Warning: Pre-teen, teen brains ‘under reconstruction’

By Diane M. Calvin
Special to the CS&T

The phone rang at 8:15 am.

It was our daughter, breathlessly calling me from the school office phone. “Mom, did you notice that I forgot to bring something in to school today?

“Uh, not really” I replied, scouting the kitchen for that lonely lunch bag or those test papers, signed but left unclaimed.

“I forgot my binder and really need it. Can you please bring it in to school?” she pleaded.

“How did you forget your binder?” I sighed.

“Well,” she responded, “you know when I’m running late for school and I grab a breakfast bar to eat on the way to the bus stop?”

“Yeah” I replied, curious to see just where this line of thinking was headed.

“Well after I grabbed the cereal bar, my hand must have thought it was my binder as I left the house.”

Of course. That explains it. Her hand “mistook” a one ounce cereal bar for a 3-inch- thick binder stuffed with half a tree’s worth of paper. Anyone could make that mistake, right? But I knew from the genuine tone of her voice that this was no lie. Her hand-brain connection had failed her miserably, so all I could do was laugh at the “binder blunder”.

A few months later, the same daughter came up to me and said, “Mom, I’m all out of contact lenses. Can you order me more?” Knowing she wasn’t due for a new 6-pack box of lenses for almost four months I pressed her, “What happened to all your contacts. Did you lose them?”

“No”

“Did you tear them by mistake?”

“No”

“What happened then?”

“Now Mom, don’t get mad, but I accidentally threw them away”

How does one “accidentally” throw away all those contacts, I wondered? And then came … the Explanation;

“When the eye doctor first gave me all those ‘trial’ lenses last winter, they were the daily kind where you throw them out each night and put in a brand new pair in the morning. Well, when I finally got my “real lenses” I forgot that they were supposed to last for a month, not a day, so I threw out the first five pairs every night after wearing them.”

Aha. Another perfectly logical (?) explanation.

Is there a pattern developing here? Seemingly careless behavior followed by an amusing yet oddly plausible reason.

Once again, I was caught between laughter and frustration. Laughter won out. Why? Fortunately for her, I had recently attended a parenting conference on the topic of the pre-teen and teenage brain. New research shows that a major re-wiring of the brain occurs in those tumultuous years. Apparently, a substantial number of synapses (connections) between brain cells are temporarily lost. This “pruning” eventually makes way for more efficient wiring to blossom later in the more mature brain. For a period of time then, the pre-adolescent and adolescent brain is somewhat short-circuited — contributing in part to the goofy things kids sometimes do.

We still hold our kids accountable for the big things: Respect others. Pray. Be generous and compassionate. No lying, cheating or stealing. No drugs, alcohol or other unscrupulous behaviors. By and large, they’re also held responsible for homework and household chores.

But sometimes, just sometimes, we cut them a bit of slack, especially when the “re-wiring episodes” and their comical yet “real to them” explanations crop up.

For the record, I did run her binder in to school that day, and I did re-order those contacts. It helps that we live just five minutes from school, and our eye-care plan isn’t too bad.

But this morning, when a draft of an English paper lay forgotten on the computer desk, I successfully resisted the urge to dash it off to school. Sometimes, even an “under re-construction” brain needs to deal with the consequences.

Diane Calvin is a mother of four who writes on faith and family issues. Write to her at DMCCalvin@Comcast.net.

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