1 / 6

The Transition to Secondary School

The Transition to Secondary School. Transition can be a time of uncertainty, fear, and grief and/or excitement, curiosity, and hope. Puberty coincides with this change – youth are already in a state of physical, emotional, cognitive transition.

nara
Download Presentation

The Transition to Secondary School

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Transition to Secondary School • Transition can be a time of uncertainty, fear, and grief and/or excitement, curiosity, and hope. • Puberty coincides with this change – youth are already in a state of physical, emotional, cognitive transition. • The adolescent brain is a work in progress, and it’s a work that develops in fits and starts (Witelson).

  2. Transition, puberty, brain • Developmental period of strength and resilience – compared to children – stronger, faster, more immunity etc. yet more dangerous period in their lives • Can have difficulties controlling behaviour and emotions – time of high-intensity emotions. • Adolescents like intensity, excitement, arousal (this can be manageable). • Periodic disregard for risks and consequences

  3. Starting the Engines with an Unskilled Driver (Dahl, 2004) • Puberty-specific changes are related to the activation of strong drives, appetites, emotional intensity, and sensation-seeking. • Puberty has often started before high school. • Most aspects of cognitive development (reasoning, logic, capacities for self-regulation of emotions and drives) are still developing slowly and continue long after puberty is over. (Dahl, 2004)

  4. Use it or lose it • Major reorganization in the brain during adolescence, especially executive functioning (impulse control, judgment, organization, emotion regulation). • Use it or lose it – synaptic connections that are used get retained while those that aren’t get lost (sports, music, academics hardwired rather than couch surfing)

  5. Other possible characteristics of this time in your child’s life • Young teens perform worse on facial expression recognition tests – misinterpret facial expression & go with stress responses • Self-consciousness & egocentrism • For girls, puberty gives an average 24-30% body fat, almost double that of boys – right at the time when they are most concerned about their appearance (Daniluk, 1998) • Male and female adolescents have a need to understand their emerging sexuality • Identity formation

  6. Providing support • Try to keep in mind - Adolescents have biological maturity without necessarily having cognitive-emotional maturity and need your guidance to help them figure it out. • Provide a balance of monitoring and interest from responsible adults • Help youth to develop skills of self-control within a supportive and protected environment.

More Related