As a mum to two teenagers and my children only having 18months apart, the way my children suddenly began to behave intrigued me and also fascinated me as to why they seem to have gone from being my little angels to little devils put politely!
They suddenly developed the inability to be able to communicate in words and only sounds, went from being tidy to messy, didn’t want those cuddles anymore and I seemed to be the person they hated the most. What has happened I thought, every conversation was ending in an argument and all they seemed to care about was themselves.
So here goes, lets look at what is happening in the teenage Brain
When our children turn teenagers their brain changes. The development and maturation of the prefontal cortex occurs primarily during adolescence and is fully accomplished at the age of 25 years.
The 3 functions of the prefontal cortox
- Focusing one’s attention.
- Predicting the consequence of one’s actions
- Anticipating events in the environment
- Impulse control
- Managing emotions
The 5 skills of the prefontal cortex are:
- Reasoning
- Problem solving
- Comprehension
- Impulse-control
- Creativity
- Perseverance
The Prefontal cortex controls the following emotions.
- Positive (happiness, gratitude, satisfaction)
- Negative (anger, jealousy, pain, sadness)
When exposed to uncontrollable stress it causes loss of spines and dendrites in the prefrontal cortex. It regulates the expression of fear based on previously learned information. When feeling anxious the prefontal cortex can shut down, allowing the amygdala, a locus for regulating emotional activity, to take over, inducing mental paralysis and panic. Trauma causes the prefontal cortex to become under activated. Consequences of a damaged prefontal cortex include difficulties with concentration, attention and learning. When we are stressed the hormone cortisol is released and this has an impact on our body.
So when we consider the huge change that is going on in our teenager’s brain and the above is only small snippet and understand their brain is not fully developed and they are still growing we can appreciate why it impacts their emotions.
It is important to remember that there are biological reasons for this linked to the development of the teenage brain. Teenage emotions are driven by the development of an individual’s own identity. This relates directly to what others think about them, especially their closes peers. Inevitably teenagers become most concerned by the opinions of their friends. As a result, teenagers experience a heightened sense of embarrassment and a are highly sensitised to social exclusion. Social media can amplify these feelings which can result in a teenager feeling very anxious, stressed or depressed.
How can we best support teenagers with their emotions?
- Take a calm and soothing parental approach.
- Improve knowledge about the teenage brain development
- Try not to react emotionally to teenage behaviours demonstrationg extreme of emotions
- Be aware of the importance of the influence of teenage friends have
- Support teenagers to engage with friends, but continue to be available for them if/when things go wrong
Risk taking
We would love it if we could keep our children in the little bubble of safety and they take no risks but unfortunately we have to accept it’s a positive and necessary trait for development. Risk taking is important as it pushes us to have new experiences and to challenge ourselves. It is well worth doing, even if we can’t be certain about there being a positive outcome, or that we might experience some uncomfortable feelings associated with it. Remember the limbic system is more “in charge” during teenage years. This area gives us rewarding feelings from doing fun things, and this will often include risk taking behaviours. We might often hear when asking our teenagers why did you do this “because I felt like it”
Maintaining a positive relationship with our teenagers is crucial and for it too remain constructive.
These relationships may not always been fulfilling, and you and they might often find yourselves disagreeing and having arguments. Even though it might not feel like it but reassuring our teenager that they are loved, safe and secure and continue to communicate with them will significantly increase the likelihood of them leaning on you at times of difficulty.
One thing remains is that our teenagers will not be teenagers forever so embrace the journey, support your own mental health and one day we all might look back at laugh at the level of stress our teenagers gave us!