Puberty: ... because they don't know what they're doing
Young people have bad manners and despise authority. «They contradict their parents, devour their desserts at the table and bully their teachers.» This complaint was not made by nervous parents in the throes of puberty, but by the philosopher Socrates. And he was already complaining about the behaviour of his country's adolescent sons and daughters around 2,400 years ago.
Not much has changed to this day. The tyranny described by Socrates can be found in every parlour. For some, the impossible behaviour starts at the age of ten. They behave in such a way as to run away, boycott the family outing or refuse to answer any questions. Parents, especially mums, ask themselves: Where has it gone, the friendly nature of yesteryear? The child who collected milk teeth and gave kisses generously?
Anna has been feeling her way through this period for four years now. The 44-year-old teacher is the mother of two adolescent sons, aged 14 and 16. The younger one has only been giving one-word answers for a year now. What homework is there? «Nothing.» How was David's party? «Good.» Where on earth did he leave his brand new jacket? «Erm.»
His older brother, on the other hand, is very talkative, but only when he is at home - which is rarely the case. An ace at school, he likes to be the enfant terrible with his colleagues. At home, he tells horror stories about fights or beer and weed orgies in the park. His adolescent existence culminates in regular phone calls from the police at three or five in the morning asking if they would like to pick up his rowdy son.
Children are particularly stressed during puberty: From school. From nagging parents. From stupid classmates. And first love.
Boys have a reputation for going overboard particularly often. Boys who have a lot of testosterone in their blood and reach puberty early are considered to be particularly at risk. The hormone increases aggression. Nevertheless, delinquency in the legal sense is rare.
«Only a small proportion of five to ten per cent cross the boundaries and become delinquents,» explains developmental psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Bern, Françoise Alsaker. She bases her findings on the results of a study of 7,500 young people from 2007. 85 per cent of those surveyed got on very well with their parents, much to the surprise of the researchers. There are of course conflicts, for example about going out, but only rarely are there fundamental disputes that permanently damage the relationship.
So it must still be there, the friendly nature. Yes, the puberty researchers emphasise. It just no longer comes out. During puberty, new networks are formed in the brain between the areas responsible for emotions and control. During this time, you can't control your feelings in the way you can as an adult. And you're already stressed by little things.
New York scientists have identified the hormone THP in mice, which has a calming effect in children and adults after stressful situations. In adolescents, however, it has the opposite effect, making it more difficult for them to cope with problems.
Laziness is biological during puberty
So the inability to react appropriately has biological reasons, the «Hey, you're stressful» is quasi systemic. Especially as the kids are really stressed. From school, from nagging parents, from stupid classmates and first love. The only thing that helps against this is «plant-like lethargy», as author Jan Weiler («Das Pubertier») writes: «The pubescent child can't tidy up because it doesn't want to be stressed. They can't answer the phone because the ringing puts them under pressure to perform. They would like salt in their sauce, but will eat it unsalted if they have to fetch the salt themselves.» Laziness, the number one educational centre of puberty conflict, is not a deliberate rebellion per se.
Mood swings are conflict number two. Take 13-year-old Livia, for example, the eldest child of Sarah, a bank clerk. Good at school and sport, she is constantly nagging at home. The mood swings are a big challenge, says Sarah.
Tabula rasa in the head
She was once called «a boring, frustrated eco-aunt» because she forbade her daughter to wear shorts, a thong and a tank top when it was a fresh 7 degrees centigrade. She never wanted to end up like her, never! protested the child. When Sarah enquired, her daughter looked at her pityingly: «Because you always wear long-sleeved blouses with flowers.» She told her to sort out her clothes, otherwise she would never speak to her again. By breakfast, everything was forgotten and her mum's coolness credit was replenished.
A prime example of unconnected synapses, say developmental psychologists. In fact, 30,000 connections between nerve cells, known as synapses, disappear every second during puberty. Sounds dramatic, but it's normal. The tabula rasa in the head actually makes it possible for young people to make increasingly complex decisions and analyse opinions.
