Don’t be scared of puberty - It’s God’s training ground for growth, not a problem to fix

There is a particular moment many parents recognise. Your child hasn’t technically gone anywhere, but they are suddenly not quite here anymore. Their body is changing faster than their ability to explain it. Their reactions feel sharper. Their moods more volatile. They are louder, quieter, hungrier, sweatier, more private, more defensive. The child you knew is still present but feels increasingly out of reach. 

This is usually the point where panic quietly sets in.

Adolescence is commonly framed as something to manage or mitigate. Puberty, a phase to survive without experiencing too much collateral damage. Parents are handed warnings dressed up as wisdom, all delivered with the assumption that something is about to go wrong. But what if puberty isn’t a malfunction?

When growth outpaces capacity

Puberty is not simply about bodies changing. It is about development accelerating faster than regulation. Physical growth arrives before emotional language. Hormones surface before self-understanding. New sensations and desires appear long before a young person has the vocabulary or maturity to make sense of them.

This misalignment is where much of the difficulty lies.

A child in puberty is learning how to inhabit a body that no longer behaves as it did, in a world that has begun responding to them in a different way

Externally, this can look like defiance, withdrawal, or attitude. Internally, it often feels like overload. A child in puberty is learning how to inhabit a body that no longer behaves as it did, in a world that has begun responding to them in a different way.

Developmental psychologists often describe early childhood as the first major growth surge. Between the ages of one and two, children undergo rapid neurological development linked to movement, coordination, balance, and exploration. They learn how to move through the world and understand where they are in relation to others.

Puberty marks the second.

This time, development shifts from learning how to move to learning how to choose.

During adolescence, the brain systems linked to emotion, sensation, and reward accelerate faster than those responsible for regulation, long-term judgement, and delayed gratification

During adolescence, the brain systems linked to emotion, sensation, and reward accelerate faster than those responsible for regulation, long-term judgement, and delayed gratification. This developmental gap is not a flaw. It is why young people can reason insightfully one moment and make baffling choices the next. Why they express strong values while struggling to live by them. Why concern for their future can coexist with a pull towards immediate satisfaction that undermines those very commitments. This is not hypocrisy. It is growth unfolding unevenly.

Living life under construction

Puberty is the season in which their moral compass is being assembled rather than fully calibrated. Some describe this as the internal capacity for judgement and self-restraint beginning to come online.

Young people begin asking deeper questions. Not just “What am I allowed to do?” but “Who am I?” and “What matters?” They test boundaries and experiment with choices, not because they want to provoke adults, but because moral reasoning only develops through use.

puberty is the training ground of formation. It is not the moment a child loses their moral compass. It is the moment they begin to build one

At the same time, the pull of immediate gratification is unusually strong. Not because adolescents lack values, but because the neurological systems that support self-restraint are still under construction. It’s important that we do not misread this tension between impulse and restraint as evidence of moral weakness or failure of character and respond with power or shame.

While it may feel chaotic, puberty is the training ground of formation. It is not the moment a child loses their moral compass. It is the moment they begin to build one.

You are not alone

I’m not writing this from a safe distance. I have a child turning thirteen this year, and I feel the shift in real time. The sudden bouts of silent treatment. The rolling eyes and ‘what are you talking about’ sideway glances. The pull towards independence is stronger than the capacity to hold it. Knowing the psychological theory behind this does not make those moments any easier. If anything, it makes it clearer how much patience this season actually requires.

Many Christian responses to puberty can tend to be shaped less by theology and more by anxiety

This is often easier said than done though. Many Christian responses to puberty can tend to be shaped less by theology and more by anxiety. Bodies become threats. Desire becomes dangerous. Rules multiply in the hope of preventing damage. But fear is a poor teacher.

When control becomes the primary strategy, young people learn compliance, not discernment. They learn how to avoid consequences, not how to make wise choices. Behaviour might be managed, but formation is postponed.

Puberty is not a detour. It is God’s method.

God’s timing, not ours

As parents, we can assume that healthy development should be smooth and incremental. That change should be predictable. That progress should look tidy.

Biblical growth is rarely any of those things.

Luke describes Jesus himself growing “in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). Physical growth and inner formation are described together, not sequentially. There is no sense that one politely waits for the other to catch up.

Puberty confronts parents with this reality head-on. Something is growing, visibly and irreversibly, and no amount of management can slow it down. In Scripture, responsibility often precedes readiness.

God does not wait for emotional maturity before entrusting people with significance. He forms people by entrusting them

David is anointed while still young enough to be dismissed by his own family. He is selected not because he is stable or proven, but because God sees a heart that is still forming. His adolescence is not edited out of the story. His courage emerges early. So does his volatility.

Jeremiah objects to his calling on the grounds of youth. God does not reassure him by promising delay. He simply removes the objection. Timothy is told not to let others despise his youth. Josiah becomes king at eight.

God does not wait for emotional maturity before entrusting people with significance. He forms people by entrusting them.

So, what does this mean for me on a Tuesday evening?

It means that when your child refuses to come off the Xbox to revise for an exam they insist they care about, you are not witnessing the collapse of their character. You are seeing a nervous system pulled towards immediate reward while long-term judgement is still under construction.

When they care more about the opinions of their friends than the voice of their parents, it is not a rejection of family values. It is part of the work of identity formation. Adolescence is the stage where young people begin testing who they are allowed to be, and whose approval carries weight. That shift can feel deeply personal, even when it isn’t.

Formation happens when parents stay present without panic

When ego surfaces, when bravado replaces vulnerability, when belonging seems to matter more than wisdom, it is tempting to respond with power. To clamp down. To correct harder. To demand compliance as proof that something is still working.

But instant gratification, status-seeking, and boundary-testing are not random acts of defiance. They are the raw materials of discernment. This is how judgement is learned before it is refined.

The task for parents in these moments is not to ignore behaviour or abandon boundaries. Structure still matters. Consequences still matter. But how those limits are held matters just as much. Discipline rooted in anxiety may win the moment, but it rarely shapes judgement over time. What forms character is consistency, presence, and the ability to hold limits without dread.

Read more:

The new Netflix series Adolescence raises difficult but essential issues for Christian parents to grapple with

Most learning happens before the age of 32 - Here’s why that matters for Christian parents

Formation happens when parents stay present without panic. When they name expectations clearly, without humiliation. When they resist the urge to win the moment at the cost of the relationship. When they remember that growth rarely looks impressive while it is happening.

Puberty is messy and untidy. It exposes what we believe about control, trust, and God’s pace. It confronts us with the uncomfortable truth that maturity cannot be fast-tracked or outsourced to rules alone. But what parents can do is remain faithful. To keep showing up. To keep speaking truth. To keep holding space for a young person who is still becoming.

Not because it is easy.

But because this is how growth has always worked.