However, according to boffins in Australia there is a perfectly legitimate reason for the teenage transformation. It's all connected with the shape of the brain.
Young people aged between 11 and 14 were filmed rowing with parents, and then given MRI scans. Teenagers prone to long and aggressive arguments were found to have a bigger region of the brain, called the amygdala.
Furthermore, differences in the brain can also be linked to what the Daily Mail tactfully terms "anxious and 'whining' behaviour - but only in boys".
But, short of signing up every teen in the land for an MRI scan, it is left to parents, teachers, youth workers and others working with young people to discover through trial and error quite how big each individual child's amygdala is. It's so unfair.
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