'It is exactly like a traumatic head injury,' is how one dad described the sudden and profound shift in his daughter's ability. Not her ability to speak, although her vocabulary is gone, too. Not her ability to pay attention, which has evaporated. Not even her ability to remember and apply the house rules that date back to her toddlerhood, which has also ceased to exist. He was referring to her ability to control herself, understand her own behaviour, even to be herself.
At about 12 children experience a period of disequilibrium. This loss of balance is caused by hormone fluctuations, growth spurts and developmental brain damage. Children's writer Terry Stafford described the period as 'after the kid brain fell out and before the adult brain grew back in.'
A long time ago, when brains were first studied, somehow the idea that brain development ended at somewhere between 3 and 8 took hold and lasted, in the public mind, a good deal longer than the idea could be scientifically defended. It is now known for certain that brains continue to grow, adapt and change throughout life. Sometimes that growth is steady and predictable and relatively comfortable to experience. Sometimes, it's like being 12.
The Cause
Around 12, in preparation for the dramatic growth in brain size which forms the pre-frontal cortex -- the part of the brain right behind the forehead -- unused, old and unnecessary neural connections are cut. About 30% of them. This means that as much as one third of the child's brain no longer functions the way it did a year ago.
The Effects
For the child, this means a number of things: short-term memory virtually doesn't exist. If he said it less than 5 minutes ago, he doesn't remember. Honestly -- it is exactly like dealing with concussion amnesia. And when he asks again in 3 minutes, he really doesn't remember it's the third request. It helps to make light of this, knowing that he is not doing this to be annoying any more than his inability to levitate his sister is just to bug her.
Regarding his sister: impulse control is gone as is the ability to accurately predict cause and effect. So, often the twelve year olds start swatting, biting, kicking and otherwise bothering their siblings -- again, in a way that they haven't since they were 2.
Along with impulse control problems, there is important research that suggests that the brain development impairs not only their ability to withstand things like peer pressure (to smoke, say), but also dramatically increases their 'addictabilty' -- their susceptibility to becoming addicted to, say, tobacco.
The Problem
When children do not know that these issues are caused by physical and, more vitally, transitory brain development phases, they come to think of their new behaviour as 'who I am'. A parent looks at this alien creature who seems to have taken over their lovely, helpful and responsible child's body and fears this is who the child has become for all time. For parents and children, this can make moving out of this phase very difficult.
The Solution
Knowing that this phase is natural, temporary (averaging 9-15 months) and necessary to grow the adult brain, makes it possible to support the child, and make the necessary changes in what the child is expected to be able to handle and dramatically limit the amount of time spent unsupervised. It makes it possible to laugh at the more bizarre behaviours that pop up out of nowhere and to let go of the fears that this is a result of bad parenting or bad children.
Terry Stafford is the author and illustrator of Amie and Amie and Annika, lovely books about her daughter breastfeeding as a very young child and becoming a sister in a breastfeeding family.
For further reading about brain development throughout life, see ChangeYour Mind, Change Your Brain:How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves by Sharon Begley (Ballantine, NY, NY 2007)
 |
