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July
Early Adolescence
‘Thirteen is a hard age, very hard. A lot of
people say you have it easy, you're a kid, but
there's a lot of pressure being thirteen-to be
respected by people in your school, to be liked,
always feeling like you have to be good. There's
pressure to do drugs, too, so you try not to
succumb to that. But you don't want to be made fun
of, so you have to look cool You gotta wear the
right shoes, the right clothes-if you have Jordans,
then it's all right. From, like, twelve to
seventeen, there are a lot of transitions going on,
a lot of moving around. It's not like you know
what's going to happen tomorrow. Life gets
different when you get older-there's more work. And
when you go to college it's hard because you're
alone for the first time. But when you get out of
college you start to establish yourself and who you
think you are and what you're about. That's a good
time.' - Carlos Quintana, New York City, 1998
'Thirteen is an all-right age, but I'd much
rather be fourteen or fifteen. I hate the people in
our grade-they're all so boring! People usually
think we're older, and we hang out with
fifteen-year-olds. They’re just so much fun.
But thirteen is better than twelve; I hated being
twelve, it's too young. At least thirteen has
"teen" on the end.' -Andrea Minissale, Ringwood,
N.J., 1998
'Everyone in our grade is so immature. Not
really the girls, but all of the guys are. All of
them are really short, and they act retarded. At
dances they won't dance, they think they're too
cool to do that. But it is annoying how everyone
thinks we're so much older... I wish we looked our
age.' - Deirdre Minissale (Andrea's twin sister),
1998
The poignance of early adolescence is
crystallized in these fragments from an article in
the New York Times. The girls, feeling with some
justification more socially poised than their male
classmates but not aware how unsophisticated and
vulnerable they really are, look to older males for
companionship (though not without a degree of
apprehension over being taken for older than they
are); and they often find older males, sometimes
significantly older, looking for them. Their male
age-mates, largely unwilling to risk inviting a
relationship with a girl and being rejected, hold
back, refuse to dance, tease anyone who breaks
gender ranks. In their own eyes they're being
"cool," but from the girl's point of view, they
"act retarded.' Both genders are quick to label
anything or anyone that frustrates them as
"boring.”
Resetting the Thermostat
The mechanisms that set off the physical changes
of puberty are not entirely understood. It may be
more accurate to say that the brain inhibits
puberty all during childhood than that the brain
triggers puberty at a particular point as a totally
new development. In infancy, a low-level set point
is established for the body's sex hormones. The
thermostat is set on cool. Shortly before pubertal
changes make their appearance, the hormonal
feedback systems change the thermostat from, say,
sixty degrees to eighty degrees. Now a much higher
level of sex hormones is allowed to function in the
body before the hypothalamus at the center of the
brain tells the pituitary gland to cool the
endocrine system down enough to keep the sex
hormone level from going any higher.
The pituitary gland, on command from the
hypothalamus, also releases growth hormones,
although the release may be delayed by factors such
as stress, nutritional deficiency, illness,
excessive athletic training, or diet-induced
thinness. The rapidity of adolescent growth is
astonishing. For boys the peak velocity averages
about 4.1 inches of height per year. Not all parts
of the body grow at the same time. The hands, head,
and feet are the first to accelerate, followed by
the arms and legs, and finally the torso and
shoulders. As Tanner put it, "a boy stops growing
out of his trousers (at least in length) a year
before he stops growing out of his jackets"
At the peak of the growth surge, the larynx
having grown prominently, a boy's voice begins to
deepen gradually. For a while, the voice breaks
unexpectedly between its higher childhood range and
its lower adolescent range until the level of the
mature voice is established late in adolescence.
Since girls as a group begin their growth spurts a
couple of years before boys, they are on average
taller than boys from age eleven to thirteen. From
age fourteen on, males have gained a height
advantage that they never lose. They also develop a
marked superiority in strength and muscular
development. Body fat increases for both genders at
puberty, but the gains are greater for girls. In
late adolescence boys have average muscle to fat
ratio of three to one, while girls' comparable
ratio is five to four. This ratio alone accounts
for much of the difference in adolescents' physical
performance. At the end of adolescence, boys are
stronger; they have "larger hearts and lungs
relative to their size, a higher systolic blood
pressure, a lower resting heart rate, a greater
capacity for carrying oxygen to the blood, a
greater power for neutralizing the chemical
products of muscular exercise, such as lactic
acid," higher blood hemoglobin, and more red blood
cells.
What Is Puberty?
Symmetry would be nicely served if all five of
the male developmental periods in this book could
be firmly age-related. The nature of adolescence,
however, necessitates a relaxation of
age-relatedness in the last two periods. I've
designated the fourth stage (early adolescence) as
ages thirteen to fifteen, and the final stage (late
adolescence) as ages sixteen to eighteen, but where
a boy stands in his adolescent maturation matters
more than his age. The arrival of puberty, which
starts the engine of adolescence, occurs over a
surprising range of time. Some boys' testes begin
to enlarge as early as age nine, some as late as
age thirteen. Very fine pubic hair makes a first
appearance over the same range of age, changing in
color (darker) and texture (coarser) a year or so
after first appearance. The penis exhibits a growth
spurt as early as age ten, as late as age
fourteen.
