Blog Archives - Dr John Coleman

Parents of teenagers in China

In 2021 I was contacted by a parenting organization in Beijing to tell me that they had arranged for my book “Why won’t my teenager talk to me?” to be translated into Chinese. I was delighted, and not a little surprised. They asked if I would like a copy, and before long this indeed arrived through the post.

Following this I then received an email asking if I would be willing to offer them some help with their parenting courses. I had no idea that such a thing was happening in China, but since it is now possible to work with people in any part of the world without leaving one’s desk, I said yes.

There followed a fascinating period of work with parents of teenagers across China. The enthusiasm for my input was striking, and of course very rewarding. Here is an example of one parent’s comments to me:

“Thank you for your efforts all the time dear teacher. In fact, when I study the course and read your book, I also heal myself. I love my children very much, and I hope they can grow up happier and happier. So, I am looking forward to seeing what I can do better with your help”.

How can I offer help to parents in such a different culture? This is a question I have been asked numerous times by colleagues here in the UK. The remarkable thing is that the majority of the concerns of parents are almost identical to those in Western countries.

“Dilly-dallying on homework”

“Do some people’s adolescent traits persist into adulthood?”

“I would like to ask how to cultivate children’s gratefulness?”

“There are lots of worries and anxious of negative peer influence”

“How to limit and monitor screen time? It seems we compete with the screen to win our children back, but for lots of time, our teenagers choose screen more than us”

So where are the differences? The most striking fact has to do with the pressure on young people from the education system. Many questions focused on homework, and how parents can support their young people with the pressures they experience. Typical questions ran like this:

“The school is very intensive. The teacher put a lot of pressure on the students. Often using physical punishment, scold students”

“It is difficult to change the environment of intense learning competition. How can I help my child relieve stress, relax and face it?”

In subsequent discussions with the Chinese facilitators, they told me that academic performance is critical for future job prospects. Unless students perform well at school, future opportunities are severely limited. This leads to high levels of anxiety for both parents and young people.

This work has now concluded, although I remain in contact with colleagues in China. As one put it: “I hope you will be able to use our examples in your next book!” The most striking conclusion for me has to be the similarity of parental concerns about the teenage years. Whether you are a parent in London or Beijing, you still worry about the changes that take place as children move into the teenage years.

A second conclusion relates to the fact that there is so little support for this group of parents in Asia. I was struck by the high level of need that was constantly expressed to me. My book has become a best-seller – to my utter amazement. That my knowledge about adolescence can be so useful in such a different culture is truly extraordinary. In the webinars that I ran for parents, we were getting over 1,000 participants. Remarkable.

All in all, it proved to be a fascinating and rewarding project. It is clear that, no matter where you live, parents of teenagers struggle to make sense of this stage of life. If anything can be done to help families across the globe, it is evident that more knowledge about adolescent development could play a useful part.

27.06.23

Why teach brain development to secondary school pupils?

Our knowledge of the changes in the teenage brain is not exactly “new knowledge”. It is 20 years now since reports of research on the teen brain starting appearing in the media. However, there is a long way to go before the field of education catches up with these exciting developments. There are many who argue that a collection of brain scans does not help us plan the curriculum, or organize the school day.

This is to misunderstand the value of knowledge about the teenage brain. In talking to teachers, it becomes clear that, in the main, they see this knowledge as extremely helpful. They don’t value it for lesson planning, but as a vital tool for helping them to understand their students.

They want to understand why some are drowsy in the morning. They want to make sense of the emotional melt-downs, and to know why young people develop at such different rates. Why do some mature early, whilst others lag behind? How can teachers help their students become more mindful of the consequences of their behaviour?

In addition to this there is another important possibility which arises out of our knowledge of the teenage brain. This is the possibility that we can actually teach young people about their brains, and about the changes that are taking place. Why is this important?

The fact is that most teenagers are puzzled about what is happening to them. They want to understand why they experience a rapidly shifting kaleidoscope of emotions. They want to know more about how memory works. They are keen to understand how best to revise, and how to manage the stress that they all experience. While we concentrate on teaching them science or history, they would really like to understand themselves better.

Our understanding of the brain has made this possible in a way that was unimaginable 20 years ago. We now know that the teenage brain undergoes a major restructuring and reorganization during these years. This knowledge provides us with an insight into teenage behaviour. Such an insight has value not only for adults – parents, teachers and others – but for young people themselves.

