Talking to teenagers

What's going on with the teenage brain, one minute your teenager is laughing and chatting on the phone, then you ask a simple question and his mood explodes like a party popper all over the house (only it doesn't feel like a party) and you feel like you have been on the receiving end of something really unfair. The dictionary example of unfair is not following the rules of a game or sport , the Cambridge dictionary example is not treating people in an equal way or not morally right . Both of these examples are true for parents of teenagers, you or I wouldn't put it in these terms, but the essence of the feeling is in these statements.  So what is going on? Imagine your teenagers brain as a tree and just before puberty, there is an increase in grey matter in the prefrontal cortex, this part of the brain is responsible for logic and reasoning which helps with decision making. Unfortunately, during adolescence, the tree is pruned and cut back to generate stronger and s...

My Daughter has given up Snapchat... and the results could give other parents pause for thought!!! Okay, so it was a forced break from Snapchat, because of the  constant concerned stance from me and my mother saying 'she is a changed girl because of that phone!'  I had become concerned over time that the drift was widening and I was playing catch up in the emotions department. My daughter was short tempered, with disturbed sleep and was generally difficult to be around.  I was witnessing her becoming tranced into a digital world of ideals and perfection. She was agitated and life weighed heavy.   We agreed that I would give her a basic Samsung phone that could not operate the much obsessed social media apps. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy, but neither was spending time with her when she had her phone quite frankly. After the phone hand over, the change was not gradual, it was nearly immediate and dramatic. Within 3 hours she was sitting downstairs f...