Teenage parents and educators may be familiar with the feeling of having to cope with a volatile personality. A person’s mind and spirit may seem to flip inside out throughout adolescence, making them seem completely different from the youngster they once were. There are erratic mood swings, identity crises, the need for acceptance from peers, increased tolerance for danger, and the seeming inability to consider the long-term consequences of their activities.
Adolescents, in the middle of all this chaos, are routinely tested for their academic capacity, with potentially lifelong consequences. No one’s future is set in stone at 18, but having a stellar academic record will make it much simpler to get into a top college, increasing your marketability in the job market. Still, the emotional ups and downs of adolescence may make it challenging for teenagers to develop their full mental capacity.
Only in the last two decades or so have scientists been able to map the neuronal changes during this critical time of development, unlocking the secrets of the adolescent brain in the process.
These fascinating new findings do more than only shed light on the minds and motivations of today’s youth. They also demonstrate how characteristics that adults often find frustrating or puzzling in adolescents may be reframed as an asset and exploited to gain knowledge and understanding while the brain is still developing.
Adolescence, after all, is a period of many significant mental developments. Adopting more complex modes of thinking, such as more abstract reasoning and a nuanced “theory of mind,” is an important part of growing up, and adolescents are doing just that as they build on the foundations laid in childhood.
There was less of an emphasis on puberty education in schools fifty years ago. In twenty or thirty years, I think we’ll look back and wonder why we didn’t do a better job of teaching them how their own brains function. The potential for a dramatic change in results is high.
How to Think Like an Adolescent
It’s hardly surprising that a lot of teenagers have felt misunderstood throughout time. Until recently, our attempts to explain teen behaviour were too simplistic. Their ignorance, immaturity, “raging” hormones, or enhanced sex drive are often cited as the root causes of their risk-taking, rebellion, impulsiveness, and overall irritation.
When they express distress, they are often met with mockery. Recently, researcher and author Sarah-Jayne Blakemore expressed it this way in her book, Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain: “Refraining from ridiculing and demonising other demographics is considered polite. Oddly enough, however, mocking and demonising juveniles is socially acceptable.”
To make matters worse, the scientific ideas presented a fairly unfavourable image of adolescent life. In the 1950s, for instance, psychiatrist Anna Freud hypothesised that adolescents want to “divorce” their parents by severing all links to the family in order to go on with their lives. According to psychologist and author of Apter, “the teen was striving to remove the parent from their internal furniture.”
Even though they seem defiant, many adolescents secretly want for their parents’ praise.
Although the above theories might be somewhat correct, they overlook the nuanced realities of most teenagers. According to Apter’s interviews with both kids and their parents, many young people feel an overwhelming need for parental approval and acceptance. They need autonomy, but not at the expense of everything else. These findings don’t fit very well with the divorce explanation.
Apter says that if we really want to assist teenagers, we need to pay more attention to the nuances of what they are actually going through, particularly the immense social hurdles that they are negotiating. Recognising the potential for shame due to physiological changes and associated alterations in social norms is an important part of this process. They may begin to feel strange, even to themselves.
At the same time, it’s important to recognise the evolution taking place in the brain’s structure. Now that functional MRI images are available, scientists of all ages have a window opening to the unlimited sky.
As every parent knows, the most formative years are those of a child’s early years. The brain makes extensive connections between neurons during the first few months of life, and then it “prunes back” the unnecessary connections to create more efficient networks. Because of this natural “plasticity,” a baby may quickly develop from a wailing newborn to a walking, talking toddler.
The brain’s neural networks, including those responsible for sensory processing, tend to stabilise well before puberty, making it more difficult to acquire some perceptual or motor abilities beyond the early “sensitive phase,” such as language or music.
However, the frontal cortex follows a distinct pattern, continuing to develop and then prune networks throughout puberty, adolescence, and early adulthood. Furthermore, myelin, a fatty insulating layer, is added to the brain’s most essential connections in the frontal and parietal lobes to facilitate signal transmission. This is seen in MRIs as a rise in “white matter” after puberty. Emotional control, focus, problem-solving, and abstract thinking are just a few of the many talents that benefit from these growing regions.
Although teens’ minds are less malleable than they were when they were younger, they are nonetheless highly receptive to intellectual stimulation and have tremendous potential for learning. This paves the path for them to refine the academic abilities and information they acquired as children and grow into more well-rounded adults.
Some of the disruptive behaviours seen at school and at home may have their roots in the fact that the neurological and psychological changes occurring might seem overpowering at times.
