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The Fourteen-Year-Old: Growing Up

Growth Patterns
How does your 14-year-old grow? With endless activities and boundless energy! Click below to find out about:

Physical

  • High energy continues

  • Generally health age-pushes through illness in desire to participate with peers

  • Loud

  • Alcohol and drugs a major influence on physical well being

  • Girls; full development nearly complete

  • Boys; growth spurt continues

  • Both; sexually active in increasing percentages

  • Upper body strength begins to develop in boys

  • High need for physical exercise and snacking

    Social

  • Like to do as much as possible -- cram as much into the day as they can

  • More of their own adult personality evident

  • Often embarrassed to be seen with their parents; critical of parental dress, habits, friends, ideas

  • Loud

  • Especially don't like or respond well to adult lectures; feel that they know what is going to be said once a few words have been spoken; "Know it all" stage

  • Can be a pain at home and a star at school

    Language

  • Peer language patterns of paramount importance, but learning to negotiate adult world as well

  • Will engage more in group discussion

  • Interested in the meaning of words; developing a broader vocabulary

  • Loud

    Cognitive

  • More abstract reasoning evident, especially in regard to cause and effect

  • More willing to admit an error, revise their work or try something a second or a third time

  • Very aware of problems in larger world and generally still invested in finding solutions and participating in learning more

  • Interested in technology and how things work

  • Learn well in cooperative groups

  • Respond well to academic variety and challenge

  • Easily "bored"

    From Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom Ages 4-14 by Chip Wood, © 1997 by Northeast Foundation for Children. All rights reserved as permitted under the US copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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