"How to help your kids grow from childhood to adulthood"

by Angela Gibson LCSW 

As parents of adolescents we are watching our kids grow from childhood to adulthood and we may wonder if they will ever become functioning members of society.  We wonder if they will ever do household chores or take responsibility for themselves.  We worry about our kids driving, taking unnecessary risks, being pressured into doing things we have taught them are wrong, being responsible enough to ensure they get a good education or being ready to leave home when the time comes.

When we were growing up, it was thought that a child’s brain was finished developing at about age 6-7.  Now, researchers have found that the brain continues developing until about age 25!  The teenage brain is developing from the back to the front, from the “old brain” where basic life functions and survival are paramount, to the prefrontal cortex wherein lies our ability to think rationally, organize thoughts, weigh consequences, assume responsibility and interpret emotions. 

Therefore, our teenagers, to varying degrees, will struggle with the adult behaviors we are asking of them.  As a normal part of their development, they will seek thrills, thrive on peer acceptance, and have more difficulty dealing with and recovering from stress than adults do.  They find it a biological struggle to “shut down” at night to go to sleep and then troublesome to wake up in the morning.  They need more sleep than they have since they were babies or will need as adults.  They are driven to feel new sensations while they are unable to cognitively make good decisions about how to regulate those drives.  They struggle with delayed gratification and they have difficulty predicting far reaching consequences of their behavior.  Teens often lack emotional insight and misread the emotional cues of others.  All the while, many adults are treating them as if they were adults.

We can help our teenagers by recognizing that we often expect too much of them.  Here are a list of tips for raising healthy teens:

Develop good relationships by spending time with our teens, listening carefully, respecting their struggles and talking to them about appropriate behavior as well as modeling it for them.

Help them develop decision-making skills by offering opportunities to make decisions under our supervision. 

Help them understand emotional cues from others by talking about daily life experiences.

Keep them safe by staying involved in their lives and monitoring their likelihood of participating in high-risk behaviors.

Help them feel safe by maintaining boundaries of firm behavioral limits and consistent discipline. 

Help them develop independence by offering appropriate opportunities to practice and show they are ready.   

Help them learn from mistakes by guiding them using small steps rather than lecturing them when they are not cognitively able to comprehend what we are saying. 

Help them understand by explaining adult reasons for the decisions we make rather than saying “because I said so….”

Help them remain calm by approaching confrontations as potential learning situations rather than getting into a control battle.

Help them make good choices about friends by talking with them about what it means to be a friend and what qualities they want in a friend.

Help them feel trusting and loved by being patient, affectionate and by rewarding good behavior and good decisions.

Raising a teenager can be a frustrating yet exciting time.  Keep in mind that however frustrated and concerned we may feel at times, the vast majority of teenagers make it through adolescence and turn into wonderful adults!

Angela Gibson graduated from Louisiana State University with a Masters in Social Work.  She specializes in working with adolescents and adults.  She also specializes in Obsessive Compulsive Spectrum Disorders.  She co-owns a private practice with Mary Morel, LCSW and John Draeger, MD  IPPA, Inc., a company which manages the private practice of mental health professions of all types, produces continuing education seminars for professionals and contracts with companies to provide EAP services.  Angela is married to Steve Cottrell and we has one 13 years old daughter.