Facial hair appears only after genital
development is well underway, about two years after
the first appearance of pubic hair-first at the
corners of the upper lip, then across the upper
lip, still later across the upper cheeks and in the
midline below the lips, and lastly along the sides
of the face and lower border of the chin. Underarm
hair begins to grow about the same time as facial
hair, and body hair increases in density on legs,
arms, and chests.
Puberty brings changes in skin quality. The skin
becomes rougher, especially around the upper arms
and thighs, concurrent with the enlargement of
sweat glands. These skin changes often give rise to
enhanced oiliness, and to acne and other skin
eruptions that can plague the self-confidence of
the male adolescent as painfully as that of the
female adolescent.
Pubertal changes occur in the male breast,
stimulated by the body’s production of
estrogens. Both estrogen and androgens (male
hormones) are manufactured by glands in both sexes,
but in different amounts on average. In the male
teenager, the area around the nipple, the areola,
increases in circumference; the nipples also become
more prominent. Some boys develop gynecomastia, a
breast enlargement that includes the growth of
subcutaneous breast tissue. The tissue on one side
of the chest may grow larger than on the other. The
condition usually goes away with continued growth
of the torso, but it can be observed in males of
all ages, particularly among overweight males. The
condition is widespread enough to provoke
advertisements in many publications for surgical
treatment of gynecomastia—essentially the same
kind of breast reduction that some heavily breasted
females elect.
While a boy's body is changing on the outside,
it is also changing on the inside. As the penis
grows in length and thickness, the internal sexual
organs enlarge. The seminal vesicles that carry
sperm from the testicles to the opening of the
penis develop, and the prostate and bilbo-urethral
glands begin to generate seminal fluid.
A year or so after the acceleration of growth of
the penis, the first ejaculation of seminal fluid
occurs. It might take the form of a spontaneous
nocturnal emission, but probably more often it is
the result of masturbation provoked by spontaneous
erection and other genital sensations, or by the
conversations of cohorts describing their own
introductions to masturbation. Boys are not apt to
report their very first ejaculations as much as
girls report their first menstrual periods to each
other, but most boys remember the occurrence. Given
the extent to which the adolescent and adult male
seek orgasmic pleasure through masturbation or
interpersonal sexual contact, and the extent to
which their sexuality is reinforced by an active
fantasy life, one is tempted to say that the day of
first ejaculation is the third keystone day in a
male's life after his day of birth and his first
day of school.
A shift in sleep and alertness patterns also
occurs near this time. Some educators have been
lobbying for a later beginning to the school day
for adolescents. If allowed to regulate their own
sleep schedules, most teenagers stay up to about
1:00 a.m. and sleep until 10:00 a.m. or later.
Studies of their alertness patterns show that they
are least alert between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.,
when classes begin in most schools, and most alert
after 3:00 p.m., when the school day concludes. It
seems likely that this shift in sleep and alertness
patterns, combined with the demands of the
classroom, would affect their moods
significantly.
A number of researchers believe that adolescents
are not inherently moodier than younger children,
notwithstanding widely held opinions to the
contrary. Stressful circumstances—such as
academic problems, family conflict, or strained
friendships—appear to play more substantial
roles in the development of mood disturbances and
depression in adolescence than do hormones. To the
extent that a connection has been established
between hormonal changes and behavior, the effects
seem to be strongest early in puberty when the
system is being “turned on.” The culprit
is not the absolute increases in hormonal levels
but the rapid fluctuations. Once the levels
stabilize, later in puberty, problematic effects
decrease. Through it all, boys show fewer adverse
psychological effects from going through puberty
than do girls.
What Is Adolescence?
Lawrence Steinberg has identified as many ways
of defining adolescence as Howard Gardner has found
varieties of intelligence. Biologically, he writes,
adolescence begins with the onset of puberty and
ends when a person feels ready for sexual
reproduction. Emotionally, adolescence marks the
beginning of self-conscious detachment from parents
and ends with the attainment of a separate sense of
identity. Cognitively, adolescence begins with the
emergence of more advanced reasoning abilities, and
ends with their consolidation in the ability to
entertain hypotheses, weigh contingent
possibilities, see situations from the perspectives
of others, and draw inferences from available
evidence. Interpersonally, to continue Steinberg's
catalog, adolescence deepens a shift in interest
from family relations to peer relations,
culminating in a capacity for deeper intimacy with
peers and commitment to a loved one. Socially,
adolescence begins with training for adult work and
citizen roles, and ends with full attainment of
adult status and privileges. Educationally,
adolescence begins with entry into junior high
school and ends with a completion of formal
schooling. Legally, adolescence begins with the
attainment of juvenile status and ends with the
attainment of majority status. Culturally,
adolescence begins in some societies with training
for a ceremonial rite of passage and ends with
admission to adulthood upon completion of the
rite.
There is pertinent information in each of these
definitions, but none is sufficient by itself to
define adolescence. Biologically, for example, a
boy is capable of performing his role in
reproduction long before we are ready to say that
he has completed his adolescent tasks. Again, a boy
may have quite fully shifted his frame of reference
from family relations to peer intimacy as a
teenager, but we might still judge him to have left
other tasks of adolescence incomplete. As we know,
many boys reach the age of legal majority without
fulfilling all of the tasks of adolescence.
