Kids, like adults, cycle through periods of attention and inattention—though the duration of the interval changes with age, and is variable across individuals. By high school, according to neurologist and classroom teacher Judy Willis, concentrated study of “20 to 30 minutes for middle and high school students calls for a three- to five-minute break.”

Adolescence is typically the first time kids dive into their internal world, it’s normal to wonder if they are the ‘only one.’ Teachers play a crucial role in providing an important space for ‘percolation and expression’. When youth are given the time and space to explore the richness of their inner world, it can lower their alarm, decrease frustration and support them on their journey into adulthood. 

Mark Twain wrote, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” Twain captured the arrogance, self-absorption, and idealism of the teenage years so well. 

Sometimes parents lament to me in a humour filled way, that they see similarities between raising teens and toddler/preschoolers. What is it that makes them feel similar? What do they need from us as we steer them through these developmental periods? There are three key developmental dynamics that are inherent to both tots and teens, despite their differences in maturity levels and performance. 

Anyone spending time with a young teenager knows that they can be lovely and intriguing one moment and irrational and angry the next. Their emotions are strong and their prefrontal cortex is under major reconstruction, resulting in incredible highs, desperate lows, mature insight, and impulsive reactions – sometimes all in one day.   

I sit here listening to the lyrics of a song my daughter wrote when she was 15, and it brings me right back:

I’m floating away, seems my mind just won’t stay in my brain. It’s all just a haze and the ghosts overtake me, no escape … no escape. I’m going in circles … what happened to “everything’s okay?” I’m stumbling through it all. I’ll get there some day.

Circles … stumbling … no escape.

Anytime I am working with the parents of adolescents, I am always excited to share insight about the pivotal concept of “counterwill” in the context of healthy development. Understanding this concept can make a tremendous difference in understanding our teenagers, especially when we feel confused or worried about their tendency to push back.

My 17-year-old son Jacksen bounded out of his room this morning, fresh out of bed, greeting us without a hello or good morning but instead straight-up yelling, “That’s it! I’m not staying in this house today! I’m going out! And I don’t care what anybody says right now!”