WHY Do They Act That Way?: A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen
David Walsh, Ph.D. With Nat Bennett

One: Making Sense of Adolescence

Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.
Socrates, Fifth Century BC

Probably the best way to describe adolescence is to say that it begins at puberty and ends...sometime. That may sound silly and unscientific, but it's the most accurate description of adolescence that I've come across. It is vague precisely because adolescence is an in-between stage determined not so much by what it is but by what it is not. Adolescence is not childhood, and it is not adulthood; it is the period in between those two stages. And because today's kids get through childhood faster than kids did in the past, their transition to adulthood now seems to be taking longer than ever before.

The gap between teens and adults seems to be growing too. Three teenagers I spoke with not long ago told me that adults move away from them on the bus when they get on. "Why do you think they do that?" I asked.

"Because they're afraid of us," offered one boy.

His friend disagreed. "I think it's because they don't like us."

The proverbial generation gap is fast becoming a chasm. It's not easy being an adolescent. Just consider some of the things they face.

• They have to handle sexually maturing bodies that give rise to strong urges.
• They have to try to figure out and manage volatile and powerful emotions.
• They have to fit into a complex social network.
• They have to deal with immense peer pressure.
• They have to deal with wildly changing moods.
• They have to decide how they are going to respond to the temptation of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs.
• They have to figure out what their values are going to be.
• They have to renegotiate relationships with their parents.
• They have to get through school.
• They have to figure out how to get enough sleep.
• They have to begin to plan their future.

This list can get a lot longer. Any way you look at it, adolescents have a lot of balls in the air, and because they can't always handle their juggling acts with the utmost grace, the people around them -- especially their parents -- bear the brunt of teens' frustration. Over the years I've come to understand that the adolescent years are the most difficult for parents and their teens.

Two years ago I received a call from a friend. "Do you have time for a cup of coffee?" he asked.

"Sure, when would you like to get together?"

"Right now?" was his instant reply.

Thirty minutes later we were sitting down in a neighborhood coffee shop. With tears in his eyes Steve unloaded the worry, sadness, and anger he was feeling about his fourteen-year-old son, Kevin. A particularly nasty argument over a curfew had erupted earlier in the evening, capping several days of simmering conflict. "I called you because I'm at my wits' end. I don't understand what's happening, and I don't know if we'll be able to get through whatever comes next."

I have known Kevin since he was born. He grew up a bright, energetic, happy kid who loved doing things with his mom and dad. He was friendly, cooperative, talkative, and always game for some adventure. As I drank my coffee, Steve described Kevin's personality transformation. Almost overnight, Steve explained, Kevin had gone from happy to sullen, from talkative to quiet, from easygoing to hostile.

"Now it seems like everything turns into an argument. The chip on his shoulder is huge."

His eyes dropped to his coffee cup, where he was fiddling with a spoon. Finally he said, in a shaky voice, "This is so hard. I don't know what to do."

Adults from Socrates to my friend Steve have been perplexed and challenged by adolescents for thousands of years. Even the most mild-mannered kids pose difficulties for their parents, from needing to stock the pantry to meet their growth spurts to figuring out what to do when they sleep until noon. For the adults living and working with the adolescents who take a more volatile course to adulthood, the situations that arise -- dangerous accidents, teen drinking, drug use, and run-ins with the police, to name a few -- can inspire hair-pulling anger and head-shaking bewilderment. Adults talk about each new generation of adolescents as evidence that the world is falling apart.

When you think about it, the rift between adults and adolescents is strange because every adult was once an adolescent. Everyone who has made it to adulthood remembers (if he or she wants to remember) how hard it can be to deal with the peer pressure, the physical changes of puberty, and worries about the future -- who you are and what to do with your life -- that are so characteristic of adolescence. You probably recall your own confusion and discovery, excitement and frustration, happiness and heartbreak during your teen years, but you and other adults are still no doubt surprised by each new generation of adolescents. They seem lazier, angrier, less capable of thinking through the consequences of their actions, and more willing to drive the adults in their life insane.

