16 age group.
- They are responsible for themselves.
- As a parent, you probably recognize that your son or daughter suddenly stops talking (while an exam period is approaching) when someone asks if he/she is going to do something fun.
As a parent, you sometimes don’t like it that your child tells you (almost) nothing and is away more than at home. It is not a problem at all if your child meets more with peers and expresses his or her heart there. They learn from each other how to use their social skills.
Finally
All those developments that an adolescent goes through are not always fun, for both the adolescent and the parent! As a parent, remember (even if it is sometimes unbearable at home) that your son or daughter does not do it on purpose/consciously. The growth from child, through puberty, to adult is simply a difficult process.