Teenagers’ moodiness should go with the passing of the years.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – A new study in the journal of Childhood Development has stated that teenagers are highly sensitive, but they get tougher in adulthood. Researchers made the discovery after observing a large group of Dutch teenagers over a period of five years.
Scientists from the Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam wanted to understand how teenagers’ psychology changes over the time. They were particularly interested in determining whether there is something that can be done to lower teenagers’ sensitivity.
Fortunately, recent findings indicate parents have no reasons to worry. Teenagers’ sensitivity is something that subsides by itself, scientists have concluded. As children grow older they become less emotional and they no longer vacillate between different feelings.
For the current research, scientists have gathered a group of 474 Dutch children with ages between 13 and 18. Participants were chosen from different social categories, so children belonged to both rich and poor families.
Scientists asked the 474 participants to write diaries on the Internet over a given period of time. A three-week period was selected during the school year because researchers thought children have to deal with a wider array of feelings in this period of time.
The experiment was repeated every year over an overall period of five years. At the end of the experiment, the five diaries were compared to determine whether there was a change in teenagers’ state. Investigators have discovered that participants were less emotional with the passing of the time.
To be more specific, the degree of sensitivity dropped down by 40 percent at the end of the experiment. This has led scientists to conclude that it is not just the body that undergoes various changes during puberty, but also the psyche. Thus, teenagers are less likely to express their emotions as they grow older.
Researchers have, nevertheless, stated that teenagers’ emotional states should start to worry parents at older ages. If teenagers do not become more stable, they could be suffering from other problems and require medical care.
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Ryan Harris
