The importance of parenting through adolescence.

When Two Transitions Meet: Puberty and Peri-Menopause

Being a parent of two teenagers, I am loving the opportunity to experience first-hand this fragile and exciting phase of development.

The relationship shifts.The tears and tantrums.The new-found independence and maturity.

It’s not always easy riding the waves with them. And as they both face big exams this year and major changes ahead, the importance of showing up for them at my best feels more important than ever.

And yet, if I’m honest, I am feeling the ebbs and flows more than ever, because this “ever-changing landscape” isn’t just theirs.

It’s mine too.

As they move through adolescence, I find myself navigating my own internal (and external) shifts through perimenopause. Two transitions. Happening at the same time. In the same home.

At times, this intensity feels totally overwhelming, which has led me to some powerful research and understanding.

Adolescence – There Is More to It Than Hormones

I listened to a brilliant Tedtalk, “The Surprising Science of Adolescent Brains” by Jennifer Pfeifer, which challenges the common narrative that adolescence is a problem to be solved.

Instead, it reframes it as a powerful and formative period of growth.

Adolescence, she explains, spans roughly ages 10 to 25 and is shaped not just by biology, but by how young people see themselves - and how society responds to them.

Yes, puberty and brain development bring real change. But they are not the whole story.

The adolescent brain is still under construction.

And this matters deeply when we think about emotional wellbeing.

As solution-focused hypnotherapist Véronique Mertes explains:

“When your teen is anxious, their system is not calmly weighing up facts and reaching a rational conclusion. It is reacting first and asking loudly: Am I safe? Is something about to go wrong? Do I need to protect myself?

And in adolescence, that question can become especially loud.

The teenage brain is still under construction.

The primitive, emotional part of the brain, the part responsible for detecting threat and sounding the alarm, is highly active during these years. But the frontal cortex, the part that helps with perspective, reasoning and calming those alarm signals down, is still developing.

So, your teenager is often having to navigate life with a very powerful alarm system and a not-yet-finished braking system.

This is one reason anxiety can seem to arrive so fast and hit so hard in adolescence.”

This simple explanation changes everything.

It reminds us that what can look like overreaction is often neurological reality.

Not defiance.

Not drama.

But a nervous system doing its best with an uneven set of tools.

What Actually Matters Most

As research shows, early puberty can also increase vulnerability to depression, particularly in girls - not because hormones alone are “causing” distress, but because of social comparison, identity shifts, and how others respond to these changes.

Despite widespread concern, research shows that social media plays only a small role in shaping adolescent mental health.

As Pfeifer notes, excessive use may only increase risk by around 15% - a relatively small shift in the wider picture. Instead, the strongest influences are relational.

Bullying significantly increases risk of depression. Supportive friendships and safe connections dramatically reduce it. And once again, the message comes back to something simple, but profound:

Parents matter more than phones.

Family support can buffer even the most difficult experiences. And parental mental health can more than triple the likelihood of similar struggles in young people.

This is not about blame.

It is about influence.

We cannot support this generation by focusing on screens alone. Many young people, in fact, turn to those very spaces first for connection and help.

So what do we do?

We build resilience.

We listen.

We support.

We normalise emotional experience.

Because feelings are not signs of failure. They are signs of being human.

And importantly, we also turn that care inward. Even the most loving parents have hard days. Big emotions. Moments where capacity runs thin. But tending to our own wellbeing is not separate from supporting our children.

It is central to it.

Because the wellbeing of the adult in a young person’s life is one of the strongest predictors of their wellbeing.

Put simply: we cannot pour from an empty cup!

A Shared Cycle of Change

Alongside the science, there is also a deeper, cyclical understanding found in systems such as Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Here, life is not linear but rhythmic, moving through phases of growth, expansion, reflection, and transformation.

From this perspective, the overlap between adolescence and perimenopause is not accidental. It is coherent.

One generation is expanding outward into identity and independence.The other is shifting inward into reflection and redefinition.

Energy is not breaking.

It is circulating.

And in that circulation, something powerful happens: we mirror each other.

Our children’s emerging identities can activate something within us. Our shifting selves can influence how safe they feel to become who they are.

This is not conflict in the traditional sense. It is synchronised transition.

Riding the Waves Together

This is a moment that calls for awareness, connection, and balance.

Not perfection.

Not control.

But presence.

Because what young people need most is not for us to have all the answers, but to model what it looks like to navigate uncertainty with honesty and care.

To say, simply:

“I am learning too. And we can move through this together.”

When we shift the lens from behaviour to biology, from reaction to relationship, everything softens.

The struggle becomes understandable. The intensity becomes meaningful. And the waves we are riding begin to feel less like something happening to us, and more like something that supports us to learn and grow.

Two transitions.

One shared landscape.

And within it, an invitation not to fix or control, but to grow alongside one another ❤️