Adolescence | Integrated Learning Therapy

Helping your child start high school next year

Nov 26, 2025 | I'm a Parent, I'm a Teacher, ILT Blog

Jill Colton, writing for The Conversation, says that young people face a range of challenges when they move from primary school to the high school years.

The high school environment and learning methods can feel very different from primary school—with different classrooms and multiple teachers. In combination with the physical and cognitive changes also going on with adolescence, this can cause stress.

Young people’s motivation around school work can take a dive during this time. This can be because their sense of belonging is disrupted.

This change can also feel lonely and unsettling, particularly if they don’t know many or any students in their new school.

What can you do?

Encourage your child to go along if the high school offers an opportunity for visiting and being orientated into the new environment. These opportunities to visit the new school will allow you to find out what your child thinks of this time of transition. This is a perfect time to show your appreciation of their resilience (“good on you for going along, I’m proud of the way you listened to the principal’s address with an open mind”) and let them know you are there for them.

You could ask the school about where students store their belongings during the day, what the school day looks like, and where they can go if they are feeling unsure or worried.

Encourage friendships

We know friendships can help young people feel safe and like they belong.

Some children will be moving into high school with friends or peers from their primary school, and the December holidays are a great time to meet up so those important connections are maintained.

Connections can also be made with older students who attend the school, through family, sport or other social and community links.

Others will be starting at a new school where they do not know anyone. You can use this time ahead to talk about ways of initiating and sustaining peer relationships.

Suggest they take time to notice the other people in their class and get to know their names. It is also helpful to be a good listener but also be prepared to tell others something about yourself.

Changes in the brain

Moving from primary to high school coincides with an important stage in a young person’s brain. This can be a time of great social, emotional, physical and cognitive growth. It can see a fluctuation in their moods, motivation and well-being.

But it also sees adolescents’ ability to process new information increase, as well as the importance of connection to their peers.

Talk to your child about recognizing their emotions and practicing self-compassion—treating oneself with kindness—which has been shown to support resilience and well-being.

Be available to talk through decisions (be the “guide on the side”), discuss complex topics (while appreciating their opinions) and model healthy behaviours (such as eating well and exercising). For example, “you seem a bit stressed at the moment. That could be because there is a big change about to happen. Do you want talk about it? Let’s go for a walk or ride

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Talking with your child

It’s important for kids to feel like they will be listened to without judgment, and know the adults in their lives will be there for them, even when they make a mistake.

But, keep in mind, adolescents are less likely to speak to parents or want parents to be involved at this time as increasingly, they are trying to manage socially and emotionally on their own.

Instead of giving advice/telling your child what to do, you could instead discuss how difficult situations can be navigated—and support them to solve their own problems, such as talking to teachers themselves.

Let your child know it is OK to talk with other trusted adults as they work through the challenges and changes in their lives.

Supplied by The Conversation

Image supplied by Freepik

Goal-directed learning: Its value for adolescents

Apr 23, 2025 | I'm a Parent, I'm a Teacher, ILT Blog

Goal-directed learning is when we experience something that motivates us to try it again. Perhaps the experience is a bad one, in which case, we might avoid a repetition. So goal-directed learning guides us to whether we want to repeat an experience.

This form of learning is particularly relevant for adolescents. Juliet Davidow, assistant professor of psychology at Northeastern University offers these insights.

The teen years is an incredible time for growth, for self-discovery and developing a sense of who one wants to be in adult life. According to an article published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, goal-directed learning is one of the central processes happening during this period. It states that adolescents learn to perform actions that enable them to obtain desired outcomes; it is gradual experiential, trial-and-error learning.

In the past, goal-directed learning would have included such skills as hunting, foraging and child-care, but today the brain has to face the modern world and our current socio-cultural climate. It involves more abstract behaviour, such as the clicking and swiping actions needed to operate Spotify to play music than produces a desired emotion.