In my own experience delivering lessons on the brain to students, as outlined in my book “The teacher and the teenage brain”, this knowledge is hugely reassuring to young people. Those in the first years of secondary school tell me they are grateful to learn about this, whilst those in the “A” level years ask: “Why didn’t we have this earlier? It would have made so much difference!”

In my view this is a matter of a human right. Young people have the right to know what is happening in their brains. After all we now take it for granted that we teach young people about puberty. In years gone by it would have been assumed that this should happen in the family (if at all), but not as part of the school curriculum. Knowledge of the changing brain is the same. I predict that in twenty or thirty years it will be seen as extraordinary not to be including this topic in the curriculum.

In making this point I should not under-estimate the challenges involved. We have a long way to go in designing lesson plans for different age groups. Some initiatives are under way (e.g. Brain Waves in Oxford), but this an exception. There is also the question of who should teach this topic. Many teachers are cautious about taking this on as it is seen as a “new” subject.

In spite of all this, I remain convinced that, in time, this will be seen as an accepted part of the curriculum. Before too long it will be recognized that this knowledge is helpful, not only for teachers, but also that it leads to improved learning among students. Most importantly, it helps young people understand themselves better, resulting in happier, healthier teenagers. Who can argue with that goal?

12.01.23

Shortlisted for ‘Best Books for Educators Summer 2021’ awards.

We’re delighted to announce that The Teacher and the Teenage Brain has made the shortlist of Learning Ladders’ ‘Best Books for Educators Summer 2021’ awards.

We were shortlisted alongside 40 other books from a longlist of over 100 entries for our dedication to enriching the lives of educators with our writing.

The awards panel featured teachers, school leaders, and EdTech entrepreneurs including Learning Ladders’ founder, Matt Koster-Marcon, who is also Chair of the EdTech Special Interest Group at BESA.

Educational books are a great CPD resource, providing inspiration, entertainment, and new ways of thinking about education.

We’re proud to be included in the list, and would also like to congratulate the other shortlisted books for their incredible work.

Visit the full list of recommended books, which cover topics such as wellbeing, educational leadership, and diversity and inclusion in schools.

The book, published by Routledge, is available to order here.

The Teacher and The Teenage Brain

Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: 27^th May 2021

I wrote this book, “The teacher and the teenage brain”, for two reasons. First, because I believe that knowledge about teenage brain development can make a profound difference to the way adults understand and relate to young people. Second, I wanted to describe my search for novel ways to disseminate information about the teenage brain to teachers, parents, and young people.

In recent years there has been an explosion of knowledge about the human brain. A lot of this new knowledge concerns the teenage brain. It is striking fact that until 20 years ago it was believed that the brain stopped developing at the end of childhood. Now we know that the brain continues to change and develop through the teenage years and into the early twenties. This fact was simply not known to previous generations.

The most significant finding relates to the degree of change that occurs in the brain during the adolescent years. This knowledge is of especial importance for any adult who lives or works with young people. The brain undergoes more change and maturation during the teenage years than at any time in the life cycle apart from the first three years of life. This fact has profound implications for our understanding of teenage behaviour. Once we recognise the degree of change, then the behaviour of those in this age range becomes so much more explicable.

It is also important to note that, due to the change and reorganisation of the brain at this time, the teenage years are a critical period, a time with great potential for change. After attending one of the courses on the teen brain a teacher said to me:

One thing I found particularly powerful – knowing that it is the years of puberty and afterwards that are so significant. For the teens who have had a disadvantaged start, they feel that they are behind and never going to catch up. So, ideas about the changing brain can be very empowering. It is important to bring it out, that things are changing, it is not all set.

This book has the word teacher in the title, since one obvious location for the introduction of this new knowledge is the school. The topics covered in the book include risk and reward, the social brain, memory and learning, the management of stress and anxiety, sleep, and topics to do with mental health. The book also contains details of the workshops and lesson plans developed in order to make knowledge about the teenage brain more widely available.

Both teachers and students will benefit hugely from this knowledge. As one teacher put it:

“Anything that improves understanding of the young people we are working with must be a gain. I believe this is a huge step forward. Before I did the course (The teen brain course) I didn’t really understand how students are changing. Ideas about the changing brain can be very empowering.”

The work described in this book is also essential reading for professionals in health and social care. I have already mentioned issues to do with mental health and emotional well-being.

As one well-being co-ordinator in a secondary school put it to me:

“A lot of our parents and students are self-diagnosing themselves with mental health problems. As soon as a child is moody, frustrated, angry, fed up with the world, parents automatically look it up on line and they go: ‘Oh! My child has got a personality disorder’, or something like that. They haven’t been to a GP or anything. It is very difficult to persuade a parent that this is normal. If we could do some sort of session on the teen brain for parents so that they could understand what is normal and what is not that would be brilliant”.