"I would never have done that when I was her age," we parents think. Maybe you wouldn't have, but a few of your friends probably did. Insolence and door slamming are not new inventions. The world is not getting worse; it's staying exactly the same. Adults and adolescents have always had their difficulties getting along with one another.

Adults have so much trouble with kids on their way to adulthood because adolescents are such a bundle of paradoxes. They are fun, idealistic, energetic, altruistic, and enthusiastic. They are excited by new things and often willing to try new activities. They are curious about the world and eager to interact with new people. They may have serious, informed, adult conversations with you, but they are also prone to angry outbursts, defiant acts, foolish risk taking, and inexplicable plummets into despair. They can become fire-breathing dragons in the blink of an eye, just because you said something about their hair. They can stay out until late at night without warning and lie about where they've been. One moment you can feel connected and comfortable with your teen, and the next you may wonder who replaced your child with a demon. Just when you think you've got an adolescent pegged -- he's too timid, he's too aggressive, he's just right -- he'll prove you wrong. Knowing what a teen will do next is like knowing the sound of one hand clapping: it's impossible. Most confusing of all, they do all of these things in the course of a single year, week, or even day.

Because of the challenging nature of adolescence, many parents and teachers find it easy to think the worst about teenagers. Years ago when my son Brian was in high school, he and several of his friends were in the alley behind their friend Mark's house playing basketball, horsing around, acting rowdy, and generally having a great time. They were all nice kids, although some of them looked a little rough around the edges. As they played basketball, one of Mark's neighbors, Alice, noticed them. The whole block probably noticed they were there, with all the noise they were making, but Alice had just realized her wallet was missing, and she knew whom to blame.
It happened like this. Mark's father, Jerry, was in the house reading the paper after work when the phone rang. It was Alice.

"Your son and his friends stole my wallet," she said.

"They stole your wallet?" Jerry said. "What do you mean, Alice?"

"I just came in the back door with my groceries, and then I went upstairs for a moment. When I came back down, I noticed I'd left the door unlocked and my wallet was gone. I remember setting it on the kitchen table when I came in the door. One of them stole it."

Jerry was taken aback. To his knowledge these guys hadn't caused any serious trouble before. Had she seen one of them take it? No, she said, but it was there one moment and not the next. They had stolen it. What's more, she said, she was calling Phil, another neighbor who worked for the police department, and she was going to get him involved. Then she hung up.

Jerry went out back to talk to the boys. He told them about Alice's call and asked to hear their side of the story. Boiled down, their side was that Alice was crazy, they'd been playing ball the whole time, they weren't thieves, and none of them had taken the wallet. They were angry at the insinuation that they had stolen and indignant that Jerry might believe the story. He assured them that he didn't think any of them would do such a thing, then went back inside to call Phil.

"They say they didn't take it, Phil. I believe them," Jerry said.

"Well, let me talk to Alice again," he said. "Maybe there's something she forgot to tell us." Jerry hung up and tried to go back to the paper, but he was too worked up, so he paced around the house, checking the back window to make sure the boys were still out there.

A few minutes later the phone rang again. It was Phil. Alice had just received a call from the grocery store. She'd left her wallet on the checkout counter. When Jerry went out back to tell the boys they'd been exonerated, they were relieved to hear that the wallet had been found but still smarting from the accusation that they'd taken it.

Alice was wrong to jump to conclusions about Brian and his friends, but it's hard to blame her for suspecting a rowdy group of adolescent boys. The concerns adults have about adolescents are not without basis. The news media are filled with reports about youth crime, gangs, teenage pregnancy, alcohol and drugs, and other unsavory adolescent pastimes. I have to admit, when I walk alone down a street at night and see a group of adolescent boys walking toward me, I sometimes get a little nervous. They're probably good kids out for a stroll, but that twinge of fear can still creep in on occas...