Perhaps we could define adolescence as an
interrelated and overlapping set of processes. They
don’t begin at exactly the same age for every
boy, and they certainly don’t end at the same
age. One can say of many boys in the midstream. of
adolescence: 'He's fifteen years old-going on
sixteen most days, on twenty some days, on ten
other days.' Since there is so much individual
variation in the onset and resolution of the
several processes that constitute adolescence, neat
formulas tied to age can't be offered for parental
guidance and reassurance. What can be done is to
describe the signs of each process; then each boy
has to be read by his parents, teachers, and other
caregivers to see where he stands day by day, month
by month, year by year.
If a thirteen-year-old boy falls ill and misses
school for two or three months, he is not doomed to
stay behind his class for the remainder of his
academic career. When they set their minds to it,
boys can catch up with breathtaking speed. Their
minds are prone to bursts of activity just as their
bodies grow in spurts separated by periods of
leveling off. On the question of overall
maturation, however, the principle of quick
catch-up doesn't apply. The later a boy enters
puberty, the longer his adolescent maturation
usually takes. This may appear to be a rather cruel
caprice of nature, compounded by cultural
attitudes. Early maturing boys steal the show.
Their increased strength and sexuality are rewarded
with approbation. Some of them become the star
athletes. Everyone treats them as more
grown-up.
Meanwhile, the parents of the late maturer may
be worrying as much as the late maturer himself.
There is often more stress attendant upon delay of
male maturation than upon maturation itself. Every
step is more trying for the late maturer because he
knows that many of his peers have gotten there
before him. The social roles available to the late
maturer-the clown or the cut-up, for example-may
themselves hinder more than assist maturation. In
fact, studies show that late maturers are seen both
by other adolescents and by adults as overly
anxious and as seeking attention through immature
behavior. From a cross-gender perspective, then,
the late maturing male is subject to the kind of
unease and self-doubt that often marks the early
maturing female, who may not feel ready for the
social and sexual attention early puberty has
brought her.
In the New York Times, an anonymous mother
described the teenage social order in a suburb of
Minneapolis as a three-tier system. She didn't say
so, but I infer that the system is pyramidal: far
fewer kids at the top than at the bottom. Tier one
consists of the trend setters. They are "the kids
who stand out, are a little noisier, more noticed,
have a group of kids following them. They're
probably a little more risk-taking. They set the
pace." Below them on tier two are the aspiring
"wannabes. ' "Everyone else" is on tier three. Most
of these cliques in early adolescence are limited
to members of the same sex, just as they were in
elementary school. Ways of speaking, dressing, and
behaving are developed by a trendsetting clique to
distinguish themselves from lesser-status peers and
from adults. It takes a considerable amount of
energy and drive—and financial
investment—to be a trendsetter. But teenagers
have the financial resources to support their
social order. They spend $122 billion a year,
including 10 percent of all supermarket sales.
Later in adolescence, same-sex cliques will
partially give way to mixed-sex cliques in which
boys and girls can interact without having to have
intimate relations. By late adolescence, most boys
and girls feel comfortable establishing relations
as couples. They no longer need the mixed-sex
clique, which may then dissolve.
It is important, especially with respect to
issues of character development, not to fall into
the trap of imagining the early adolescent boy as
pulling away from the domination of his stuffy
hierarchical family in order to enjoy the simple
pleasures of democratic life with peer groups.
Adolescent cliques often exhibit hierarchical
strategies of inclusion and exclusion that are more
ruthless and mean-spirited than anything an
adolescent boy has experienced before.
Conflict between adolescent males is often
expressed physically, and for that reason studies
of adolescent aggression have frequently focused on
the behavior of boys. But girls use
rumor-mongering, exclusion, withdrawal of
friendship, and other forms of “relational
aggression” to equally painful—if not
quite so dramatic—effect. One study refers
tellingly to blows to the heart rather than blows
to the body.
As boys move from same-sex cliques early in
adolescence to mixed-sex cliques, they learn more
of the techniques of relational aggression by
seeing and imitating them, or suffering them. Being
on the receiving end of both physical and
relational aggression leads in one direction to
submissive, depressive behavior, and in another
direction to hostile, bitter behavior. Boys, as
well as girls, can follow either path; indeed,
girls today may be more prone to respond with
hostility, even physical aggression, than they
were, say, twenty years ago. Parents and teachers
should take account of the fact that relational
aggression often leaves the victim with a simmering
anger that can break out with slight provocation,
and that may be a roadblock to future
relationships. The key to dealing with both kinds
of aggression is to teach the adolescent
negotiating skills so that he can assert his
interests effectively without resorting to physical
aggression or barely suppressed anger.
A boy is well served by parents and teachers who
discuss the advantages and disadvantages of joining
cliques: pointing out the temptations to
trendsetters to be arrogant and condescending;
raising the question of whether the energy and
anxiety devoted to becoming a trendsetter is worth
it to a wannabe; pointing out alternative paths of
opportunity and enjoyment to boys who are members
of “everyone else.”
