Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.

Adolescence is an important period in life in which a series of structural, physiological, hormonal and social changes take place. Some characteristics of this period are impulsive behavior, inadequate decision-making, and increased incidence of risky behaviors. For these reasons, Understanding Early Adolescence: Perspectives, Behavior and Gender Differences discusses how studying behavioral regulation and environmental adaptation skills is of great importance.The authors research developmental differences in effortful control, sensation seeking and risk-taking behavior between adolescents and young adults. Additionally, gender and socioeconomic status differences in all three variables were investigated.

Parents, teachers, and mental health workers will find the answersto these- and many other-questions in this forthright yet compassionate guide to helping your adolescent through the tumultuous teen years. From peer pressure and self-esteem to experimentation with sex, alcohol, and drugs, this invaluable resource covers a wide range of pratical issues. Here as well is information on more serious obstacles to a teen's development that may require professional intervention, such as depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, and disruptive behavorial disorders. As surely as every child will become a teen, every person that must relate to a teen will find this book a reliable, indespensable guide to the ups and downs of adolecence.

This book presents new and important information about adolescent drug use. The book is intended for human service professionals, teachers, researchers, and students interested in the issue of early adolescent drug use and its causes and pervasiveness in a multiethnic population. Today, the field of adolescent drug use research relies on integrative models that permit competing explanations of drug use. This approach promotes flexibility in testing hypotheses pertinent to adol- cents of very different social and cultural backgrounds or personal characteristics. Longitudinal studies, including the one presented in these pages, have identified many risk and protective factors or processes that are linked to adolescent drug use. We review these throughout this book and present new information from our own research. Our point of departure is to extend and elaborate descriptive research and models of adolescent drug research to cover the unique and diverse experiences of adolescents who are Hispanic, African American, and White non-Hispanic.

A comprehensive and practical guide to the important areas of development-biological, physical, emotional, intellectual, social, psychological, and sexual-taking place during the early adolescent years and what concerned parents can do to help their ten-to-fifteen year old get through this time of drastic upheaval.

This study achieves a new perspective to this very creative and volatile time of life. The Schaves offer a better and more positive understanding of the developmental tasks of early adolescence and fully describes the states of mind, the struggles of self-differentiation and the coping styles used by this age group to protect against shame. In addition, they provide a systematic approach to treatment strategies, techniques and problem solving with adolescents and their families. This book is a trail-blazer on many grounds. . . . It makes a contribution to the literature on adolescence by offering an entirely new--and clinically highly relevant--explanation to a period of life when rapid changes in psychic organization can turn the tide either toward a wholesome development or toward serious derailments and psychopathology. Anna Ornstein The first book to focus specifically on early adolescence, this study achieves a new perspective to this very creative and volatile time of life. Drawing from their professional experience and their private practices, the authors provide a stimulating integration of self psychology, Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, and affect theory. They also elaborate on several important ideas presented in the revolutionary book, The Interpersonal World of the Infant by Daniel N. Stern. This book offers a better and more positive understanding of the developmental tasks of early adolescence. The authors consider the adolescent's search for self identity and self esteem, a function of cognitive growth as well as affect attunement and self-differentiation. The cognitive and emotional search for selfhood further results in the development of defense mechanisms. This book provides a completely different perspective for mental health professionals. It fully describes the volatile states of mind, the struggles of self-differentiation and the coping styles used by this age group to protect against shame. In addition, it provides a systematic approach to treatment strategies, techniques and problem solving with adolescents and their families. Mental health professionals as well as parents of early adolescents will find Early Adolescence and the Search for Self a thought provoking study. The reader is introduced to four main themes developed throughout this book: The primary of affects and affect attunement from infancy through early adolescence; the continued importance of parents in the development of self; The distinct states of mind experienced by early adolescents, and finally; Adolescence as the period of consolidation of cognitive thinking.