Why adolescents can’t wake up in the morning, take risks and won’t listen to reason ?
Until recently, most child experts would have considered the first few years of a child’s life to be the most important and the experiences during those years to play a crucial role , in defining the kind of person he or she ultimately would become.
That understanding , helped create a generation of obsessively child focused parents who have tried to cram a lifetime of educating into a few short years -subjecting their unwitting foetuses to a diet of Mozart and their preverbal toddlers to basic arithmetic and multiple viewings of Baby Einstein DVDs.
Does Brain development happen only in primary years?
Somewhere along the line, many of us believed that the window of opportunity would close. The foundations of the adult-to-be would be laid and the worst damage would be done.
The majority of brain development does, in fact , take place in the early years but growth and change don’t end there. Important developmental changes , still continue to take place throughout the adolescent years and into a persons mid-20s. In recent years , researches have finally been able to get real insight into the workings of the brain, thanks to the Magnetic resonance imaging(MRI).
As such, they have been putting together a portrait of adolescence that confirms what many parents have always suspected -“Adolescence might as well be a whole different species.”
How the teenage brain functions ?
Over the past decade , there has been lot of research on how distinctive the adolescent brain is and how crucial the years between 10 and 25 years are, in terms of its development. Their discoveries have implications not only for parents, educators and the medical community, but also for policymakers. The insights that MRI reveal are nothing short of astounding .
By the time ,the child reaches the age of 6 ,for example the brain is 90 to 95% of its adult size. But massive changes continue to take place for at least another 15 years .They involve not just the familiar grey matter but also a substance known as “White matter”, the nerve tissue through which brain cells communicate – literally, the medium that delivers the messages .White matter develops continuously from birth onwards, with the slight increase during puberty . In contrast, grey matter, the part of the brain responsible for processing information – the ‘thinking ” part develops quickly during childhood and slows in adolescence, with the brains frontal and temporal lobes , the last to mature. And this is the crux!
The frontal lobe – or, more precisely, the prefrontal cortex -is the home of the so-called executive functions like planning, organization, judgement , impulse control and reasoning. It is the part that should be telling the 16 year old , not to dive off the Cliff into unknown waters.
Why has she turned from an affectionate toddler to a grumpy adult ?
Sometimes when you compliment your daughter, on her new dress. And the only response you get is to have her swivel around, glare back and hiss,” What’s that supposed to mean?”. Nervous parent rarely can tell when an adolescent is going to fly off the handle. Why do adolescents have such hair triggering responses? The MRI studies indicate, that teenagers do not process emotions, the way the adults do. In fact, one of the study shows that adolescent brain reads emotions using a different part than does the adult brain.
Another phenomenon that plays havoc with the family of a teen, is the adolescence sleep pattern. Suddenly the kid who always woke you up at the sunrise, turns 13 of 14, and can neither be dragged from bed in the morning , not be forced into it at night . It may seem like, yet another case of teenage passive aggression, but its in fact Biology. The circadian rhythm of the brain has changed and teenagers simply don’t want to- or can’t -go to bed before 12 or 1 a.m..
In fact, because teenagers are waking up when the world dictates, rather than when their bodies tell them to , they are chronically sleep deprived -which can have consequences ranging from superficial to severe . Famous psychology professor says, they go to school tired , unfocused and probably unfed and low levels of attention. But by later in the afternoon, they start to focus and become more verbally adept . By midnight, while the rest of the family are doing their best to fall asleep, teenagers are wide awake and instant messaging away.
Perhaps the best that parents can do is to encourage a slow down of activity at a reasonable time of the evening, keep technology out of the bedroom and caffeine out of the fridge and let their kids catch up on sleep on weekends.
How do I handle substance abuse ? The emotional flare ups ?
There is also some indication that cultivating unhealthy habits throughout this tumultuous periods of development can have serious long-term effects. Those who start smoking during adolescence are likely to have a much harder time quitting later in life, than those who take up smoking in their twenties.
The addictions, appear to get hardwired during the teen years. Repeated alcohol used during this period may also lead to lasting memory and learning impairment, not to mention the fact, that young binge drinkers are more likely to set themselves up with a lifetime alcohol abuse problem . Biologically, it’s a time when the cement is setting. If people cannot do these things, until the age of 18 or19, the odds of them having trouble as adult goes up enormously.
Adolescents don’t always make bad choices to get their parent’s attention or because they are suddenly gripped by temporary insanity. This sort of behavior appears to be a predictable part of the identity formation process which begins in the early years but dramatically accelerates during adolescence.
At the same time , adolescents’ frontal lobes aren’t fully developed, which means an appetite for experimentation doesn’t necessarily go along with the capacity to make sound judgements or see into the not-so-distant future. In other words, by their very nature, teens are not especially focused on, nor equipped to assess, the consequences of their actions . Even if, in quiet conversation, teenagers seem to understand the risk of taking certain actions – drinking and driving ,unprotected sex ,jumping off cliffs- when the moment of truth arrives, reason can be shot to hell. In the heat of the moment, the” good angel” that tamps down intense feeling and helps us navigate through emotional situations, is essentially asleep !
What about the risk and responsibility handling ? How much to trust your teenager?
The three leading causes of death for teenagers in North America are accident, suicide and homicide . Speeding, irresponsibility and status seeking are not the only reasons for these statistics. Teens also appear to be at a disadvantage because they have not refined the ability to multitask -driving while drinking a beverage, listening to music , or even chatting with a passenger.
It is also peculiar , to understand why certain conditions like anxiety and eating disorders ,substance abuse, schizophrenia- develop during adolescence. But others do not -including Autism , ADHD, or Alzheimers disease. Many of the conditions that plague adults, really do begin during the teen years. Identifying them early and treating them early when the brain is more plastic -would seem to make more sense in terms of really having a lifelong impact . Parents would be wise not to assume that misery and anxiety are part of the Teenage phase. It may be that serious unhappiness in adolescence is an early warning sign of an adult disorder.
The human brain is built for learning by example and experience .These facilities are what will give adolescence the best chance to grow up well- the ability to learn from the people around them. They are the little day-to-day things we say in the car ,or when we are solving problems, how we handle relationships, emotions, our work ethic. Adolescents will will believe much more of what we do than what we tell them.
In fact, If there is anything parents can take away from all the scientific research into adolescence brain development, it is that their influence ,patience, understanding and guidance are necessary – even when the teenage or young adults grunts, blasts music, rolls eyes, breaks house rules or seems unable to follow simple instructions.
Parents should also keep in mind that developing brains often can’t handle organizational problems they have more trouble making social ,political and moral judgements- and they have to be reminded of potential consequences and carefully directed towards risk that that aren’t quite risky.
Finally, Parents should remember that developing adults need appropriate amounts of freedom and independence. Teenagers may drive the family car, move away from home, go to college and spend their early twenties wrestling with life decisions, all of which are normal parts of growing up As parents we have to support them through this journey.