Fathers and Sons
In nonindustrial societies, boys in the first
surge of puberty are often subjected to an intense
rite of passage. The purpose of the rite is to
wrest a boy from the social context of women and
children where he has been living, and to initiate
him into the life and company of manhood. The more
anxious the society is about getting boys to make
the leap, the more rigorous the preparation and
ceremonies. Elders teach boys the ways of men.
Feats of strength and endurance may be required.
Fasting may be imposed. The boys penis may-be cut
or marked to signal his change of status. Upon the
conclusion of the ceremonies, the male, who was
just a boy only a few weeks earlier, is regarded as
a man-ready to work as an adult once he sleeps off
his exhaustion, ready to marry within a few
years.
Industrial societies need a much longer period
to educate a boy for the various occupations of
manhood. Rigorous rites of passage don't make much
sense when adolescence is expected to last close to
a decade for most boys, even longer for those who
elect careers requiring extensive postgraduate
education. The few remnants we have from such
rites-notably religious "confirmations" or bar
mitzvahs-have become pleasant celebrations of
adolescence; no one pretends that the male
recipients have really become adults, or that their
social status has changed in any significant way.
To a degree these early adolescent ceremonies
symbolize separation from parents toward deeper
association with peers rather than cohortship with
adults. What happens in industrial societies is
that a male adolescent goes through an extended
period in which he is regarded partly as an adult,
partly as a youth, and maybe still partly as a
child. It can be quite confusing to him to sort
out. In mid-adolescence he is given adult status as
a driver. He can at the same stage acquire a paying
job in which the expectations are the same for him
as for adults: He is expected to arrive for work on
time, perform his prescribed responsibilities
satisfactorily, and, if he earns enough, pay taxes.
But at school he is still confronted with a
framework that hasn’t changed all that much
since grade school. While he may be old enough to
be drafted into military service, at home he may be
treated as a child or as a teenager.
Kathleen Norris, in a wise and humorous essay on
"Infallibility," caught the irony of the
situation:
The mother of a fifteen-year-old boy who had
recently obtained a learner's permit for driving
accompanied him while he drove to a shopping mail,
but as it had begun to rain heavily while they were
indoors, she suggested that she drive home. Her son
had never driven in the rain, which gave her pause.
He insisted that he needed the experience. She
acquiesced, but reluctantly, and as he drove out of
the parking lot, she began to offer a steady stream
of advice. The boy snapped at her to cut it out.
She snapped back, “I don't know what you know,
and what you don't know-I'm only trying to
help!” “Mom,” he said, “just
assume that I know everything.”
The onset of puberty provokes a revision of a
boy's relation to his parents—to his mother,
as we've just seen, but particularly to his father.
The very nature of sexual maturation promotes a
boy's deeper identification with his father. There
is an opportunity for a father to get closer to his
son, yet there are provocations that can lead
fathers and sons to be more estranged than ever. It
is important to keep in mind that as their sons are
approaching or traversing adolescence, many fathers
are experiencing what is called "midlife crisis,"
an awareness of their mortality and limitations, a
questioning of their life goals.
The relationships between fathers and adolescent
sons have been studied frequently without yielding
a consistent profile, partly because the samples
studied aren't the same, partly because there are
many aspects to the relationship and some of them
appear to be at cross-purposes. Here is a catalog
of some of the findings:
The stereotype of the father as playmate for his
children when he is around is borne out by
research. Adolescents help their fathers less
around the house than they help their mothers.
Watching television together is the most common
father-son activity.
Fathers typically do not talk to their
adolescent sons about emotional problems and
relationships; they talk about academic
performance, future education, occupational plans,
etc., and sports. Boys—girls, too—see
their fathers as more enabling, less constraining
than their mothers, but that may be because the
mother is often chief administrator of home
life.
Fathers are, on the whole, more likely to try to
exert control over adolescent boys, and mothers to
relinquish control. As still another study put it,
fathers have greater needs for dominance, are less
likely to be permissive than mothers. Sons in one
study said their fathers knew them better than they
knew their sisters, but they also felt their
relationships with their fathers were less
affectionate than their mothers' relationships with
their sisters. Popular conceptions have adolescent
boys in rebellion from their parents over broad
issues such as religion and politics, but several
studies indicate the major conflicts are over house
rules such as curfews and how messy a boy's bedroom
is.
For fathers, there's an increase of negative
feelings toward their sons as they mature sexually.
Teenagers do not report negative emotion toward
their fathers in relation to sexual maturation. The
fathers' level of moral maturity and emotional
warmth during early adolescence is more predictive
of their sons' behavior during adolescence than it
was during childhood. Looking back from later
adulthood, adults who enjoy happy marriages and
plentiful friendships overwhelmingly report having
had warm and loving fathers. A high level of
supportive fatherly involvement in an adolescent
boy's life is positively correlated with good
school adjustment.
When boys regard themselves as understood
sympathetically by their fathers, they rate time
spent with the fathers as pleasurable; conversely,
when they feel misunderstood, they see time spent
with fathers as forced or unwanted and conflictual.
If fathers are controlling and rigid toward
adolescent sons, their sons have less masculine
self-images and more passive personalities.
Positive gender identity and social development are
encouraged when a father allows his son to be
reasonably self-assertive.
Adolescents whose fathers disappeared from their
lives in early childhood have lower self-esteem
than adolescents whose fathers were present
throughout childhood.
