Even Shakespeare wrote about it – the contrary nature of teens. Romeo and Juliet were given strict orders to stay away from each other but neither did. And the young couples in Midsummer Night’s Dream running off into the forest? That might have earned those teens a trip to the Nunnery, which was a sort of Elizabethan teen military school. Sound familiar to our time? Actually teen posturing aginst parents has a very important developmental function, and understanding the “hidden language” of adolescent oppositionality can keep our responses on the right track.
Just as there is a spurt in height during the adolescent period, there is a spurt in identity development as well. Identity in teens is a lot like a building on a Hollywood movie set. The exteriors, hair, clothes, and makeup, set the tone while the important work of identity development occurs behind the scenes. Even teen facial expressions, ranging from grimaces to sarcastic glances, keep parents and adults from seeing past the attitude revealing the fact that teens find out who they are not long before they discover who they are. In other words, teens will experiment with dress and behavior in order to “try on” adult identities. For most, this is a temporary fix until transitional challenges like getting a first job or moving away to college become the formative influences on identity. But for others, actually fewer than the media tends to portray, oppositionality becomes an easier path to identity formation. For those teens, either behaving like a psuedo-adult with extreme independence from parenteal limits, or negative identifications with a drug using crowd offer a “quick fix” to the identity formation challenge.
Students who at the age of 16 years excel at school, particularly in creative subjects, are almost 4 times more likely to develop bipolar disorder during the next decade than teenagers with average grades, a new study has found.
This finding supports the hypothesis that creative individuals are more susceptible to bipolar disorder, lead author James H. MacCabe, PhD, Senior Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, United Kingdom, told Medscape Psychiatry. “This is an idea that a lot of people believe, although until this study, there hasn’t been very strong evidence,” said Dr. MacCabe.
However, the investigators also found a relationship, albeit a weaker one, between students who do poorly in school and the later development of bipolar disorder.
The study is published in the February issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry.
Suicidal adolescents who were prescribed an antidepressant medication during inpatient psychiatric hospital treatment were 85 percent less likely than others to be readmitted within a month after discharge, a new study found. This is reassuring data, as there have been concerns about prescribing antidepressants in adolescents since 2003, when the FDA issued a black box warning that some antidepressants may increase the risk of suicidal behavior for pediatric patients. A black-box warning is the most serious type of warning in prescription drug labeling.
The study appears in the December issue of The Annals of Pharmacotherapy.
The researchers did a retrospective study of 318 Medicaid-covered adolescents who were admitted to three major psychiatric hospitals in Maryland because of attempted suicide or suicidal behaviors.
They examined hospital medical records for the adolescents and recorded all medication changes — including additions, discontinuations and changed dosages that occurred during the hospital stay. The researchers then identified which patients were readmitted to any hospital in Maryland within 30 days of their discharge. The study found that 78 percent of the inpatients had one or more changes in their medication, typically the addition of an antidepressant, mood stabilizer or antipsychotic.
The study also found that adolescents who were prescribed three or more psychotropic medications were 2.6 times more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days.
Reserachers at Queensland Brain Insitute in Australia have discovered the class of drugs that increase levels of a neurotransmitter known as ‘norepinephrine’ triggers neurogenesis – the growth of new neurons – in a brain region called the hippocampus. If you block hippocampus neurogenesis, antidepressants no longer work,” lead researcher Dr Dhanisha Jhaveri said. “That suggests antidepressants must up-regulate neurogenesis in order for them to actually have any affect on behavior.”
However, the neuroscientists also found not all antidepressants worked in the same way. Dr Jhaveri said surprisingly, the class of antidepressants that increase levels of the neurotransmitter called serotonin – Prozac is a common example – fails to stimulate neurogenesis. “Norepinephrine is basically binding directly onto the precursors which then initiate a signal which leads to the production of more neurons,” she said.
Using rodent models the research, published today in the Journal of Neuroscience , established that selectively blocking the re-uptake of norepinephrine directly activated hippocampal stem cells thereby discovering a much larger pool of dormant precursors in the hippocampus than previously thought to exist.
This research may provide insights into treatment for depression and understanding of its underlying etiology.
Media influence on kids has become the subject of increased focus by parents, educators and health care professional. New research has named several areas of influence in which media content has a negative effect on children. Violence and aggressive behavior, sexual content, body image and self esteem and physical health and school performance were sited as the main areas of concern.
Violence:The incidents of violence shown on the news, in movies and prime time TV has increased and become more graphicin nature. This can lead to desensitization to pain and suffering as well as increase anxiety.
