9. Sampling
What kinds of clothes do kids my age wear
so we don’t look like little kids?
How am I supposed to interact with my
parents and friends?
What sports and other hobbies might I be
interested in doing or good at doing?
Which subgrouping of youth culture might
be the right fit for me?
10. Testing
Pushing boundaries and rules.
Testing different approaches to getting
things (“Now I’m demanding what I want”
and “Now I’m the sweet kid, charming you
into compliance”).
Making gregarious, exclamatory
comments to see how people respond.
Jumping on everything, knocking things
together, pulling things apart.
31. FRONTAL LOBE
FOCUS
Teenagers have a hard time focusing on
things and not being distracted by
everything else in the room
32. FRONTAL LOBE
FORETHOUGHT
Teenagers find it difficult to predict consequences
to real or potential behavioral choices.
33. FRONTAL LOBE
IMPULSE CONTROL
Teenagers don’t have a developed “governor”
to help moderate their impulses.
34. FRONTAL LOBE
ORGANIZATION
Teenagers often do poorly at organizing tasks,
time, relationships, and really just about anything.
35. FRONTAL LOBE
PLANNING
Without this, we live in the here-and-now. It’s hard
for teens to make decisions based on what’s
coming in the future and the need to plan for it.
36. FRONTAL LOBE
JUDGMENT
It’s challenging for teenagers to discern the best
choice in a particular situation, as they don’t
possess a fully developed ability to make good
judgment calls.
37. FRONTAL LOBE
EMPATHY
Teenagers struggle to see how their choices might
impact others, as well as seeing something from
another person’s point of view (a distinctly
abstract thinking ability).
38. FRONTAL LOBE
INSIGHT
Teenagers have difficulty speculating about other
peoples’ behaviors and motivations and often
draw wrong conclusions (as if this is something we
adults have all worked out).
39. FRONTAL LOBE
EMOTIONAL CONTROL
Closely related to impulse control, teenagers will
often act out a negative emotion instead of
controlling the emotion.
42. • More on emotions
• Spiritual Development
• Youth Culture
• Friendships
• Sex?
• Blended Families
Notes de l'éditeur
Hello! Let’s share our names. Name/grade/gender of our teenager and a quick awkward memory from when you were a teenager.
My degree and background is in this stuff, but I’ve just naturally processed it so long I’ve forgotten technical terms. This won’t be whiz-bang, but pretty anecdotal. We’ll cover lots today then I’ll let you vote on what next week’s topics are.
This says it all. The first two years of adolescence offer change that is second only to the first two years of life. Physical changes are what’s most recognizable but the big deal are the changes to the mind during adolescence.
Think about the most significant change you've had and the stress involved, multiply it by 100, and you've got an adolescent stress level. But while's ours is primarily external - change of job, etc. - theirs is internal and they don't have the experience to deal with it.
Stephen Glenn in the 70’s.
Babies put everything in their mouths. The world is a big sampler platter. They are reaching, their eyes dart around....
Campbell is just over two and pretty deep into her Testing phase. What do you think some signs are?
Pushing boundaries.
testing different approaches to get what she wants.
Jumping on everything
Ask a 10 year old to give you input on a complex societal issue - such as racism or foreign trade - and, if she understands the question, she;ll have a solution. What you will not hear is, “Well, that’s complex, and I’m not sure I have a solution...” Waht you will hear is something that starts with, “They should just...” Of course, it won’t likely be a workable solution, although 10 year olds can be remarkably insightful (since they don’t get bogged down in the hip deep mud of complexities).
Tsunami - puberty comes like a tidal wave and wipes out all that hard work of sampling, testing and concluding, then the three step process starts all over again.
Real example from a 6th grade guys small group. Talking about what it means to be “manly” that turned to bragging about sexual experience. The guys were split right down the middle. 3 got very nervous to even talk about the subject. They wouldn’t make eye contact, gave parent-approved answers, etc. Three guys were nuts! They’d say things like, “When am I NOT having sex!” doing little hip thrusts and giggling maniacally.
Three boys were very much in the concluding stage of upper elementary. And the other 3 boys were clearly experimenting with information gathering. They were “sampling” the responses of the other guys, sampling the responses of the leaders, sampling what it mens to talk about sex in over the top ways.
What do you think are some implications of this?
Does this describe my two year old daughter or an 8th grade boy?
Piaget.