As teenagers renegotiate their roles to gain
more autonomy, power becomes an important issue.
Younger adolescent males regard their fathers as
being more powerful than older adolescent males
regard them. But as adolescent boys mature
physically, their fathers often counter by being
more assertive toward them, and the boys tend to
back off rather than challenge their fathers too
openly.
The largest study of sexual orientation among
the offspring of gay fathers showed that only 9
percent were gay or bisexual—a little, but not
dramatically, larger segment than one would expect
in a random sample of adult males. The sons' sexual
orientation was unrelated to frequency of contact
with their fathers or the quality of the
relationship. Another study established that gay
fathers are no more likely than heterosexual
fathers to offend sexually against their own or
other children. The findings suggest that the
parental contribution to sexual orientation must be
small.
Mothers and Sons
From the very beginning of puberty, there is
some lessening of emotional closeness and
attachment to both parents by boys, although boys
still describe themselves as enjoying more
self-disclosure (but selectively as to subject) and
affection with mothers than with fathers. The
frequency of arguments between mothers and sons
increases. This pulling away may contribute to the
"gnawing loneliness" Harry Stack Sullivan
attributes to boys at the onset of puberty. But the
separation probably saddens mothers more than
fathers because mothers have usually enjoyed the
closer preadolescent bonds. Sixth-grade boys
describe themselves as feeling closer to their
mothers than to their fathers, but by ninth grade
boys see their fathers as being as dose to them as
their mothers.
There are, to be sure, variations in adolescent
development attributable to ethnic diversity.
Chinese-American parents, for example, describe
themselves as more demanding of obedience and
respect from their sons than Caucasian-American
parents. In Hispanic and Asian Pacific Island
families, strong paternal authority is paired with
unusually high maternal warmth; this combination
causes most of their children to be compliant to
family values and deeply loyal to immediate and
extended family members.
Spouses do not operate in vacuums as parents.
When there is serious conflict between them, they
may try to undermine each other's parental roles.
Or they may develop uncoordinated but subtly
competing relationships to their adolescent son, as
we shall see in more detail in the next chapter.
When Mark gets into trouble as a computer hacker at
school, he and his dad, Harvey, will conspire to
keep his mother, Nina, in the dark for a couple of
weeks-"She's too emotional about such things"-until
they have thought through a strategy for dealing
with the crisis.
Mothers' attitudes toward the fathering role of
their spouses reflects their experiences with their
own fathers. If mothers see their own fathers as
having been nurturing, their husbands are more
likely to be strongly involved in the children's
lives. When fathers restrict themselves-or are
restricted-to roles as disciplinarians, playmates,
and economic providers, their participation in
family life is seen more as "mother's helper"
rather than as co-responsible parent. The man who
sees his role principally as the breadwinner, as
opposed to being an emotionally supportive
caregiver, is almost certain to have a rather
distant relationship with his son.
The big picture is that despite what the typical
mother of an adolescent boy has lost in closeness
with him as he matures physically and socially, she
continues to be regarded as the superior caregiver.
One piece of research that disputes conventional
wisdom shows just how influential the mother
remains in most families. The conventional wisdom
is that sons undoubtedly learn their aggressive
behaviors from their fathers, while daughters learn
such behaviors from their mothers. It is true that
men rank higher than women in degrees of
assertiveness, argumentativeness, and verbal
aggressiveness. The surprise is that mothers serve
as the main model for these traits in both
daughters and sons. They model assertiveness and
verbal aggressiveness for all their
children-perhaps simply because they spend more
time with their children. Despite the rich
opportunity the adolescence of a son offers the
father to forge a deeper and closer relationship,
the evidence suggests that many fathers do not take
advantage of the opportunity.
Safe Passage versus High Risk
Joy Dryfoos formulated the notion of "safe
passage" to represent what we all wish for
adolescent boys: that they will not be too severely
affected by the risk factors lodged in all of the
opportunities they will encounter passing from
childhood to adulthood. A 1995 national survey of
fourteen-year-olds indicated the extent of new
experience already accumulated.
Sexual Activity. Forty-one percent of
fourteen-year-old boys acknowledged being sexually
active, that is already introduced to sexual
intercourse. Among the 41 percent, two-thirds said
they used condoms to prevent pregnancy and
transmission of disease. By twelfth grade,
two-thirds of boys will be sexually active.
African-American males have their first sexual
intercourse earlier on average (41 percent before
age thirteen) than white adolescent males, but by
age fourteen white males have caught up.
Drugs. Thirty-two percent of fourteen-year-old
boys have smoked a cigarette within the past month.
Many smoked their first cigarette before age
thirteen. (I a.m. treating cigarettes here as an
addictive substance with serious demonstrated
health implications.) Approximately 25 percent of
boys said that they had smoked marijuana at least
once in the past month. As the popularity of
smoking has increased, and notwithstanding
demonstrations of adverse effects, peer disapproval
of smoking marijuana has dropped dramatically. Five
percent claim that they have used heavy drugs such
as cocaine.
Alcohol. Twenty-eight percent of boys have
already done some heavy drinking by age fourteen.