Sexual content:A report was issued in 1996 citing that kids were exposed to at least eight sexual references per hour during “family hour”. The results were found that such exposure can affect adolescents’ moral judgment. These statistics have no doubt increased over the past fourteen years.
Body image:The promotion of unrealistic expectations of what’s considered acceptable physical appearance for both boys and girls can be a catalyst for the rise in eating disorders and decline in self esteem.
Physical health and school performance:The average American child spends more than twenty hours per week watching TV as well as additional time on the internet, playing video games and using a cell phone. This takes time away from homework and exercise contributing to the increase in childhood obesity and poor school performance. Parents are encouraged to have a proactive involvement in their child’s media involvement.The beneficial effects are early preparedness for learning, exposure to social issues, the arts and other healthy entertainment.Remember to take notice and be interested in what your child is doing. Keep communications open and offer alternatives that are within their frame of interest.
Please visit our Kids & Media section for tips on how to make sure how to protect children from media dangers and suggestions for positive media.
It can be tough to get our video game generation kids to get outside and play. A good alternative is Wii Fit Plus or Dance Dance Revolution. A study has shown that certain activity-based videogames can be good subtitutes to get the children to start an active lifestyle. Parents can join in and make it a family event. Anyone care to share their experiences with getting their kids to be more active?
We usually think of learning problems or disabilities as referring to school or academic problems. However, many children who do well in school have learning problems when it comes to getting along with peers, learning various types of sports, learning how to regulate their appetites in order to reach their ideal weight, learning how to regulate their moods in order to enjoy life more, or learning how to get organized and make their lives more manageable and require less parental supervision.
I like to think of any problem as a learning problem. That is, I assume that either there is either insufficient reward, a developmental problem, or some combination of the two when a child is not learning a skill that they need to acquire. Fox example, if a child does not clean their room, it is possible that a parent’s providing a privilege or monetary reward would help them learn to clean their room more often.
If a reward does not work, then it could be a developmental issue. Briefly stated, a developmental perspective assumes that a child cannot learn certain things until their nervous systems and bodies have developed to a point where they are ready to do so. In spite of the best teaching strategies, we probably would not be able to teach even a gifted 7-year-old child to do Algebra. The brain’s abstract thinking processes have not developed enough to support the acquisition of such skills.
In his book, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, Bruce Perry, M.D., details his work with children who have been severely abused and/or neglected. However, one of the outcomes of his work, the area of the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) has implications for all children (see, for example, www.reclaiming.com and ChildTrauma Academy.com). Briefly stated, Perry and his colleagues have devised developmental rating scales that allow them to predict what interventions will work best for the child.
These interventions sometimes include verbal therapy, but they often include more basic means such as music, movement, breathing exercises, and drumming when the child does not appear developmentally ready for verbal techniques.
When I was a child, I was a good athlete. I excelled in baseball, football, basketball, and golf, but I did not learn to swim until I was 26-years-old. I tried very hard, and my parents provided swimming lessons for many years, but my development in this area was far behind my development in other sports, as well as in academic areas.
In brief, then, learning encompasses all areas of life, and some of us learn quickly in some others, and not so quickly in others. A thorough assessment of all of your child’s strengths and weakness should help you provide them with the intervention that is most appropriate for their developmental needs.
Remember my example with swimming, however, and be aware that your labor may not bear fruit immediately!
According to sleep experts, children in preschool need about 10 to 12 hours of sleep per night, while older children need around 8 to 9 hours. But a recent survey by the National Sleep Foundation indicated that over 60 percent of children have trouble either going to sleep or staying asleep during the week. Beauty rest is one thing, but lack of sleep in children can lead to much more serious problems including depression, hostility, weight gain, and lower school performance. The culprits that are keeping children awake at night?
Mom, I need those jeans. All my friends are wearing them and my friends will make fun of me if I donít.î Despite what some teenagers think, parents arenít made of money. You may be struggling with how to address your teenagerís big spending behavior. The following ideas may give you the help you need to do exactly that.
As a parent, you try to teach your children to use money wisely. Then, when children hit the teenage years, they seem to forget everything youíve taught them. This may be partly due to peer pressure and trying to find their place in the world. However, no matter how much they think they need the newest in name-brand things, sometimes itís simply not within the family budget.
The information on this website is solely for
informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither
Child Development Institute, LLC nor Dr. Myers nor any of the editors,
columnists or authors take responsibility for any possible consequences from any
action taken which results from reading or following the information contained
in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the
practice of medicine or psychology, and this information does not replace the
advice of your physician or mental health care provider. Before undertaking any
course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other
health care provider.
See additional information.
AFFILIATE STATUS DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the owner of this website is an affiliate for providers of goods and services mentioned on this website and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. To learn more, click here
or 
. A 
