The Teenage Brain
Part II
I am not going to pretend I am an expert on teenagers,
except I have friends with teenagers, and I have one of my own a boy aged 14
years old and I can tell you he is driving me round the bend! In my last blog I
explored how the teenage brain is different to when they were a child and that
the brain is in such a transitional period that that it is unfair to expect
teenagers to act like adults and that it can take up to 25 years for it to be so
– maybe that’s the definitive age you can say that your child is now a grown-up
and that you really do have an alien living in your home!
Teenagers only have
to focus on themselves; it’s not until they get older that they realize that
other people exist.”
But what consequences do these changes to the teenage brain
have. Well it can explain why teenagers are
often seen to be self-centered, moody, rude, and selfish but really it’s
an actual developmental stage they're at. They aren't yet at that place where
they're thinking about or capable of thinking about the effects of their behaviour
on other people as this requires insight. Their brain chemistry is tuned to be
responsive to everything in their environment and it’s the part of the brain
that says: "is this a good idea?" "What
is the consequence of this action?" Or
in the case of my son is “should I do my homework now or play x-box!” To be
fair, my son has never been good at insight on how his behaviour affects others,
but there again he didn't have the greatest role model in his dad on this score and has now lacked a fatherly interest at all for three years now. Friends, family, teachers or colleagues
either love my son and admire him or dislike him – a bit like marmite. It’s not that he misbehaves badly it’s just that
he doesn't always know how important personal space is, or the boundaries when to
stop winding up a person and going too far. I know that he doesn't realise quite
how selfish he can be but he does still have the capacity to surprise me now and again with how caring he can be.
“Love is when your
teen finds £20 in his pocket which you had forgotten you gave to buy jeans and
he offers to buy you a pizza!”
I often say to my son that he should be able to organize himself better, but if the frontal lobe is still developing in things like
planning, strategizing and organizing, initiating attention and stopping and
starting and shifting attention it’s probably unfair to expect him to have an adult
level of organizational skills or decision making. Problem is with me being hit by the menopause and
knowing that the chemo has affected my brain as well, I am not the greatest role model in this area at the moment and there are strategies that we could both work out together to make our home life less confusing at times!
"I have nothing to wear"! He wails – his
clothes are all on his bedroom floor or shoved down the side of the bed. If it isn't in the wash basket there are
consequences!” #teenlogic "
Though it is impossible to get inside the head of an
adolescent, scientists have probed the teens’ tangle of neurons and here are
five things they've particularly learned about the mysterious teen brain.
1. New
thinking skills
Due to the increase in brain
matter, the teen brain becomes more interconnected and if given time and access
to information, gains processing power around the decision-making skills of an
adult. However, in the heat of the
moment, their decision-making can be influenced by emotions, because their
brains rely more on the emotional seat of the brain than the more rational
prefrontal cortex. Teens know the difference between right and wrong, but they do
things when they clearly should know better ("Inside
the Teenage Brain: Parenting a Work in Progress" - Rowman and Littlefield,
2009).
“If you continuously knock on the door when I am
showering asking how much longer I am gonna take, I will obviously take longer.”
#teenlogic
2. Intense
emotions
Puberty is the beginning of major
changes in the limbic system the part of the brain that not only helps regulate
heart rate and blood sugar levels, but also critical to the formation of
memories and emotions. Its development, along with hormonal changes, can give
rise to intense experiences of rage, fear, aggression (including toward
oneself), excitement and sexual attraction. Over the course of adolescence the
limbic system comes under greater control of the prefrontal cortex , the area
just behind the forehead, associated with planning, impulse control and higher
order thought and as your teen gets older additional areas of the brain start
to help process emotion, and they have an easier time interpreting others. Until that time, teenagers often misread
people, and situations and become sensitive to criticism from
parents, teachers, friends and themselves leading to self-esteem issues. You
can be as careful as you can with what you say but can still have tears or
anger at times because they have misunderstood what you have said. [Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind]
“As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy
that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had
absolutely no talent at all - for nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too.” -
Johnny Depp
3. Peer pleasure
As teenagers become better at abstract
thinking their social anxiety increases - abstract reasoning makes it possible
to consider yourself from the eyes of another. Teens may use this new skill to worry
about what others are thinking of them. In particular, peer approval has been
shown to be highly rewarding to the teen brain, which may be why teens are more
likely to take risks when other teens are around. Friends also provide teens
with opportunities to learn skills such as negotiating, compromise and group
planning. They are practicing adult social skills in a safe setting and even if
they are really not good at it at first and all they do is sit around with
their friends, teens are hard at work acquiring important life skills and
trying to look cool.
