Angst-Ridden Teenagers: They Have an Excuse!

As soon as you've passed the age of 22 or 23, it's becomes all too easy to hate teenagers. It's almost universal; some people don't even admit to having teenage kids on their internet dating profile, if they can help it! Sure, you used to be a teenager yourself (whether it be 5 or 50 years ago), but now you can hardly understand what they're about. Really, they're just people, after all. Kids can act like proper human beings. And of course adults can, too. So why do teenagers feel the need to live in a world of silliness, sloth, and irresponsibility?

Okay, okay I can be fair. Of course not all teenagers fit that precise description; some are responsible, respectful, and great to be around. But the truth is, most of us can pinpoint the point in our lives when we behaved our very worst. And chances are that point fell between the ages of 13 and 20.

If you're the parent of a difficult teenager, the following revelation may fill you with relief or it might fill you with distress: teenagers have a physical excuse for acting like semi-humans for five to eight years of their lives. And it's not just that they're "still figuring things out." The behavior of kids of a certain age is in a large part dictated by their biology. And that biology, for some reason, tells teenage kids to do a lot of things that their parents find insufferable.

Laziness

Is getting your teenage child out of bed in the morning like pulling teeth (something that, when they act like this, you wish you could do literally)? It's not just because they're lazy or want to make you angry. It's also partly because teenagers need more sleep than adults do. Getting enough sleep is an important part of learning, of growing, of repairing the body, and of dealing with emotional stimuli. And the time in a person's life where they experience a lot of this? Their teenage years, of course. During puberty, a teenager's brain has to reorganize itself, and getting a bit of extra sleep helps it to do this.

As well as needing more sleep, a teenager's tendency to stay up later and get up later are also based in their biology. According to neuroscientists, the way a teenager's brain works changes their circadian rhythm, setting it two hours behind that of a normal adult. When 6:00 AM feels like 4:00 AM and 12:00 PM feels like only 10:00, it makes a certain amount of sense that kids prefer to stay up late-- and prefer not to get up early.

Slobbery

Unless you know some very conscientious teenagers, chances are walking into a teenager's room is something you'd avoid doing at any cost. Sure, some teenage kids are tidy and neat (generally because they're taught by parents that this is important). But in reality, the ones a little on the slobby side don't generally behave this way willfully. With so much going on in their lives emotionally (remember crying over a school dance invitation or stressing about your lack of facial hair?), keeping things clean just doesn't seem important to them. When they get older and can focus on other things, it's a lot easier for kids to clean up their act.

Risky Behavior

I remember getting my driver's license at the age of 16-- and it's a memory that gives my adult self a little shudder of fear. How did I survive those high speeds in the pouring rain with five of my yelling, giggling friends crammed into the back seat? And why on Earth did I act that way in the first place?

Actually, the reason was in my brain. When a teenager's brain is developing --and it does a lot of that during their teenage years-- it doesn't tend to develop at an even pace. This means some parts of the brain will develop more quickly than others. In teenagers, the areas of the brain that encourage feelings of emotion and gratification often develop before the "cautious" part of the brain --the one that says "sure a rainy day drag race would be fun, but it might kill me too, so I'll pass"-- can catch up.

Dealing with teenagers isn't always a lot of fun. And while it can be difficult to have much perspective when you're being ignored or rebelled against at every turn, it's important to try. We were all teenagers once-- and most of us acknowledge it as one of the very most difficult times in our lives. No, treating your teenager with calm and understanding probably won't make them rebel against you any less. But it can definitely help you to stay calmer and be happier... and when you're dealing with teenage kids, what more can you ask for?

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