Decoding the Teenage Mind – Gulf News feat Child Psychotherapist Selma Yanik

The teenage body is a cocktail of hormones. Are parents and teachers paying attention?

“Don’t poke the bear. Especially when the bear is your teenage son or daughter, who is experiencing not just awkward physical changes to their body, but a raging cocktail of hormones, issues with their self-esteem, moods, attention span, impulse control, and a full-blown identity crisis.

It’s a lot to handle for someone whose frontal lobe – the decision-making part of the brain that controls impulses and thinks through the consequences of actions – is still developing.” […]

” Selma Yanik, a child and youth psychotherapist at German Neuroscience Centre in Dubai, said: “Many families move every single year, due to financial reasons, and struggle to find an affordable and good quality school, according to the curriculum preferred. Developing and maintaining friendships during the process of personality shaping are a big struggle, especially for teens.” […]

The full original article was published in Gulf News on October 9th 2017