The Teen Years. We’ve all been there but obviously being one and having one are worlds apart. Your sweet child who couldn’t get enough of you suddenly becomes moody and irritable. Instead of curiosity and a constant stream of questions and conversation/observation, you now get one-syllable answers and grunts. If you are lucky.

Remember those mornings they popped up like Energizer bunnies before you’ve had a chance at a coffee? Ready to play, ready for the Saturday cartoons, ready for your pancakes?

Now you can barely get them to stir before the crack of noon.

You hardly see them, between being out with friends, locked in their rooms, school and their social calendar. Before you rag on your teenager, here are some key developmental changes that you should know about. It may put you more at ease with all the changes.

And I’m not talking the obvious ones – physical growth spurt, the hormonal system getting kickstarted, or even the new testosterone receptors on their amygdala (think aggression).

In the last 10 to 15 years, we’ve seen a lot more research, especially on the brain. Some of the data may explain a few things for you. Advice from neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor? Keep them alive until 25!

MRI studies show that the teenage brain is not an old child brain or a half-baked adult brain; it is a unique entity characterized by changeability and an increase in networking among brain regions. Jay N. Giedd, the Amazing Teen Brain, Scientific American

Why are Teenagers Sleeping SO Late? And Then Refuse to Get up?

Teenagers seem to have all the energy to stay up late, talking on the phone, FB’ing, Instagramming, tweeting, playing games, watching movies, and generally doing everything but the single most important nighttime activity – sleep.

What maintains our sleep-wake cycle and induces sleepiness is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland called melatonin. For adults, this starts around 10pm and for teenagers? Yep, you guessed it. 1am. That’s when they START to feel drowsy.

What do they do in the meantime? They push back bedtime even more by disrupting the natural sleep cycle.