Peers at this time are the most important people in their lives. It is, for example, difficult for them to believe that they will ever appreciate their brothers, sisters, parents, and teachers. They are receiving signals from their peers and they react accordingly.
Pleasing peers becomes most important.
It begins to happen with different children at different times. Gesell's book, written in 1956, calls age eleven, the beginning of the inconsistent years. Although there are children who go through the adolescent years without a great deal of difficulty, for many adolescents and their parents and teachers, these years may be described as the troublesome, exciting, changing, turbulent, unsettling, fidgety, and boisterous years. Most of the problems at this age are not academic, but instead social and organizational. Middle school students may do their homework and then forget to hand it in, but they won't forget when they need to telephone a friend.