You know how everyone loses their mind over the first two+ years of life? The baby books, the milestone tracking, the approximately seven thousand photos of first steps and first words, the endless conversations about sleep training and feeding schedules and developmental milestones?
There’s a reason for that obsession: those first 30-ish months represent the most explosive brain development a human will ever experience. And parents prepare accordingly.
You read the books—all the books.
You took the classes.
You researched car seats with the intensity of someone shopping for a spacecraft.
You baby-proofed your house.
You knew what to expect, when to expect it, and how to support it.
You had a birth plan (yeah, remember that?)
You knew about developmental milestones—rolling over at 4-6 months, sitting up at 6-8 months, first words around 12 months. You were a developmental milestone scholar.
But here’s what almost nobody tells you: there’s a second wave coming. And somehow, nobody sent you the memo.
Between ages 10 and 14, your kid’s brain is undergoing its second and last major developmental transformation.
Not a tune-up. Not gradual refinement.
A massive, fundamental rewiring that rivals—in significance if not scope—what happened when they were learning to eat, walk and talk.
This time, however, instead of building the infrastructure for basic human functioning, their brain is laser-focused on building the architecture for adult thriving: a solid identity, sophisticated social-emotional intelligence, and an internal source of value.
These three developmental tasks determine how your child shows up in every relationship, every challenge, every opportunity for the rest of their life.
And your preparation for this equally critical stage is ... what? Some horror stories disguised as “guidance” from other parents on the sidelines of a game? A vague sense of dread? A plan to just cross your fingers and hope you all make it through in one piece?
Oh — You put the phone charger in the kitchen? That’s great! (and insufficient).
Think about this for a second. The same parents who spent months researching preschools are now just bracing for impact. You trained extensively for the first half of the marathon and now you’re planning to wing the second half because surely it’ll be fine. You spent hours learning about introducing solid foods but you’re going into the stage where your kid’s brain is building their entire adult operating system with... vibes? Prayer? A wine subscription?
This is absolutely insane. And it’s not your fault.
The cultural narrative is: baby years are precious and important and require intense preparation, middle school is awful and you just need to survive it.
There are approximately forty-seven thousand books about the first two+ years of life and maybe ten about adolescence that aren’t just fear-mongering about technology, drugs and sex. And it gets worse when you try to focus on early adolescence.
“Adolescence” is a the ‘category’, as though there is no difference between the 10-year-old adolescent and the 27-year-old adolescent. This suggestion is inaccurate in a myriad ways, not to mention wildly unhelpful.
Here’s the truth: Early adolescence is a uniquely critical stage, distinct from later adolescent years. It ushers in these incredible changes, and is just as important as the first wave: what gets built now—the sense of self, the social-emotional intelligence, the internal source of value—that’s what your kid takes into adulthood.
There’s no third wave coming. This is it.
And, your kid needs you to be a big part of it, just in new ways.
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