Coming Face-to-Face with Adolescents
Adolescents are an enigma: sullen, defiant, passionate and driven to take risks. Our expectations are probably uninformed. Even the term “adolescence” needs refinement. Adolescence is the bridge crossed from childhood into adulthood and includes people between the ages 9 and 30. This stage of development, during which they are not yet financially nor socially independent, is a time when adolescents are still under construction. We can take advantage of this time in life if we better understand that their brains are still growing and are more malleable than in adulthood.
So, don’t retire from parenting too soon. Our kids still need us. Although the part of the brain called the pre-frontal cortex (which is responsible for rational thinking, impulse control, decision-making, planning, etc.) is structurally mature by ages 15 or 16, the connections between this part of the brain and the rest of the brain (including the emotional part) are still growing. We need to shift our focus from seeing adolescents as not needing adults in their lives. They need us even more.
Face-to-face contact tunes up the circuitry of the brain. Yes, you have power and yes you still have time to have a huge impact on your rebellious child! It is true, your adolescent’s brain and mind can benefit from being with you! Research shows that skill in writing, reading, and mathematics, academic standing in high school, entrance to post-secondary school, virtues of empathy, compassion and kindness are all linked to sitting down at the dinner table with a family or at least a mature adult. This same group of adolescents who are engaged at the dinner table are less likely to be attracted to drugs, binging and purging, depression, cutting and suicidal thoughts.
Family meals are more than eating a meal together especially when the focus is on connection rather than correction. This is a time for cultivating family loyalty by sharing stories, confidences, lessons learned and gossip. Mealtime is not the time to discuss bad behaviour, impose discipline nor use shaming as a tool for compliance. Sharing food is all about the absence of conflict and feeling that we belong somewhere.
Basic three-dimensional connection (which includes safe emotional sharing discourse) fosters development. The warmth, enjoyment and delight on a parent’s face reflect the invitation for a child to exist. A sense of belonging and mattering to someone else is revealed through the eyes. Conversation cultivates the ability to be in the other’s shoes, fosters compassion, and defines a sense of knowing where one ends and another begins; all promoting cohesive brain development and problem-focused coping skills.
The dinner table has been left out of the to-do list for the day. Lessons, digital devices, time with friends (virtual or real) and honing marketable skills are getting in the way of what we need to grow our kids up. The third dimension of face-to-face contact can make us all healthier and happier and it can happen by making mealtime a priority. Step back into your pivotal position and hold onto your adolescent through food and you. Everyone wins!
