A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Teenage Brains

Guest: Mark Oestreicher

MarkO is a partner in The Youth Cartel, providing services and resources for individual youth workers and organizations. He has been married to Jeannie for 30 years, and has two great kids: Riley (22) and Max (18). Here's The Youth Cartel's website. twitter: @markosbeard instagram: @whyismarko

 

You can listen to MarkO on Five Minutes with Marko on YouTube.

 

MarkO - the four years following puberty is the most important developmental period in the life of a person - the most significant changes (that a person is aware of) - and changes in several different aspects of their life - physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

 

Educational theory - stuff you don’t talk about is called your “null curriculum” - and what you don’t talk about ends up teaching your children as much as what you do!!!

 

Five areas of significant change in the life of a pre-teen:

• Physical - obvious, and most teens hate this developmental process. Parents, you need to have a ministry of normalizing this experience.
• Cognitive - we move from being limited as pre-teens to having the ability to think in the abstract, gives the opportunity to speculate, the “what if” and “why” questions and adding a “third person perspective”
• Emotional
• Relational
• Spiritual

The dominant perspective of young people is that they are broken or incapable - which is why adolescence has been extended to almost 20 years long! Instead of expecting young people to mature, we make their journey easier and expect less and less of them.

 

MarkO - do you see teenagers as a problem to be solved or a wonder to behold?!

 

Birth-4 are years of discovery

Ages 5-7 are years of testing

Ages 8-11 are years of concluding (they have everything figured out!)

Ages 11-14 are years of discovery (again!)

Ages 15-20 are years are testing

Ages 20-30 are years of concluding (again)

 

When your child expresses a doubt, we can see that shifting in their brain, testing out new concepts and ideas, moving from literal thinking to abstract considerations. Doubt is not the enemy, but unexamined doubt can be dangerous. Parents, lean into those doubts and help your children wrestle with their doubts.

 

Understanding Your Young Teen: Practical Wisdom for Parents by Mark Oestreicher

 

A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Teenage Brains: Why They Act the Way They Do by Mark Oestreicher

Special shout out to Jared Wood for allowing us to use his music - check him out at JaredWoodMusic!