What To Expect When You Are Expecting An Adolescent

This was the title of a talk that I went to Thursday evening at my children’s school. It was presented by Associate Professor Nicholas Allen from University of Melbourne. He is a clinical psychologist working in the Faculty of Medicine.

I am four or so years of expecting my first adolescent, but I found his talk illuminating and stimulating about the changes my children will go through and what my role needs to be through this challenging time.

To illustrate the challenges that adolescence brings with it, Allen introduced to the audience what he called “The Health Paradox of Adolescence”. During adolescence the body is at its most healthiest and resilient stage in it’s life, yet overall morbidity and mortality rates increase from childhood by over 200%. The primary causes for this are all based around issues of control of their behaviour and emotions (suicide, depression, violence, alcohol abuse etc).

Professor Allen listed the what we could expect in typical behaviour changes of our adolescents as follows:

Experimenting with development of their “own” identity.

Greater testing of rules and limits.

Increased focus on body image, appearance and clothes.

Increased concern on themselves, alternating between high expectations and poor self esteem.

Increased moodiness and spending time in their room.

Increased attention to and influence by friends.

Decreased amount of affection shown towards parents, including rudeness and irritability.

Elevated agitation because of increased difficulty in school work and friendships.

Realisation that parents are not perfect and identification of their faults.

Although this does sound all quite negative, Allen spoke positively of the reasons why this occurred and how it is a natural part of the maturation process into adulthood.

Allen then had this advice for what families could do:

Be honest and direct about difficult issues. (Alcohol, drugs, smoking, sex, depression, suicide)

Promote family time.

Get to know your teens friends. Insist if you have to.

Most importantly, develop a relationship that promotes your teenagers talking to you.

Sometimes,

Pick your battles.

I found these practical steps very a great guide future navigation of the turbulent waters of adolescence, but it was his last slide that I want to make sure that I remember:

Remember to ENJOY your adolescent.

Allen noted that adolescents can remind parents that there is new things to explore, some risks to be taken and that life doesn’t have to be the same all the time. So this period provides opportunities to find some new things to do together with your adolescent.

Allen then went on further after this to talk about a characteristic of families that I very much needed to reminded of:

A happy family will have a 5:1 ratio of positive statements to negative statements.

My contribution to this ratio needs to be improved at the moment. I remember hearing about this ratio a few years ago and trying to work with it, but have definitely fallen short with it of late. The great thing about this ratio when it is put into practice, is that it means when that one negative statement is said, it has much greater impact because it is less frequent. It is far easier to ignore the “you need to do this” or “stop doing that” if there has been a constant flow of them.

I can also see how creating the positive family base with the positive statement ratio, will be incredibly helpful when we hit the challenging period of adolescence.

Professor Allen took many questions and answered them with both theory and practical solutions. I very much appreciated him taking the time out to speak at the school and am sure that I will be re-reading this post in a few years time, looking for tips on how to deal with my gorgeous adolescent!

Have you experienced adolescence yet in your house and if so, is it as tricky as it sounds?

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10 Comments so far

Thank you for this post. I am heading into adolescent parenting now.
I can already see big changes.

tiffs last blog post..When youâ€™re down to the wire.

Thanks PlanningQueen. Our first adolescent is about 7 or 8 years away. It scares the hell out of me sometimes :-0 I’ve bookmarked this post to read whenever I start to wish I could stop my kids getting older.

Journeyers last blog post..Living with a chronic illness

I’m finding that the girls are up, down and all over the place. Keeping things calm and on an even keel at home certainly helps. Being willing to make time for them whenever they want to talk is the biggest thing, I think. The girls both know that I am there if they need to talk something through.

I have had to put my foot down with some of the mood swings though. I have had to make it very clear that they are not allowed to take their bad moods out on family members. It got to the point where I wanted to run away from home lol

Bettinas last blog post..More please?

I’m still 8 or so years away from being the parent of adolescents, but I taught 13 year olds for most of my 10 years in the classroom and they are my favourite age to teach (no one believes me, but it’s true!). They are really, very self absorbed, and I found that letting them tell their stories was really valuable because that allowed them to blossom. I am quite certain that being a parent to adolescents will be very different that a teacher of that age, but the enjoying-them part is crucial, I think so many kids feel very unlovable, which is heartbreaking.

mamasutras last blog post..In honour of the fact that I did not have a migraine

Tiff - Happy to hear you found it useful.

Journeyer - I know exactly what you mean. As cliched as it sounds, they really do grow up too fast!

Bettina - Sounds like you are managing it well. Allen spoke often of the need for limits and rule (fair of course!) and how that this actually helps them get through this time as well.

Mamautra - It would be beautiful to see kids blossom! Allen was really very positive towards adolescents and encourage parents to think this way too.

I have a 15 yr old and I needed to read this. I need to learn to enjoy him more - the 1:5 ratio I definitely need to work on.
Thanks for sharing.

Trishs last blog post..Flickr Friday - Trees

I am way too scared to think of the teenage years…. puberty x 2 scares the hair off my head!! But I will file this away for later.

I do however love the 5:1 ratio… that is a genius notion. So simple yet so powerful. I really need to work on my ratio BIG time…

it’s funny I have been looking for interesting parenting books in the library to try and learn some new strategies to combat on going issues and I never seem to be able to find anything useful - but then I come here and in one sentence you do what the whole book I read last week didn’t… give me a starting point!

thanks!

katefs last blog post..I make your day??

I’m finally de lurking and commenting, its very bad that I am over here all the time and never commenting. I love your blog, I’ve tagged you with a “make my day award” if you want to play along.

jodies last blog post..So many choices…

I read with great interest because my godson will be an adolescent in the next few years and I hope to be back in the country for those very important years. I remember my teenage years with joy. And I firmly believe that it was the role my parents played. I was given the responsibility of being freed to grow into who and what I wanted. I came from a very loving and caring family home with warm and loving friends. I was taught the importance of honesty at a very young age which meant I didn’t have to hide anything from my parents or friends and could talk to them about anything at an early age. Put trust in your children, make them understand what that trust is and what it means to them and to the family unit and to respect themselves first and foremost. Speak to them about trust and respect between their friends and the importance of sharing their highs and lows with their friends as well. The bond between teenagers is important and through showing empathy and mutual understanding at this important age they will grow into well rounded and respected young adults.

[...] in June I posted about a talk that I went to at my children’s school on What To Expect When Expecting An Adolescent. I found the talk informative and an glimpse as to what I have coming in the next few [...]

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