Changes In Thinking

What Parents Can Expect: On Your Mark!

As young people go through middle school, their brain grows and thinking skills change in many ways. Your middle schooler will alternate between being sweet and attentive and being sarcastic and argumentative. They will be unpredictable, making good and bad decisions as they work to develop their new skills. They need time for their brain to fully develop and opportunities to practice their new thinking skills. The frontal lobe of the brain, which is responsible for logical thinking, decision-making, and seeing consequences for actions, won’t be fully developed until your teen is twenty-three or so. As a result, your middle schooler may leave things lying around the house, forget to do things, or even make bad decisions. Since the frontal lobe develops last in teens, parents need to supplement their teens’ efforts in these important areas. While it can be easy to assume they are being lazy, or even defiant, you will enjoy parenting more if you set a positive tone, model patience, and repeat, repeat, repeat!

What Parents Need to Know: Get Set!

Parents want teens to be good thinkers! We want them to do well in school and we hope that they can make good choices when they are faced with challenging, or even dangerous situations. It is important to remember that your teen needs lots of practice to improve these emerging thinking skills. Just as new drivers need time on the road to become good drivers, middle schoolers need opportunities to contribute their opinion, solve problems, and make decisions to become good thinkers. This is a scary time for parents because many of the decisions that teens are asked to make have the potential for long-lasting consequences.

Middle school age teens are starting to think about possibilities and imagine what the future may hold. Their thinking gets more and more abstract, inclusive, and relative to situations. Picture a mom taking a nap on a Saturday afternoon. A young child may think, "Grown-ups don’t take naps." However, a middle schooler may consider, “I wonder if mom is feeling well?” Your teen is also learning to think abstractly. They like to talk in puns and metaphors, and begin understanding jokes that you used to think were ‘adult jokes’. They like poetry and politics, sometimes spending hours writing or philosophizing with their friends. Thinking abstractly helps teens move away from being self-centered, to thinking about other potential outcomes and consequences. As thinking develops, teens begin to understand that most things are not black and white, but have many shades of gray. A young child may describe a person as shy, while a middle schooler may see the same person as both shy and extroverted. This is because a middle schooler understands that behavior is often dependent on the setting. Developing the ability to appreciate such nuances is important because it helps teens to understand others’ perspectives. You may also see your teen thinking in relative terms. Consider the teen that points out, “You are speeding!” but then follows it up with, “It is OK because you need to get my sister to the doctor to fix her broken arm.” Sometimes, it can seem like your teen is constantly thinking. That is probably true! Teens spend a lot of time thinking about what they think and thinking about what other people think about them. In this way, they are both introspective and self-conscious. It is through this reflective and emotional process that teens begin to develop their identity.

What Parents Can Do: Go!

• Set a positive tone in your house. Establish rules for their behavior and assume they want to follow them. Give them reminders when they don’t follow through.
• Consider different perspectives. While it is easy to react and rely on your own experiences, try to put yourself in your teen’s shoes.
• Give your teen opportunities to share opinions and contribute to decision-making. Teens can contribute their thoughts to meal planning, family vacation, movie choices, and much more.
• Engage in fun activities, read together, or play interactive games with your teen. These types of activities can broaden their experiences and encourage them to think.
• Get used to listening, showing support, and turning the decision back on them. This will help develop their thinking skills. Use short sentences such as “What do you think?” and “What are you going to do now?"
• Introduce alternative possibilities to stretch your teen’s thinking whenever you can. You can walk them through if-then scenarios that help them think about potential outcomes and consequences.
• Model good decision-making. Whenever possible, ‘think out loud’ so that they can hear how your thought processes help you come to decisions.
• Ask your teen to help you think through decisions. Share personal dilemmas, and invite them to help you solve them.