“Teenagers these
days are popular based on the name brand clothing they wear and the size of their
wallets...but not by their character or personality.”
My son is impossible to shop for
clothes for and I now give him money to go out with his friends to buy what he
needs. The last time I went clothes
shopping with him it was to buy a pair of jeans/trousers and a top to go with
it. It took an age for him to make a
decision between what he wanted and could afford to have – it had to be in the
right colour, the right brand and with little compromise but had to because of the budget. My son did make me laugh though while
shopping for a school bag, he took a photo of the one he wanted and sent it to
his friend to approve of first!
“Nothings ever right...in a teenagers life...”
4. Measuring risk
In calm situations, teenagers can
rationalize almost as well as adults. But stress can hijack cognition and
decision-making. The frontal lobes help put the brakes on a desire for thrills
and taking risks, and teens need higher doses of risk to feel the same amount
of rush an adults does. The changes in frontal lobe means that they access this
part of their brain more slowly with the brakes coming online somewhat later –
this can make your teen vulnerable to addiction such as alcohol, nicotine,
cannabis and much worse to engaging in risky behaviours such as trying drugs,
getting into fights or jumping into unsafe water. These substances tap into a
much more robust habit-forming ability than that compared to adults. One
explanation why teenagers might be wired to be reckless is that being a
risk-taker also encourages them to explore the world and to try out a range of
new things.
I started smoking when I was 14
years old and this was down to peer pressure and the desire to fit in. I went to three different secondary schools
and smoking was a way for me to say that I was cool – accept me, be my
friend. Smoking has been a lifetime addiction
for me and I am going to try and give up this month (third time of
trying). Luckily these days smoking is
not considered so cool and my son is currently very anti-smoking – although so
were my niece and nephew at his age and they both smoke now! Right now it’s his desire for alcohol that is
on my mind – not that he is drinking at all – but is talking about it and wants
to try things that I may drink myself.
“According to
Teenage Research Unlimited, 51% of 13-15 year olds say they will be faced with
making a decision regarding alcohol in the next three months.”
It is a fact that those within
their teenage die in accidents of almost every sort (other than work accidents)
at higher rates than adults and small children. Most long-term drug or alcohol
abuse starts during adolescence, and even people who later drink responsibly
often drink too much as teens. However, it is thought that teenagers generally actually
overestimate risk but take more risks not because they don't understand the
dangers but because they weigh risk versus reward differently: In situations
where risk can get them something they want, they value the reward more heavily
than adults do.
“Thrill-seeking, the desire to impress one’s friends,
feelings of invincibility and the search for new experiences are all motivating
forces that drive teens to act without concern for consequences or without even
being able to fully evaluate the potential risks.”
5. 'I am the centre of the universe'
The hormone changes at puberty also
spur the production of more receptors for oxytocin. While oxytocin is often described as the
"bonding hormone," increased sensitivity to its effects in the limbic
system is also linked to feelings of self-consciousness, making an adolescent
truly feel like everyone is watching him or her. These feelings peak around 15 years old. "It
is the first time they are seeing themselves in the world, and are asking themselves
for, perhaps the first time: What kind of person do I want to be and what type
of place do I want the world to be? McNeely
and Blanchard
“Some are young people who don't know who they are,
what they can be or even want to be. They are afraid, but they don't know of
what. They are angry, but they don't know at whom. They are rejected and they
don't know why. All they want is to be somebody. ”
The upshot is if you don't have a fully functioning
prefrontal cortex you tend to be impulsive, insensitive to other people's
feelings and take unnecessary risks – sounds like your teenager?
“When I was a boy of
fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man
around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had
learned in seven years.”
Parenting teenagers can be a really tricky job and getting the
balance right can be difficult especially with one who is not listening and
making home life difficult. Part III of my blog looks at some parenting tips in
raising your teenager.
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