"The Teen Brain"

Hypothesis: Incomplete brain accounts for emotional problems and irresponsible behaviour in teens.

Research in 1991 at the University of Arizona reviewed past research on teens in 186 pre-industrial societies. One of the important conclusions they drew about these cultures was that 60% had no word for adolescence! These were the societies in which teens spent almost all of their time with adults. In these contexts, the teens showed almost no signs of psychopathology and anti-social behaviour . In some of the cultures any psychopathology which did exist was only mild.

In the U.S. the peak age for most arrests is about age 18. American parents and teens are in conflict with one another 20 times a month (a great source of pain for both). Another extensive study in 2004 suggests that 18 is the peak age for depression. Drug use is high in this cohort, as is violent crime. American schools have a police presence and our Canadian schools are hiring community officers to keep schools safe. High school drop-out rates are high in both countries.

What's going on here? It seems we are forcing our youth to break away from adults; rather than teaching them to become adults. All our restrictions at home, in the schools and in the community are separating our youth into a culture of their own. This is not happening in Eastern European countries.

We know from the research in neuroscience that our teens use their prefrontal cortex differently than do adults. Sleep studies indicate that there is a decline in delta (deep sleep) activity during teen years which might support our observations that there are fewer interconnections happening among the neurons.

Other studies suggest that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until the mid-twenties. This planning and executive functioning part of the brain is immature, yet we are expecting that our teens are capable of making important decisions that impact their futures without our participation.

Is it any wonder that in the teen culture, our adolescents try not to feel. For the most part, many of us have tried to protect our children from feeling any sadness about the things in their lives they cannot change. Poor marks must be the fault of poor teaching; not being first in the piano recital is because the judge was weak; difficulty with friends is because the friends are mean and the list goes on. Grieving is part of life. To mature is to discover one's own resilience. When our children are diverted from feeling their sadness about the losses and failures that life brings their way, their ability to adapt is compromised. Adaptation can only occur when children are allowed to find their feelings of futility. Once futility is experienced and the loss or disappointment is integrated, resilience develops. If resilience is not present, immaturity prevails.

Children who are most at risk are those who are entering puberty prematurely, sometimes as early as ages eight to ten. These children are often still immature and dependent because they are not attached deeply/ vulnerably to their parents. The more rooted a child is in the attachment to their parents, the more likely the child will receive the love, support and nurturing necessary to endure pubescence. Without those roots, the less likely the child will be able to shoe-horn into society successfully.

At any age, when there is a void in the attachment with parents, our children will find a substitute. This substitute is peer culture. Peers are not agents of socialization. Adults are! Yet, we have courted the peer culture for our children. At school, we teach peer mediation so that kids can negotiate conflicts with other kids. Sleep-overs, taking a child's friend on vacation with the family and leaving our children to do their homework with friends are only a few of the ways we have encouraged our children to put their friends ahead of us.

We need to hang onto our children so we are aware of the impediments that are getting in the way of their development into maturity. If we take our children off the developmental map or push them into situations they are incapable of handling, we risk losing them to their vulnerability. Creating a context for relationships in which we hold onto our natural authority is possible if we follow our instincts. The prefrontal cortex will mature according to the genetic map which is pre-wired in the brain.

Another huge brain structure, the corpus callosum, connects the left (logical) brain to the right (emotional) brain. This structure is still growing during the teen years. We expect our teens to make sense of their feelings and their thoughts without the benefit of the completion of the highway that sends messages back and forth between right and left hemispheres of the brain.

These children are both unable to understand paradox or hold two feelings at the same time. Their intentions to perform a task may be voiced but to do the necessary work to follow through and to complete the task is not there. These children do not experience any inner conflict. They are unable to say, "If I study this material and do my homework, I will be in a better position to pass. If I don't do the required work, I will probably fail".

Tests indicate that between ages 13 and 15 intelligence peaks and that this cohort has the ability to learn new things very quickly. Emotional intelligence is struggling behind. Our teens need us to provide the context so that learning and full emotional development can happen.

Today, our teens are being burped out into a peer culture. Never have there been more suspensions from school, more separation from parents via consequences, grounding and tough love strategies. Look around, there are teens everywhere trying to learn how to become adults from one another. In many ways, we expect our kids to know how to do this. We also know intuitively that teens can learn how to become an adult from those who are responsible for them. We must hang onto our kids until they can hang onto themselves.

August 18, 2007

Copyright, 2010 by Susan Dafoe-Abbey. Permission to use this material, either in English or in translation, for educational purposes is hereby granted.