Teen brains a mystery to parents

Adolescent behavior has baffled parents for generations, but today’s culture is especially rife with potential pitfalls that can trip up even the best of teens.

“They’re often forced to be adults way before their time,” says Deborah Tackmann, who teaches health at North High School in Eau Claire, Wis. She has been teaching middle and high school students for more than 20 years and estimates 10 percent to 15 percent of students in a given school year are what she would call “troubled,” with a wide range of ills from suicidal thoughts to self-mutilation to pregnancy, family stress, sexual orientation, death or divorce of a parent to substance abuse.

Are all teens moody? Do they clam up and head to their bedrooms and close the door? How can you tell if your teen is abusing substances?

These are questions the experts have heard time and time again as parents try to decipher whether their teen’s behavior is “just a phase” or whether an adolescent is really headed for trouble.

Lisa Boesky, a child and adolescent psychologist from San Diego, says she wrote “When to Worry,” published in July, to help parents with those weighty questions.

“One of the big things to keep in mind is that all teenagers are moody. It doesn’t mean they have bipolar disorder. They may have a difficult time focusing. They don’t all have ADHD,” she says.

Boesky says when kids hit 13 or 14, parents will begin to see new behaviors that usually are normal. Besides moodiness, she says, they sleep more, may be rebellious and just don’t want to talk to you.

Experts say signs of real difficulty emerge if the behavior interferes with the way teens function at school, at home or with friends. If grades slip, if conflict at home escalates, or if teens are isolated or bullied, those are signals that trouble is brewing.

But Norman Hoffman, a licensed mental-health counselor from Ormond Beach, Fla., and author of “Bad Children Can Happen to Good Parents,” advises parents not to worry about a child who appears to be a loner. “Being a loner is not in itself pathological,” he says. “Many loners can be very successful individuals when they grow up.”

But what about kids who spend hours alone in their rooms playing video games, watching TV or surfing the Internet? How much is too much?

Richard Lerner, director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., says such behavior is a problem when that’s almost all they’re doing except for school.

“Parents need to exercise control over what they think is a healthy dose of anything,” he says. “Without a doubt, too much of any one activity is not going to be good for a well-rounded child.”

Lerner says children who don’t have enough supervision “get into trouble by finding inappropriate materials. They are left aimlessly to float by on their own decisions when they need parent support.”

John Townsend, author of the 2006 book “Boundaries With Teens,” says the level of connection to or detachment from parents is important. “If they’re talking about their life and you know how they’re doing, it’s a good sign. If you have no idea what’s going on in their life, that’s not a good sign.

“I don’t believe that every problem requires a therapist,” Townsend says. “Part of the job of parenting is helping kids succeed with problems. Help them come up with solutions.”

For those who do need professional help, some type of substance abuse may be involved.

Mike Linderman, a licensed professional counselor, works with teens at the Elk Mountain Academy, a therapeutic boarding school primarily serving drug- and alcohol-addicted kids in Clark Fork, Idaho.

“Parents’ gut instincts are right on the money,” says Linderman, author of the new book “The Teen Whisperer: How to Break Through the Silence and Secrecy of Teenage Life.” “They say they knew it. They could feel it, but they didn’t want to admit it. They need to remove that denial. They need to see the reality of what’s going on.”

Stanton Peele, a psychologist, attorney and addiction expert from Chatham, N.J., is familiar with parents in denial. He says many parents are not realistic about expectations. “We think that drugs and alcohol are two bad things out there and we need to beat them back. We figure if we just warn and scare kids enough, everything will be all right. But we know that doesn’t work.”

Peele’s “Addiction-Proof Your Child” discusses how parents can help their children overcome such problems. “The majority of kids who experiment or sample substances don’t become problematic users of those substances. Most of those who develop a problem don’t continue the problem later in life.”

Parents often overreact, the experts say.

“Either they’re too strict, which brings about more rebellion, or they’re too hands-off, and the child gets into trouble because of lack of supervision,” Boesky says. “Parents need assistance to find that balance – to monitor and supervise without being too strict.”