Adults first notice this change in everyday life, for example in their appearance. Livia's thongs, for example. Her refusal to do without them means questioning her mother. Her influence must dwindle so that Livia can gain more and more mental independence. This is also inherent to the system.
Separating oneself from the adult world is an important and normal path. However, Alsaker is convinced that this is more difficult than ever for teenagers today.
Puberty: The search for identity and identification
Adults are stealing many things from young people that were originally reserved for teenagers: piercings, tattoos and radical hairstyles. Today, many a hipster dad has a tattoo hidden under his checked shirt, and even the world's postman has a piercing.
«I go mad every time I see the man in his mid-forties listening to Cro, drinking lemonade through a straw and then burping with his eleven-year-old son,» says author Jan Weiler in an opinion piece on puberty.
Françoise Alsaker is of the same opinion. «Young people need their own culture and things that no one can snatch away from them in order to develop a strong personality of their own.» We adults know from our own experience that the search for such identifications is not an easy one. And that it can sometimes be extreme.
Sometimes it even manifests itself in violence against educational authorities. Experts call this phenomenon «parent battering ». In German: parental abuse. Nobody knows how many cases there are in Switzerland. Even if the hand is rarely raised against the parents, several US studies assume that 9 to 14 per cent of all parents are physically attacked by their adolescent children at some point.
Puberty is a farewell to yesterday, a farewell to familiar territory.
The Zurich cantonal police are called out an estimated 20 times a year due to parental abuse. Violence in the family takes place behind closed curtains, especially when it is the parents who are subjected to the beatings of their own children.
The inability to raise your own children creates shame. This was also the case for Esther, 39, mother of an 18-year-old son. When she clashed with him over going out and alcohol, he said: «You have nothing to say to me.» But this was not followed by a sobbing fit that ended in a slamming door. The son, a stately 1.87 metres tall, pushed his petite mother against the wall. Esther says bravely: «I don't want to reproach myself later for not having tried everything.»
Yes, children don't argue according to the rules we like, but also like to use their bodies, says Jesper Juul. If an argument in a family leads to tantrums or the situation escalates, the family therapist advises defining your own rules. What is allowed in my family when anger arises? Slamming doors, using foul language, getting loud? Do the same rules apply for children as for adults? And it is always important to seek dialogue. According to Juul, nothing is more punishing and unsettling than when parents turn away or ostracise the angry person.
However, it is difficult for nervous parents in the stress of puberty to work out when their child needs to retreat and when they do so in protest. Four years ago, 17-year-old Luca imposed an absolute ban on his mother's room, chores, tidying up and washing. It was a shock, says his mum, especially as he was considered developmentally delayed for a long time and needed a lot of support. The mother of Lara, 16, also complains that the child buries herself in her room.
Chaos inside and out
In general, your own room. Over 200 years ago, the educationalist Pestalozzi referred to the age of puberty as «distraction», dubbing the chaos in the children's room with smelly socks and dried-up snacks as «scattered order». The term describes one thing very vividly: the cave into which adolescents withdraw, where they doze off and evaporate.
Distraction is a term that aptly describes the emotional and psychological situation, says Jan-Uwe Rogge, psychologist and author of numerous parenting guides, in his blog: «Not being on task, giving in to moods. Everything flows, everything floats, there's nowhere to stop.» And so the scattered order that spreads in the children's room reflects the emotional state of the adolescents.
The pubescent child can't tidy up because it doesn't want to be stressed.
Puberty is a farewell to yesterday, a farewell to familiar territory. The new country is not yet in sight, its rules and rituals still unknown. What helps during this period of disorientation? According to Jan Weiler, only unconditional understanding: "This does not mean a lack of attitude, but an unconditional willingness to take the children's concerns seriously.
«How long do you have to put up with it?» is the question most often asked by desperate parents. The good news: it gets better. The bad news: it takes time. Two, four years or longer. Some, writes Jan Weiler ironically, «remain in the shadowy realm of adolescence forever, but still sometimes make a career out of it». The only thing that helps is a lot of understanding and the realisation: yes, we were that bad too.