Case study: Charlotte got invited to a party. Not sure how to act in this setting, she ended up having some alcoholic drinks. Now Charlotte has tons of guilt. She feels like Jesus could never forgive her and she must not be a Christian anymore.
“I’d tell her that alcohol is stupid.”
“Jesus still loves you but too bad you aren’t a Christian anymore.”
“I’d tell her that my name is Charlotte too!”
“I’d tell her that Jesus forgives her.”
A combination of innocence and a willingness to verbalize any thought.
preteens and politicians
Story: At camp there is a climbing tower and you can do a “faith leap” “I have a problem. I think I want to become what was talked about - a follower of Jesus, but I’m too scared to jump off that tower. Do I really have to jump off the tower if I want to become a Christian?” Explained it to her, then took her and threw her off the tower.
Around the time of puberty, the brain begins a transition in how it processes information.
God: I love you, and I’m proud of you! As a gift, I’m going to change your world by giving you the gift of abstract thoguht. Happy puberty!
Story: “Tell the story about the time you did all those great things on the mission trip.” “Brian wanted me to tell you ....but what really happened was that God did a bunch of great stuff through me.”
Back and forth
Slip in and out
But every parent thinks their kid is head of the class
3rd person perspective
self-awareness
nuance and gray areas
paradox
systems
speculation and inference
Most of us adults have been utilizing abstract thinking for so long that it’s easy to forget what it’s like not to have this ability or not to have it function well
Do you understand the consequences?!?! No, they don’t.
“making an informed decision”
mission trips - kids will feel deep sympathy and want to help
adolescents will being to imagine or “feel” what life is like for an impoverished child
absolutely essential to faith development!!
emotions are abstract
next week I want to really tackle emotions
Normalize their experience. With all these changes it’s no doubt that teens spend so much time feeling abnormal.
Story about Liesl and Marko: Casually asks about homework.
“WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME?!?!”
Escalate. “I need you to go to your room. When you’ve calmed down we can talk about this.” Wait three minutes.
Door opens and she’s sobbing. “Daddy, I’m sorry!”
“Would it be OK if I tried to explain what just happened? Do you feel like your emotions are out of control? Do you sometimes feel depressed and you don’t know why? Do you sometimes get excited and don’t know where it comes form?”
“When you were a kid you had a few emotions, now that your brain is changing, you have so many more, but they are new and you aren’t used to them.”
John 10:10 Jesus promises a full life! You are going throug hthe change go intended for you, it’s tough, but ti’s part of God’s love for you.
Always work a “it’s normal”, “it’s OK.”
“Imaginary audience”
Teenagers are notoriously bad at this. They often incorrectly perceive how others see them and assume everyone is “checking them out.”
Identity formation begins from day one, but teens take charge during adolescence.
They begin speculating about who they want to be, not only careers, but also what kinds of people they want to be and how they want others to identify them as being.
We wrestle with this ad nauseum at youth group.
For hundreds of years, the medical community assumed the human brain was fully developed in childhood because they studied physical brains. It must be “all there.” Real time 3D scans of live brains changed all that.
In short, the brain isn’t fully formed until the mid twenties. Everyone just assumed it was lack of experience that was the cause of questionable judgment.
Right behind your forehead. Often called the “executive office” of the brain or the “decision-making center.”
Behind the temples. Responsible for emotional interpretation.
Teenagers have a physiological reason for not always understanding their own emotions and for being notoriously deficient at interpreting other people’s emotions.
Which gender to you think is worse? Yup. Guys. There is an additional cultural reason for guys.
Neural pathways. Superhighways of thought.
Myelin - MS - 200x increase with myelin.
In the couple years before puberty the brain develops millions and millions of additional neurons - more thn will be needed or even exist in the adult brain. At puberty the process reverses itself and there is a winnowing effect.
Those neurons and neural pathways that are well used in early adolescence remain. Those that are underused are eliminated. My mid-adolescence a teenage brain is “hard-wired” for the way it will function throughout the rest of life. “Use it or lose it.”
It’s essential that the teen years are about learning how to think. Process, “What if?” and “Why?” are all critical.
Lots of sleep, good diet and exercise, living with consequences of their choices
Hello! Let’s share our names. Name/grade/gender of our teenager and a quick awkward memory from when you were a teenager.
My degree and background is in this stuff, but I’ve just naturally processed it so long I’ve forgotten technical terms. This won’t be whiz-bang, but pretty anecdotal. We’ll cover lots today then I’ll let you vote on what next week’s topics are.