For more than a decade we’ve been immersed in the chaos, exasperation and delight of adolescence. Professionally, we were researching how wild animals across the globe make the perilous leap from childhood to adulthood. Meanwhile at home, we were each raising animal adolescents of the Homo sapiens variety. We’re often asked how studying the behaviour of adolescent animals shaped our own experiences as parents and the short answer is, profoundly.
We discovered that adolescence is a dangerous phase of life across the animal kingdom. And while there are many differences between species, the time-limited purpose of adolescence is universal. We observed that there are four main skills that define the development of adolescence to adulthood: staying safe from predators and exploiters; navigating social hierarchies; learning to communicate and understand sexual signals; and learning how to leave the nest (or den or warren or house) without starving to death.
Knowing the importance of these four skills, we were able to talk to our own adolescents about life’s dangers and temptations. From what we observed, we know teens across all species are easy prey. Predators assess groups before choosing the individuals they will target. Many preferentially select adolescents because they are “predator naive”, lacking experience and more likley to fall for deceptions. As they mature, prey species develop “signals of unprofitability”, which indicate to watching predators that they are strong, alert, and fast – essentially communicating, “choose someone else; I’m a waste of your time”. Adolescent humans and other animals lack mature signals of unprofitability, instead inadvertently advertising the inexperience predators seek.
Instead of scolding our adolescents (“You’re leaving the house wearing that?”) or scaring them with generalisations, we told them about predatory orcas and owls and African cats who target big-in-body, meagre-in-experience “teen” prey. We explained that predators lurk around places like watering holes where prey congregate, looking for incapacitated, naive animals.
Human adolescents share a great deal of brain biology with other adolescent animals. For example, adolescent fish, birds and other mammals exhibit greater “neophilia” (interest in novelty) than older and younger individuals. The greater pleasure they get from exploration increases the risks they take and, sadly, the accidents they have.
Better understanding adolescent brain biology across species allowed us to see risk-taking and safety behaviour in a whole new way. It was reassuring to understand that the same impulses that drive adolescents to experiment and take risks also push them into the world to make new friends, approach potential mates and create lives for themselves. Talking with our children about the biological basis of risky behaviour allowed us to also celebrate the benefits of taking a chance, trying new things and opening themselves up to the larger world. There is evidence in nature to suggest that to be safer, you need to encounter danger, however counter-intuitive that may sound.
One stormy night when Barbara’s son was learning to drive, he asked if they could go for a practice drive. Because it was so rainy, windy and dark Barbara declined, telling him: “No. It’s too dangerous to be on the road if we don’t have to be.” But she now wishes she’d said yes, because it would have been good experience.
Another huge drive in adolescence is to be liked and popular. Throughout the animal kingdom, higher-status animals are more likely to survive and reproduce; lower status animals are more likely to die and not have offspring. Brain chemicals reward animals for rises in social status. Falls are reprimanded with chemical “punishments” – bad feelings. Humiliation and rejection work on the same circuits as physical pain – they literally hurt.
Knowing this transformed how we thought about our childrens’ mood swings and their social lives. We stopped seeing adolescent preoccupation with popularity as a sign of superficiality or immaturity. We stopped discounting social agony as mere “drama”. When our teens plunged into a sad or bad mood, we began asking ourselves: what just happened socially? Did their status just take a hit? Nine times out of 10 the answer was yes, which allowed us to see it as a more controllable situation.
We looked closely at our childrens’ relationship with social media and its effect on their mood. Comparing yourself to others often makes you feel “less than”. Social media can trigger chemicals in the brain that make you feel great (lots of likes, followers, positive comments) and keeps you coming back for more. But the opposite (not getting likes, mean comments or being humiliated) can trigger painful, even dangerous, brain chemistry. We explained to them that when they’re on social media, they should keep track of how they’re feeling. We told them, if their mood starts to fall, get off. It is not them, it’s modern technology activating ancient brain circuitry.
Learning about something called the “oddity effect” in nature also helped us to understand our teens’ desire to fit in. The drive, especially in younger teens, to conform with the crowd can be frustrating. We were dismayed when our quirky, independent-minded 12-year-olds suddenly wanted the same boring clothing and hair styles as everyone else. The reality of the oddity effect in nature – the tendency for fish, birds and mammals to reject individuals who look or behave differently from the group – gave us some insight when it came to our own teens’ behaviour. Non-conforming young group members are easier for predators to spot and so fitting in makes individual youngsters less likely to be targeted. Odd-looking or behaving individuals don’t just draw attention to themselves, they draw attention to the whole group.
Another area we gained insight into is diet – how younger animals eat and the comparisons to be drawn with our teens’ love of junk food. For adolescents in the wild, getting a good meal is challenging. Lowest status means last in line, so they have to forage in the most dangerous areas with the poorest range of choices. Adolescent wolves, for example, consume mostly rats and mice, while developing the stamina and strength to take down deer.
Like lower-paid, entry-level employees working their way into better salary ranges, young wolves’ food options improve as they gain expertise. By the time they’re adults, they almost never have to eat rodents. There’s an intriguing upside. Adolescent animals are often more creative and more persistent problem-solvers than their better fed and less motivated elders.
These comparisons come through in many other different aspects of teen animal behaviour. Across the globe, at this very moment, adolescent birds, reptiles, mammals and fish are confronting the same four challenges. Our teenagers are too – they are inexperienced and probably lack the status and resources of older individuals. They are also awkward when it comes to romance and first romantic encounters. They are all preparing for tests of one sort or another – while young animals may not be prepping for calculus or coding, their exams are challenging in their own ways. Adolescent vulnerability is universal. But so is adolescent creativity, passion and brilliance.
Another comparison that reassured us was how much animal parents helped their adolescent children. As parents we can often criticise each other for being “helicopters”, “tiger mothers” or “snowploughs”, for raising “hothouse flowers”, “boomerangs” and “snowflakes” that can’t cut it in the real world. Yet we learned that many animal parents offer “extended parental care” to offspring who need a little extra help before leaving home – or who return to the nest after foraging failures. Extended parental care in the wild can spell a crucial difference between life and death for maturing offspring – a lesson in empathy for all adults, with or without offspring of their own.
Order Wildhood: the Epic Journey from Adolescence to Adulthood in Humans and Other Animals by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers (Scribe, £16.99) for £14.27 from guardianbookshop.com
