Parents, Adolescents, and Hormones
Overview
This is a blog wrritten about puberty from the perspective of a parent of whom has an adolescent at home that is currently experiencing puberty. In it, he discusses the changes that his son is going through and his personal recation to it.
Parents, Adolescents, and Hormones
This is a blog wrritten about puberty from the perspective of a parent of whom has an adolescent at home that is currently experiencing puberty. In it, he discusses the changes that his son is going through and his personal recation to it.
Daddy Boy Huddy Nahalea
Jesse Peters
Teenage years can be complicated for all parties involved, and the more we can understand about these altering years, the better off everyone involved will be. As a parent reading through Dahl’s and Peper’s article titled “The Teenage Brain: Surging Hormones-Brain-Behavior Interactions During Puberty,” it helped widen my perspective and understanding of what my child (soon to be teen) is going through. Every now and then my son would act abnormal compared to the previous 11 years of his life. His mother and I would just blame it on puberty without having any real evidence, so reading this article helped solidify our suspicions.
One of the first things discussed in the article is the comprehension of realizing when puberty begins. The beginning surge of hormones for puberty of boys occur between 10 to 12 years old and 9 to 10 for girls (Dahl, 2013). This bit of information is important because if you haven’t noticed this is before the “teen” years. Parents need to realize that the changes usually associated with teens begin to transpire before they are teens. This is an important time period for both child and parents because it affects both parties. The child going through these changes may not understand what’s going on with their bodies, and parents are not yet ready to accept the fact that their child is growing up to be a teenager soon. Some of these changes as presented in the Dahl’s and Peper’s article include physical growth, voice alterations, metabolic, sleep, social, and emotional changes (Dahl, 2013).
Some of the changes presented above are tethered to a specific hormone. For example, testosterone has been linked to risk taking and sensation seeking, which could account for some behavioral changes during puberty (Dahl, 2013). Another hormone that’s bound to influence adolescents is estradiol, although not vastly studied as testosterone, this has been linked to risk taking amongst girls. The affect these hormones have on an adolescent can depend on social and cultural environment as well as how these hormones interact with other hormones or neurotransmitters (Dahl, 2013)
In the end, the study of hormones during the onset of adolescence and their effect on the brain is well understudied. More studies need to be performed to grasp a firmer understanding of how specific hormones impact specific behavioral tendencies. Who knows, maybe If we had some type of accountability maybe parents and teens wouldn’t bump heads so often. With that being said, parents need to understand that their growing adolescent is just as confused as they are when it comes to certain behaviors during these developing times. There’s no clear-cut answer or specific reason to why during these times kids behave differently, but it should be known that there’s change coming and all we can do is brace for impact.
References:
Dahl, J. S. (2013). The Teenage Brain: Surging Hormones-Brain-Behavior Interactions During Puberty. Association for Psychological Science, 134-139.