The Transition Tightrope

Supporting Students in Transition to Secondary School

Angie Wilcock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136189302
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The transition phase from primary to secondary school is a time of massive personal, physical, psychological and social change. Not only is it a difficult time for the young adolescent, but it is also a challenging time for parents, teachers and anyone working with young people experiencing such substantial changes in their lives. In this highly accessible book, Angie Wilcock offers clear, practical, and realistic tips and strategies to support teachers' and parents' understanding of this difficult transition stage.

If you are concerned that your child or pupil may have difficulty coping with the many changes and challenges associated with this phase, this book will give you insight into issues such as:

• understanding the developing teen and effective ways to handle them
• keeping up with multiple assignments
• creating a system of organisation and an effective work space at home
• maintaining a healthy balance between work, play...and sleep
• developing a positive attitude to school and study
• setting realistic goals
• making new friends
• establishing life skills which are transferable to school.

Based on real-life teaching and parenting experience and full of practical, helpful case studies, this is just the resource you need to help you support and guide your developing teen.

Chapter 1

The middle years – morphing from gorgeous to grumpy

“Who are you?”

The ‘middle years’ refer to students in Years 5–9, or 10–15 years. Almost overnight, and sometimes without any apparent warning, you find yourself standing in front of your son or daughter wondering what on Earth has happened! Your gorgeous boy or girl has transformed from a delightful child to a grumpy, sullen, moody, impulsive young adolescent who is actually answering back!

“Who are you?” you find yourself wondering or saying out loud, and at the same time reflecting on where you could have possibly gone wrong in your parenting. Take a breath – it is not the end of the world; it's just that your world and the world of your pre-adolescent are on slightly different angles, but all is not lost. An understanding of why these changes are occurring should ease your mind a little – but understanding the changes is one thing; dealing with them and still maintaining a positive relationship with your young adolescent son or daughter is the more difficult task.

I do not pretend to be a doctor or a child psychologist, so I'm not about to give detailed physiological or psychological background to all this. What I intend to do here is to put some of this background into context – if we don't know why our kids are changing, we can't possibly understand how we can cope with the changes on a daily basis. What we want, above all, is to know that our kids are OK…and that we are too!

What's happening to my child?

Middle years growth and development is massive. It is a period of great physical, emotional, social and cognitive development. While all this is going on, our kids are also leaving behind the familiarities of primary school and moving into the unknown world of secondary school.

Let's look briefly at just some of the changes your young adolescent experiences during this time.

Physical

Girls and boys experience the onset of puberty at different ages; for most girls it occurs around the age of ten, and for most boys around the age of twelve. Onset for girls can begin as early as seven or eight, and as early as nine years of age for boys – but this is not common. The entire process can take from one to six years and this process leads to adolescence.¹

Adolescence itself is the transitional period between childhood and adulthood. Adolescents are no longer children, yet they are not miniature adults either. They are a special entity with special needs, and how we deal with them as parents can be somewhat tricky at times.

The physical changes are obvious in increasing height and weight, changed body shapes, increased body hair and developing secondary sex characteristics. Along with these obvious changes are the less physically obvious changes in hormones – affecting moods, co-ordination, self-image and relationships with friends and family…which leads us to the emotional changes experienced during this period.

Emotional

Dealing with the changes in emotions of young adolescents can feel like defusing a ticking bomb – one false move and you'll be hit by flying shrapnel! Some days are better than others and sometimes you just can't get it right. On those days, less is more – less talking, more listening…and more patience.

Surging hormones can take their toll on adolescent behaviour and moods and, while it is often difficult to deal with, it is a sign that the body is developing correctly. But not all mood swings and behaviour or attitude changes can be attributed to hormones. School or home-related factors can contribute to these changes…so don't just attribute everything to hormones; make sure you know what's going on.

If you keep in mind the kinds of questions our young teens are asking themselves during this time, you might understand why there are so many upswings and downturns in their mood and behaviour. It is obvious to your son or daughter that they are changing – they are growing up and out, and often they don't like it much.

Typically, they will start to question who they are; how they fit with family and friends; how others are perceiving them; what are they confident with and ‘good at’. Because these questions are complex and the answers uncertain, the mood of teens can change quite quickly, and more often than not the frustrations will be vented on those closest to them – the ones with whom they feel safe and comfortable – you!

During these emotionally turbulent times, the best thing you as a parent can do is to:

• show love through communication and respect;

• provide support when they need it and ask for it – you need to be a little more subtle in your approach now;

• set limits – ground rules and structure are still important during this phase;

• not nag! Be inquisitive, but not interfering – inquisitions never end well.

Changes in the brain also affect emotions during adolescence, and this will be more clearly explained in the Cognitive section below.

Social

When our kids are young we work as a team – families operate differently, but basically we spend a lot of time together. Whether it's at the end of the working and school day, on weekends, during school holidays or the family holiday away camping – we all get to know each other well during those early years. We imagine it being like this forever, but we know it won't, and sometimes we're not ready for the change ourselves. So, when does it change? In general, when our kids enter adolescence.

