Your teenager: an owner's manual

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Congratulations -- you are the parent of a brand new teen. Teens can be fun, lively and interesting companions. However, the sensitive technical upgrade that has turned your prepubescent child into an adolescent is subject to glitches. Don't panic. Your adolescent is 100 per cent guaranteed -- to beg for more spending money, consume large quantities of groceries and listen to music that makes you feel positively ancient.

In order to get the most from your teen, refer to the owner's manual below. It describes the programming issues responsible for typical teen behaviours and how you can return your teen to optimal function when things temporarily go awry. Warning: In times of angst (your own, that is) keep in mind that it will only be a few years until the next upgrade -- independent adult -- replaces the current edition of your child. So enjoy your adolescent while you can!

Technical glitch no. 1 (aka The Drama Queen)
Your 14-year-old daughter has just slammed her bedroom door. You can hear heart-wrenching wails punctuated by shouts of, "My life is OVER!" Why the drama? After five shampoos in 15 minutes, her newly dyed hair still looks purple, er deep mahogany.

Programming issue:
Your teen's brain is undergoing rapid rewiring. The prefrontal cortex, the brain's reasoning centre, grows quickly during the tween years, then is "pruned back" throughout adolescence. (See "The Brain Behind the Behaviour," page 3 of this article.) Through much of this period, the logic circuits of your teen's brain could be considered to be off-line. Instead, the amygdala (an almond-shaped structure located in the anterior lobe of the cerebrum) handles most incoming data. Interestingly, this is part of the brain responsible for fight-or-flight reactions, so your teen's overly emotional reaction makes perfect sense. As her prefrontal cortex gradually comes online, expect more reasoned and balanced responses to the ups and downs of life.

Tips for returning your teen to optimal functioning:
Telling your daughter that her hair colour will grow out in time will fall on deaf ears. She simply won't understand why you can't see the full implications of her hair horror -- after all, you are using a part of your brain that is not yet operational in a teen.

Step one: Sympathize with your tearful teen. Consider telling her about your own teen disaster 'do -- surely you had at least one of your own!

Step two: Give her the tools for dealing with her distress: help her do some deep breathing to calm down and stop that fight-or-flight response. When she has cooled off, help her brainstorm possible solutions, such as booking an appointment with a professional colourist or buying an assortment of funky hair accessories to go with her new look.

Avoid a crisis with expert hair and accessory tips from ELLE Canada!

Technical glitch no. 2 (aka The Vampire)
Your 16-year-old son has turned into Dracula. OK, he's not a blood-sucking fiend, but his sleeping habits put the Count to shame. He roams the house restlessly past midnight, then lurches through the day like the living dead. As a result, his grades are tanking; his science teacher told you Junior actually snored his way through the last semester at school.

Programming issue:
According to James B. Maas, a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and an expert on sleep deprivation, almost all teens become "walking zombies" at one time or another. Sleep is critical for proper brain development, physical growth and sexual maturation, and most teens don't get enough (sleep, that is!). For full functioning, your teen's brain needs at least 9 1/4 hours of sleep a night. Teens also tend to experience a sleep "phase shift." They fall asleep later and require more sleep in the early hours of the day. Those who wake up before their biological clock is ready miss out on important REM sleep. Both learning and memory are impaired.

Tips for returning your teen to optimal functioning:
Step 1: Don't insist that your teen keep banker's hours. At the same time, you need to ensure he is putting enough z's into his sleep bank. Point out that recent studies indicate students who get more shut-eye are more likely to score As and Bs than their sleep-deprived peers.

Step 2: Devise a lights-out routine that gets him enough sleep every night and still allows him to meet his day commitments. This won't be easy. You can see if his school has flexible hours. Schools that have experimented with beginning classes an hour later each morning report improved student morale and performance. On weekends don't fret if your teen doesn't rise until afternoon. Let him. He's investing in sleep that he really, really needs.

Read more about your teen's sleep needs.

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