Broken down ethnically and racially, the data
indicate that Hispanic mates are the heaviest
drinkers, whites come next, and African-Americans
trail behind. Six percent say they have drunk
alcohol and 9 percent have smoked marijuana on
school premises.
Academic Problems. Twenty-six percent of boys in
the l995 survey were already a year behind in
school; 5 percent were two years behind. Boys are
much more likely than girls to be kept back. Not a
few researchers of adolescence believe that the
transition into ninth grade is a "make or break"
time for teenagers. If intimidated by the
challenge, they may take up with peers who are
experimenting with high-risk activities.
Violence. Almost half of adolescent males
acknowledge they've been in a fight during the
previous year. Approximately 16 percent have fought
on school grounds. Thirty-one percent of adolescent
males report carrying weapons of one kind or
another; 12 percent say they have carried a gun
within the past month. There is certainly accuracy
in the claim of boys that schools-to say nothing of
streets and popular hangouts-are dangerous places,
even if there isn't justification for their claim
that the most reasonable response to the danger is
to carry a weapon.
Crime. From 1988 to 1993 the number of juvenile
arrests almost doubled to about 2 million—five
times as many males as females and twice as many
whites as African-Americans, although, because of
the ratio in the population, the rate is higher for
African-Americans. One in five arrested teenagers
is held in secure detention. In one decade, from
the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, the homicide rate
among teens from fourteen to seventeen years old
almost tripled. The increasing availability of
handguns is undoubtedly a factor. Professor James
Fox of Northeastern University, a specialist on
youth crime, writes:
The problem of kids with guns cannot be
overstated. The fourteen-year-old armed with a gun
is far more menacing than a forty-four year old
with a gun. While the negative socializing forces
of drugs, youth gangs and the media have become
more threatening, the positive socializing forces
of family, school, religion, and neighborhood have
grown relatively weak and ineffective.
Risk Clusters. Many adolescent boys are
trustworthily low-risk for experimenting with
dangerous behaviors. Search Institute analyzed
several large-scale studies to see how risk factors
attract each other in predictable clusters.
Unfortunately, these statistics are not broken down
by gender, but we can safely assume that boys
outnumber girls in all categories except eating
disorders. In a national sample of ninth graders
(the upper end of early adolescence), about 22
percent reported no history of substance abuse,
excessive drinking, unsafe sexual activity,
depression or suicide attempts, antisocial behavior
or crime, unsafe driving, or eating disorders. An
additional 29 percent acknowledged only one type of
risk-taking. Eighteen percent acknowledged two
types, 31 percent three or more. In one Michigan
survey, about 40 percent of the ninth graders who
acknowledged school problems also reported
excessive alcohol use; this compared to 17 percent
acknowledgment of school problems among those who
did not report excessive drinking. About 60 percent
of the adolescents with school problems testified
to having had unprotected sex, compared to 30
percent of those who did not acknowledge academic
failures.
Ten percent of fourteen-year-olds (again, a
higher percentage of boys) could be characterized
as living at very high risk. Eighty percent of this
segment drank, 40 percent used illegal drugs, 90
percent were sexually active without using
protection, and more than half had been arrested at
least once during the year preceding the survey.
Approximately 40 percent reported episodes of
depression. Though only a few had dropped out of
school, about 40 percent were two or more classes
behind their age-mates.
Not surprisingly, the earlier any type of
risk-taking begins, the greater the chance that it
will increase in severity and duster with other
risky behaviors. The boy who begins to consume
alcohol at age ten, for example, may start sexual
intercourse at age twelve. If a boy has been
aggressive in preschool, the likelihood of his
exhibiting worrisome aggressiveness in later
childhood and adolescence is substantial.
About 40 percent of American children appear to
be on an "achievement track." They live in safe
neighborhoods with supportive families, attending
schools that are relatively responsive to their
needs. Yet every family is vulnerable to parents'
unemployment, separation or divorce, and the like.
There is no way to construct an impenetrable safety
net around adolescent boys. Each family with boys,
therefore, has to consider how to prepare them for
inevitable temptations and crises.
The risk factors confronting male adolescents in
the United States are found in other societies as
well. But there are differences in how societies
deal with these factors. The United States, for
example, is distinctive in the access to firearms
it grants to youth and even younger children.
Although levels of adolescent sexual activity do
not differ much between the United States and the
societies of Western Europe, much lower rates of
contraception prevail in the United States,
reflecting both lack of access to contraceptives
and ambivalent attitudes on the part of
adolescents, their parents, and the society.
Professor Michael Rutter, a child psychiatrist
in London, has studied the differences in social
policy toward adolescents in the industrialized
societies. It would be "unthinkable" he noted, for
a teenage schoolgirl in the Netherlands to bear a
child because all social institutions-family,
schools, churches, media, and government-are united
in the objective to provide adolescent birth
control information and services to insure that
adolescents' sexual activity is safe, pregnancy
rare, and abortion available for the small number
of unintended pregnancies. Social institutions in
the United States lack this unified approach. In
the absence of such consensus, each individual
floats on his own. Adolescents are often blamed for
their lapses and risk-taking more than they are
helped to take responsibility for them, pick up the
pieces, and go on with their lives.