The True Believers
Think about how teenagers are known for violating rules, taking risks, and generally being rebellious. Studies using imaging techniques reveal that reward-related brain areas mature more rapidly than those responsible for inhibition and self-control. Dopamine signalling, a neurotransmitter linked with pleasure and curiosity, is more active in these individuals than in either adults or younger children, with larger spikes when they encounter something fresh or interesting. Given this, it’s hardly surprising that young people are more open to experimentation. Risky and rash choices are a possible result of adolescent curiosity, but the upside is that exploration of new possibilities may help shape the way a teen makes choices in the future. (Maybe rushing into an improper relationship would teach them more about what sort of spouse might be ideal for them.) Although modern adolescents may be less susceptible to the allure of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll than their predecessors, they will continue to have a more receptive mindset in other areas, such as their infatuation with cutting-edge technology. Teenagers’ defiance of authority and commitment to their own interests may actually accelerate the development of new technologies and political movements. You have a new generation that is going to push limits; you have a lot of ingenuity, innovation, and boldness, as Apter puts it. Teachers and parents who would rather their adolescent charges devote more time to schoolwork may find this discouraging. Yet, this same fearlessness, if directed toward worthwhile causes like combating climate change and other global challenges, may serve to energise the rest of society. Young adults and teenagers have opposed tyrannies with courage while their elders looked the other way.
Swings in Mood
Similarly, the physiological and psychological processes linked with puberty help explain the mood swings that teens experience. Mood-altering neurotransmitters and hormones including serotonin, GABA, and cortisol tend to fluctuate more in the bodies of many adolescents. If your serotonin levels are low, you’ll feel down in the dumps, but taking it will make you feel wonderful. The medial prefrontal cortex, which is important in social processing and response, also shows greater activity in adolescents. In terms of status-related data, studies reveal that adolescent brains’ self-evaluation networks are most active around the age of 15. Understanding social dynamics is crucial to kids making friends, but it may also make them more vulnerable to social anxiety due to an increased sensitivity to slights and hostile signals. Adolescents who seem “over-dramatic” are really just learning to deal with the intricacies of their emotional environment. Teens’ parents may be astonished by how much time their children can devote to introspection. One reason for this is that kids haven’t developed the skills necessary to properly read and react to such messages. If you’ve never had a major setback in your life, it will be far more difficult to deal with a little setback like a poor test grade. Teenagers who look “over-dramatic” are really developing life-changing talents that will be vital to them in the future.
Lacking wakefulness
Finally, there’s the well-known sluggishness of teenagers. Apathy, or an unwillingness to go to bed at a “normal hour,” are common misinterpretations of this phenomenon (another example of their famous rebelliousness). They can’t help it; their internal clocks aren’t set to the same frequency as an adult’s. When melatonin levels in the brain rise at night, we feel drowsy; when they fall in the morning, we feel refreshed. Adolescents’ melatonin levels rise and fall at different times of day than those of their parents, so teens will feel awake and alert while their parents are getting ready to turn in, and sleepy and lethargic after their parents have been up for hours. Almost no adults will have melatonin remaining in their brains at nine o’clock in the morning approximately half of the kids do.
Activating the brain’s “reward pathways”
Given the importance of education throughout the teenage years, these results should pique the curiosity of both parents and educators who are dedicated to helping their children navigate the obstacles of adulthood. It’s possible that these skills are more relevant than ever as teenagers try to get back on track with their lives following the strains of the epidemic. Think about self-control. Teens’ extraordinary emotional and social sensitivity makes it unlikely that they will react effectively to rage, despite the fact that it’s normal to feel angry with their defiance. Apter argues that shouting is ineffective despite its allure. They’ll be paying so much attention to the emotional message that they won’t be receptive to your rational arguments. Apter thinks that encouraging adolescents to make apologies for their behaviour is a more effective kind of punishment. Instead of labelling their child as lazy or isolating them from their peers, parents might emphasise the importance of getting their academic life back on track before allowing them to go out and party again. Teens’ reward circuits are more active, thus they respond more to praise and positive feedback, particularly if given immediately. Students lose some of the thrill and pleasure of a high result since they often get their marks weeks after finishing their examinations or schoolwork. “The more impactful feedback is, the sooner you receive it. There may be benefits to be gained by just simplifying this procedure and providing more opportunities to recognise children for their good effort. The issue of rest is another concern. Teens would benefit from later school starts and fewer early exams if schools adjusted their timetables to accommodate them. I believe it’s imperative that schools give this some serious consideration. Teachers and parents should cut teenagers some slack if they seem sleepy first thing in the morning. Their condition is similar to jet lag, and they cannot afford any further pressure at this time. Many learners would benefit from more familiarity with effective study methods. Active efforts to re-generate the content from memory, such as summarising what they have just learned or attempting to answer new questions on the subject, tend to be more effective than passive re-reading of portions before a test. By actively participating in something they find intriguing, kids may make the most of their brain’s plasticity and their ability to absorb and retain complicated information.
Adapting to New Circumstances
Even if you don’t do anything else, showing an interest in how they are feeling and explaining the context of the difficulties they’re encountering may have a profound impact. Apter has had numerous fruitful interactions while speaking to young people about her work. She finds that adolescents are especially open to the notion that they may influence the way their brains develop. Reality is on their side; with time and effort, people can improve in areas like self-control and emotional management. If you have someone to lean on, that sudden surge of thought may seem more like a burst of fireworks than a sudden shock: dramatic, sure, but also inventive, impressive, and lovely.