TRUE TALES

I was driving my two boys home from school; they were six and seven years of age at the time. Adam, the seven-year-old, was relating a conversation he'd had during the day with a girl in his class. They were a bit sweet on each other.

“Mum, Jenny told me that when we get married I'll have to move out so that we can live in our own home. That's not right is it?” Adam was clearly well out of his comfort zone here and I could sense the panic!

“Well, that's generally what happens, Adam, but sometimes when people get married they stay with one of the families while they get themselves sorted with renting somewhere or maybe even a little longer while they save to buy a house.” I was trying not to be too brutal.

“Ah, that's OK then,” he replied. “I'm not staying with her family, I'm never leaving home. If Jenny wants to marry me, she'll have to live at my place. Ben can move out and she can have his room. If Ben doesn't want to move out, we'll have to get bunk beds and Jenny can sleep in my room, as long as I get to sleep on top!”

Oh, the innocence of the very young!

When they were six and seven years of age I couldn't imagine ever seeing my sons move out, and I didn't even want to think about it. Hopefully, as our kids grow up we provide them with a range of experiences which will give them the skills and the confidence to make sensible choices during the turbulent times of growing up…so that they can finally move out!

Peer groups are very important to our kids during adolescence. Many parents are confronted by the strength and power of the group and often saddened by what they feel is a sense of loss. In my experience this can be particularly so in single-parent families or single-child families.

The close bond between parent and child…more often mum and child… appears to be under threat. Suddenly your opinion doesn't count quite so much, and it seems that the opinion of the group nearly always wins. When parents speak to me about their concerns in this area I always remind them that if they have built a good relationship with their child over the years, they should have confidence in that. It might seem that they've lost them, but they haven't. They will, though, if they force them to choose or battle with them over priority.

The apparent dependence on peer groups and friends is all part of adolescent development – “Where do I fit?” is a very important issue for them. It doesn't need to be a ‘them and us’ battle; it may seem that what you think and what you say are no longer relevant, but you still need to maintain connection – you just need to connect a little differently.

We will be looking at the issue of making friends and establishing new social networks in secondary school in a later chapter; just know that you still have a very important role to play in your young adolescent's life. It doesn't stop when the pimples start!

Cognitive

Have you found yourself in the position of standing there, in front of your 13- or 14-year-old and asking – “Why did you do that? What on earth were you thinking?” If you haven't yet, you probably will. If you are lucky enough to receive a verbal response, instead of the more common grunt, shoulder shrug or eye roll, your treasure will probably say something like “I dunno” or “Whatever!” If you expect something more coherent than this, you will more than likely be very disappointed.

During adolescence, the brain is doing some amazing things – and, it seems, not always to the best advantage of your teen. We commonly refer to our brains as ‘grey matter’ and, put simply, it is the change occurring in the adolescent ‘grey matter’ which has a dramatic effect on their behaviour and their emotions. The grey matter is where all the nerve cells are and during adolescence there is about a 3 per cent loss in the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is the area which controls impulses, forms judgements, plans and considers outcomes. It communicates with other areas of the brain through synapses, or connections between nerve cells.

At birth, each nerve cell (neuron) has about approximately 2,500 synapses (connections); by two years of age there are around 15,000 synapses per neuron. Up to the age of nine, the brain is twice as active as the brain of an adult. Around the age of twelve, the process called synaptic pruning starts to occur. The brain employs a use-it-or-lose-it principle and begins to prune or destroy the weakest connections. At the same time as this pruning is occurring another process called ‘myelination’ is also happening. While the brain is pruning away some connections, it is also strengthening and wrapping other connections with a white substance called myelin. The effect of this sheathing is to accelerate brain function by up to 100 times normal speed.²

The amygdala is an almond-shaped mass of nuclei found in the temporal lobe of the brain and is largely responsible for controlling emotions as well as deciding which memories are stored in the brain and where. Adolescents rely heavily on the amygdala when making decisions.

We can see by all this that the combination of pruning, myelin sheathing and reliance on the amygdala increases the chance of poor decision-making and risk-taking. It also means that our teens respond more on ‘gut instinct’ than reasoning and common sense – a very dangerous cocktail.

New findings show that the greatest changes to the parts of the brain that are responsible for functions such as self-control, judgement, emotions and organisation occur between puberty and adulthood.³ This is good news for parents who are at their wits’ end to understand some of the reckless and seemingly inexplicable behaviour of their young adolescent.

As parents, we can't stop the process of brain development and we can't stop our teens from making ill-judged decisions. What we need to do is provide plenty of opportunities for them to take safe risks and operate in a safe environment.

We know that if we allow our teens to ride around in a car with four other teens, we are placing them in an unsafe or high-risk situation and the decisions they make under these circumstances may well be disastrous. Don't cross your fingers and hope for the best – you are still the parent and you can say ‘no’. It's all about how you communicate the ‘no’ and how you provide an alternative situation. Instead of hoping that five adolescents in a car get home safely, maybe allow the use of the car as long as there is only one passenger.

Parents often say that they tire of the arguments and the constant battles with their teens – don't give up! When speaking about brain development and its effect on adolescent behaviour, I often use the analogy of...