Depression
Eighteen percent of fourteen-year-old boys say
they have had suicidal thoughts. Seven percent say
they have attempted to commit suicide. The
percentages are lower than for girls the same age,
but boys are more effective in completing the act,
killing themselves four to six times more often
than girls.
William Pollack's writing on depression among
young males has been especially cogent in my view.
After suggesting that our culture gives many
signals to boys not to exhibit sadness, and that
some of the methods of diagnosis of depression were
originally designed to ascertain depression in
adult women and are inappropriate for young males,
he argues for a broad definition of depression in
boys:
If we dwell merely on the most extreme-and
obvious-instances of full-blown, or 'clinical,'
depression, we risk failing to help boys cope with
emotional states that, though less intense on the
surface, are actually very painful for them,
emotional states that without appropriate
intervention may very well evolve into a major
depression or provoke suicidal feelings. There's
also a risk that by ignoring certain related
behaviors, most notably irritable conduct and the
abuse of substances, we may also fail to recognize
the onset of serious depression.
Pollack gives some useful suggestions for
distinguishing sadness from depression (without
downplaying either one). "For instance, a boy who
occasionally shuts himself into his room when he's
feeling down is probably just momentarily feeling
sad. By contrast, a boy who frequently comes home
from school, goes into his room, shuts the door,
and refuses to talk to anyone is obviously
exhibiting behaviors that fall squarely within the
continuum of depression. Likewise, a boy who has
had a bad day and doesn't feel like coming to the
dinner table is clearly quite different from one
who consistently refuses to eat or dine with his
family." Pollack also notes that depression may be
expressed as anger or irritation rather than
through the clearer signals of sadness, withdrawal,
or apparent hopelessness; parents and other
caregivers therefore need to be alert to signs of
anger or irritation to see whether they ascertain
depression behind or beneath the surface. "Being
sad is the same as being mad for me," said one boy
quoted by Pollack.
Depression manifests itself differently in boys
and girls, according to a study by Per Gjerde, and
Jack and Jeanne Block. Fourteen-year-old girls who
developed symptoms of depression were found to be
anxious, low in self-esteem, very concerned about
their bodies, and, mostly, quite intelligent. Boys
who exhibited high levels of symptoms of
depression, also at age fourteen, showed lack of
concern for interpersonal relationships, displayed
hostile and antisocial attitudes, and were below
average in intellectual prowess.
Pollack gives some specific pointers for
handling signs of sadness or depression in a
boy:
Create a private place to talk with him, so he
won't feel ashamed if he loses his composure.
Be available to talk with full attention, but
don't press him to open up until he is comfortable.
Invite but don't force.
Be careful not to shame him when you respond to
his disclosure of sadness or depression. Don't
tease, or joke, or paper over his feelings with
assertions that everything will be fine.
Acknowledge that you see his discomfort and are
lovingly concerned. Avoid facile advice.
The signs a parent might be alert to include:
intense or prolonged social withdrawal from family
and friends; prolonged depletion or fatigue;
increase in impulsive outbursts of anger or
aggressiveness; denial of pain; sleeping and eating
disorders; increasingly rigid acting out; failure
to exhibit appropriate emotion; harsh
self-criticism; falling below usual academic level;
increased risk-taking; evidence of exposure to
alcohol and drugs; change in sexual behavior; and,
obviously, unusual mention of suicide, death, or
dying.
A parent or other caregiver who notes unusual
signs of sadness or symptoms that might be related
to depression would be wise to consult a
professional, both for the boy himself and to
foster the adult's capacity to cope sensitively and
effectively with the situation.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Somewhere between 30 and 70 percent of children,
by one estimate, who were diagnosed as having
attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as children
still have the disorder when they reach adolescence
and adulthood, I suspect the wide range of the
estimate is related both to the variations in
diagnostic criteria and to the occasional
misdiagnosis of normal-range temperamental
variation as ADHD among children, especially
boys.
Treating adolescent ADD/ADHD may be more complex
than treating childhood ADD/ADHD. Adolescents may
deny having the disorder, may fake taking
prescribed medication, may give their medication to
friends who don't have the disorder but want a
chemical boost to study for an examination.
Medication needs regular evaluation, including
off-periods when the effect of the medication can
be compared to behavior during a period of
abstinence. Since metabolism is changing during
adolescence, teenagers may need higher dosages.
ADD/ADHD may reduce an adolescent's prudent
appraisal of risk-taking, so teenagers with
ADD/ADHD need special training in how they cope
with driving or handling machinery. Most
adolescents with ADD/ADHD benefit from a continuing
relationship with a counselor whom they come to
trust.
How to Get Boys to Talk
When I was in pediatric training, only a few of
my class were interested in child psychiatry. A
wise older psychiatrist at the Judge Baker Guidance
Center across the street from Children’s
Hospital in Boston, Donald Russell, offered an
elective on psychiatric diagnosis. He put us
immediately to work on the evaluation of boys who
were referred by the Massachusetts division of
youth services. Most of these kids had committed
pretty serious crimes.
Not a few of these kids were, as the term is
used, "hardened.' That's to say that they were
familiar with therapists and jaded with people who
professed interest in helping them. Getting them to
talk was no small task.
