Girlology: A Girl's Guide to Stuff that Matters

Well, now that you’ve been around longer, the world is not such a scary place. You can walk to a friend’s house without getting lost. You can heat up pizza in the microwave. You can stay at home by yourself without being afraid. You can check out library books, make phone calls, pay a cashier and even be in charge of younger children.

Now when your parents give you limits and rules, you don’t think, “I feel safe.” You think, “Hey! You’re trampling on my independence!” And that’s a normal response. The bottom line is that you and your parents have to grow into your new independent being. They will have to change their rules and their limits to allow you to be more independent. You will have to earn independence bit by bit.

Be patient! Most parents want what’s best and safest for their kids. The more you prove that you can be responsible with the little things (chores, keeping up with your own stuff, calling when you get to a friend’s house), the more independence they will give you. Voilà! Everyone is happy!

You Grow, Brain!

Just as your body has to grow into an adultlike body, your brain has to change into an adultlike brain (sound creepy?). And just as your body takes years to grow all those “woman parts,” your brain takes your entire teen years to grow.

Two particular parts of your brain are growing like crazy! The first big grower is the part that helps you understand things like algebra. That’s why we don’t learn algebra in the second grade—our brains couldn’t handle it! The same area in your brain also lets you understand “invisible” things like faith, trust, feelings and values. That’s why you may be questioning the faith and values of your family. While it can be a little unsettling, kind of like thinking without a safety net, don’t be afraid to question. Your parents may have taught you well, but your brain is now telling you to claim faith and values for yourself. Go for it!

Another brain part, your amygdala (uh MIG duh luh), is also cookin’ away. This is the emotional center in your brain. By growing, it makes you experience emotions in a stronger way than you have before. You will begin to have intense feelings like anger, love and sadness.

While your amygdala is growing, it also interferes with your ability to figure out what emotions other people are feeling by their facial expressions, body language and tone of voice. So when you see a parent (or friend) with a wrinkled forehead and squinted eyes, you might jump to the conclusion that she is angry when in reality she is confused or worried or maybe just has a headache!

Your emotional center also makes you respond with big, lightning-quick emotions—like a firecracker popping. So that parent who was confused makes you suddenly explode with an angry yell before you realize that she wasn’t angry at all. Then she does get angry because you yelled at her, and then your anger gets even bigger. Yada, yada, yada . . . what a mess it can cause!

See what we mean when we say this “clueless parent” phenomenon is a little bit about them and a lot about you? You may feel like your parents spontaneously turned more angry, more controlling, more nosy, more whatever overnight, but the way you interpret their responses is really what’s changing. There goes that brain, doing a number on you again!

My Brain Made Me Do It!

Besides these brain centers that are changing, scientists have also identified specific “developmental tasks” that you need to accomplish during your teen years. When you were a child, your “developmental tasks” were things like learning to sit, walk, talk, pick up a Cheerio with your finger and thumb, and potty train.

Now that you can successfully navigate a toilet (we’re sooo impressed!), you get to move on to new tasks. Actually, they may seem more like annoying little chores. The most obvious tasks are physical ones like growing breasts, starting a period, getting taller, growing hips and growing new hair. Your major mental/emotional tasks aren’t as obvious as breasts and pubic hair, but they still happen to everyone!

As we talked about, the first task is to become more independent from your parents and more connected with your friends. If you are ever going to become a responsible, independent adult, of course, you have to learn to do things all by yourself.

This parent-friend combo helps you accomplish your second big mental/emotional task—figuring out the deep question of “who you are.” That means you consider your parents’ values and your friends’ values, and then you decide what’s important to you. What kind of person do I want to be? What are my talents? What are my weaknesses? What will my family, my career, my faith and my accomplishments look like in ten or twenty years?