Teenagers learn faster than adults, especially if they are learning something that’s important to them, not something that they are told to learn. In other words, motivation is a big part of goal-directed learning and the goal needs to be something that is desired if it is going to work. A good outcome encourages the adolescent to repeat an activity.

Another important part of the learning process, besides motivation, is surprise. If an adolescent does something and the outcome is surprising, the brain will hold on to that information and do something with it. In order to be surprised, however, the person must first have an expectation, otherwise they can’t be surprised.

When something doesn’t go as expected, the brain is going to try to process why. This creates a goal-directed learning cascade, Davidow says. So, for example, parents or teachers could ask a child what they think will happen before the child tries something.

“If (the result) is surprising, it’ll make that learning stronger,” Davidow says.

Sometimes parents think their teenagers seek out risky experiences that can lead to a bad outcome, she says but that maybe because they’re looking for input. According ot Davidow, “They’re looking for an experience and it just so happens that the experiences they’re finding tend to be these risky, dangerous ones.”

Instead, she says, adults could create situations to allow their teenagers to safely explore outcomes—such as sending them off into nature with supervision.

To start a positive cycle, youngsters have to try out new things. This is the only way they will know whether trying things makes them feel good and motivate them to continue.

Teenagers: Why do they take risks?

Mar 15, 2023 | I'm a Parent, I'm a Teacher, ILT Blog

We know how difficult the adolescent years are! Teenagers have to learn new skills, such as dealing with emotions, learning to be more independent and making own decisions. They have to experiment, take risks and make mistakes. It’s a challenging time that we, as adults, struggle to remember and often don’t understand.

Pleasure seeking

Advances in neuroscience help us understand how adolescents carry out the decision-making process. Perhaps the most significant finding is that they do so with a brain that is still developing, so not all of its abilities are fully acquired. In addition, decision-making involve two areas of the brain that mature (become fully developed) at very different times), which is what leads to mistakes.

One of these areas is the mesolimbic system that is responsible for triggering our body’s reward system. This system reinforces the repetition of behaviours that create pleasure—such as partying with friends—or survival behaviours—such as drinking water from time to time or on very hot days. Hormones drive the mesolimbic system which is why its activation during adolescence is very high.

The prefrontal cortex is a second key area of the brain at this time, which is responsible for executive functions such as impulse regulation and self-control. It is still developing during the adolescent years which means there is a lack of maturity in the brain regions that are responsible for behavioural control.

This imbalance is key to understanding why adolescents sometimes make the decisions they do. In their heads, a highly activated pleasure-seeking system is combined with a developing conscious behavioural regulation system.

In short, it is the perfect combination for teenagers to engage in risky behaviours.

Feeling part of a group

In addition to individual development, the social world of adolescents is also a crucial aspect at this stage.

In these years, peers become central to socialisation and learning. Boys and girls don’t disengage completely from family, but they do expand their social circle. Increasingly, they look for trust, support and security in their friends.

Belonging to a social group is a priority which necessitates accepting and adapting to the norms of the group. This is why the behaviour of individuals is regulated by the group. What others see as positive and accepted will be desired and repeated. What is censored or seen as negative will be repressed. This influence that the group has on individuals is known as peer pressure.

The role of adults

Here are three tips from scientific studies that we can use to help adolescents:

Realising that making mistakes and taking certain risks is an adolescent process: the important thing is to learn from them and we should try to help them realise the mistakes and alternatives.
The brain development of this age group means thatthe pleasure of experimenting with certain risky behaviours prevents a proper assessment of their consequences. It is necessary to explain, carefully and with understanding, what these consequences are.
Adolescents need to feel free to experiment and make mistakes, but they also need to know the limits and consequences. Although they want to be independent, they still need to feel cared for by the adults.

Adolescents have a very different perspective from adults. Understanding their point of view is important but we need to value it too. They need to feel listened to and, above all, understood, while they navigate a stormy period in their lives.