Dr. Russell had a technique that he repeated
often on the subject. The best way to get a
teenager to talk is to take him for a ride in a
car. That way, you’re not looking
face-to-face, there's time to pass as you proceed
to a destination, and there's always something to
comment on along the way.
It became clear that boys, particularly boys in
trouble, want to tell their stories to a
sympathetic listener. Avoiding a posture of making
judgments about them, their behavior, their
backgrounds, their experiences with the juvenile
justice system-and especially avoiding
characterizing them as "bad kids"-was important.
Being oneself, without airs, expressing interest
and concern, also went a long way. But perhaps most
importantly, one had honestly to play one's role,
not to pretend that one wasn't a doctor in an
institution assigned to evaluate them.
Any conversation of any weight with a teenager
should take place in a private setting. Therapists
also learn the importance of timing. One
doesn’t jump in on the most sensitive
material; if the child is embarrassed or ashamed,
it's much better to approach the subject
indirectly. If possible, wait until he introduces
it.
One of the time-honored techniques of
interviewing on sensitive issues is to use the word
"sometimes": “Sometimes kids . . .” That
takes the emphasis away from the particular
situation, allows a boy to maintain some distance,
and enables one to avoid embarrassing him.
An activity may help a boy to relax and confide
his problems. Shooting baskets or playing catch can
make a neutral, enjoyable setting for a talk.
Lastly, it's important that we not fill up all
the time with words. Silence is helpful, because it
lets a boy take the lead and bring up what's on his
mind.
C. Quintana, “Riding the Rails,” in
“Being 13”, Special Photography Issue,
New York Times Magazine (May 17, 1998), 66.
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McGraw-Hill, 1996), 23-60.
growth patterns Tanner, "Sequence, Tempo, and
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to Sixteen, 5.
L. Steinberg, “The Impact of Puberty on
Family Relations: Effects of Pubertal Status and
Pubertal Timing,” Developmental Psychology 23
(1987), 451-460; and "Reciprocal Relation Between
Parent-Child Distance and Pubertal Maturation,"
Developmental Psychology 24 (1988), 122-128.
Peterson and Taylor, "The Biological Approach to
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Goldstein, Introduction to Human Sexuality
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Becker, "Are Adolescents the Victims of Raging
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"Being 13," New York Times Magazine, 66.
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47-98.
T. G., Power and J. Shanks, "Parents As
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J. Youniss and R. D. Ketterlinus,
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B. Speicher-Dubin, "Relationships Between
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E. M. Cummings and A. W. O'Reilly, "Fathers in
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N. Radin, "Childrearing Fathers in Intact
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R. W. Blanchard and H. B. Biller, "Father
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K. Norris, "Infallibility," in K. Norris,
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L. Steinberg, "Transformations in Family
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Richards, Divergent Lives: The Emotional Lives of
Mothers, Fathers, and Adolescents (New York: Basic
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C. A. Hosley and R. Montemayor, "Fathers and
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J. Santrock, "Relation of Type and Onset of
Father-Absence to Cognitive Development," Child
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J. M. Bailey, D. Bobrow, M. Wolfe, S. Mikach,
"Sexual Orientation of Sons of Gay Fathers,"
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S. T. Hauser, B. K. Book, J. Houlihan, S.
Powers, B. Weiss-Perry, D. Follansbee, A. M.,
Jacobson, and G. G. Noam, "Sex Differences Within
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G. Patterson, B. DeBaryshe, and E. Ramsey, "A
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Sullivan, The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry
(New York: Norton, 1953).
A. 0. Harrison, M. N. Wilson, C. J. Pine, S. Q.
Chan, and R. Buriel, "Family Ecologies of Ethnic
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Family (New York: Aldine DeGruyter,
1994),187-210.
J. Youniss and J. Smollar, Adolescent Relations
with Mothers, Fathers, and Friends (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1985).
E. E. Maccoby, 'Men and Women As Parents," in E.
E. Maccoby, The Two Sexes: Growing Up Apart, Coming
Together (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1998), 255-286.
J. G. Dryfoos, Safe Passage: Making It Through
Adolescence in a Risky Society (New York: Oxford
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Services, "Youth Risk Behavior
Surveillance—United States, 1995," Morbidity
and Mortality Weekly Report (September 17, 1996),
45:SS-4.
J. Fox, Trends in Juvenile Justice, (Washington,
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J. Dryfoos, "The Prevalence of Problem
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Adams, eds., Healthy Children 2010. Enhancing
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Institute, 1996), 25.
W. Pollack, "Hamlet’s Curse: Depression and
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York: Random House, 1998), 303-337.
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©2007 Eli Newberger
Eli Newberger,
M.D., a leading figure in the movement to improve
the protection and care of children, is renowned
for his ability to bring together good sense and
science on the main issues of family life. A
pediatrician and author of many influential works
on child abuse, he teaches at Harvard Medical
School and founded the Child Protection Team and
the Family Development Program at Children’s
Hospital in Boston. From his research and practice
he has derived a philosophy that focuses on the
strength and resilience of parent-child
relationships, and a practice oriented to
compassion and understanding, rather than blame and
punishment. He is the author of The
Men They Will Become: The Nature and Nurture
of Male Charaacter
and lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife
Carolyn, a developmental and clinical child
psychologist." www.elinewberger.com
or E-Mail.
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