This is a particularly important time for health education. With the introduction of a new curriculum in RSE, a new focus on health and well-being in schools, as well as the long-term impact of the pandemic, a greater understanding of brain development in adolescence could not be more timely. As far as parents are concerned, the book shows how awareness of the changes in the brain can lead to a more sympathetic approach, and hopefully to a reduction in levels of conflict between the generations. This book will help to unravel the secrets of the teenage brain. I will leave the last word to this teacher:

“The impact on students? I think they get short-changed, I really do. I think teenagers get a bit of a raw deal, they are really misunderstood. The feel that. They actually know that. Understanding of the teen brain helps you to show more empathy to young people. If we as adults show them more empathy you get that back in return. I do honestly feel that it would help them feel a bit better understood, perhaps respected a bit more.”

Information management

A parent recently asked me why her daughter was willing to tell her certain things, but clammed up when asked about other topics. I replied by telling her the story of one young woman who said to me: “I do tell my Mum things, but not at the time they happen. I have to get them sorted in my mind first”. This response underscores a topic that has been the subject of research in social psychology recently, a topic that is known as “information management”. This refers to the fact that young people take an active role in managing the flow of information between themselves and the adults around them.

A young person may not disclose because they think the information will be hurtful, or will worry the adult. They may hold back because they think it is none of the adults’ business! Topics to do with sex and romance probably come into this category. Or, as indicated above, they may wish to wait till they are clear about the consequences of talking about a particular topic.

The conclusions of this are clear.

Young people think carefully about how to manage information;
They make decisions on what to talk about based on all sorts of reasons, some of which may be to do with protecting their parents, or not wanting to worry them;
Teenagers have clear and well-thought out views about what parents ought to know, and what they do not need to know;
This topic – information management – illustrates clearly that communication is a two-way process. Simply giving instructions, or asking questions (thought of as “interrogation” by young people) is unlikely to lead to good conversations!
Good communication between parent and teenager depends on the adult being willing to listen and well as talk. Most importantly it is worth remembering that young people take an active role in deciding what to communicate, and when to do so.

Teenagers and sleep

It has been really exciting to see the development of sleep lessons for young people, developed by Dr Michael Farquar in association with the PSHE Association. I have long believed that good sleep is a key element contributing to the health of teenagers. It is hugely encouraging to see that schools and the general public are at last taking this seriously.

As part of the wider range of research on brain development in adolescence, we have learnt that the hormone melatonin is released later at night in young people than in adults. Melatonin is the hormone which signals that it is time to go to sleep. This finding, that melatonin is released later in teenagers, is critical as it highlights a key reason why many teenagers find it hard to go to sleep at night.

This has big implications. Sleep is important for teenagers, probably more important that it is for younger children. If young people have to get up early for school, they may be missing some hours of much needed sleep. Research tells us that sleep deficit (less than seven hours a night) can have a negative influence on both learning and behaviour.

Why is sleep so important? Firstly it is the time when growth hormones are released. Adolescence, particularly early adolescence, is of course a time of significant growth and development. Secondly we have learnt that something very important happens to memory during sleep. It is a time when memories collected during the day are consolidated. The brain is really busy during sleep, so learning is affected if the individual is not getting enough sleep. A good book on this is “Why we sleep” by Matthew Walker (2018).

The idea of providing sleep lessons in school is so that the problem of sleep loss can be overcome. It seems unlikely that schools will agree to what is known as “ delayed starts”, i.e. starting the school day at 10.00 or 11.00. Trials with this plan have not been popular with teachers or with parents.

However if schools can include lessons on the importance of sleep, and offer advice to young people on how to overcome the melatonin problem, this can only have a positive influence on school performance and on the emotional health of students.

Here are some ideas about developing good sleep patterns for teenagers:

Turn off all digital devices at least a half hour before bedtime;
Turn lights down, put on soothing music;
Have a hot drink of some sort (without caffeine);
Most important of all, get into a good sleep routine. Routines make all the difference;
Lastly, many teenagers may find these suggestions hard to carry out. This is where adults come in. Parents and carers can play a key role in helping in the development of these routines.

We’re delighted to announce that The Teacher and the Teenage Brain has made the shortlist of Learning Ladders’ ‘Best Books for Educators Summer 2021’ awards.

The conclusions of this are clear.

Here are some ideas about developing good sleep patterns for teenagers:

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