It’s important to understand is that a teenager’s brain is undergoing enormous change. This change isn’t your teenager being difficult, rebellious and rude for no reason – it’s a stage of development called adolescence where a child transitions towards a young adult stage of life. This is both a physical transition, in terms of being sexually mature, and a psychological transition in terms of seeking some independence from the family setting and looking outwards to peer groups.
The way traditional ‘teenage’ rebellious and risk-taking behaviour occurs is due to a mismatch of development between two specific regions of the teenage brain – namely, the pre-frontal cortex, which “controls” the thinking and planning part of our brains, and the limbic system, which is associated with emotions and gut reactions.
Simply put, the limbic system in teenagers starts developing quickly at the onset of puberty. This means emotional, risk-taking, and rebellious behaviour becomes more common. On the other hand, the pre-frontal cortex, which moderates emotional or overly-risk-taking behaviour – isn’t well developed until much later.
The pre-frontal cortex continues to develop well into a person’s 20s. This means there is a fundamental mismatch in development – with the emotional limbic system “over-riding” the more “adult” or controlled prefrontal cortex for a period of up to around 10 years.
So a lot of rebellious behaviour is a “normal” developmental phase which needs to be understood to be dealt with productively.
Such awareness of these teenage norms can help you as a parent to distinguish “normal” adolescent rebellion and impulsivity with more worrying behaviour.
Brain imaging studies of teenager’s brains performing a range of tasks have helped neurologists to understand how brain architecture and connectivity changes during puberty and how it affects teenagers’ behaviour and thinking capacities.
During puberty lots of unneeded gray matter, in the frontal cortex, is pruned away while white matter (fast myelin-covered neurons), increases. This myelination is like insulation of electrical wires and speeds up and improves connectivity. The more connected the prefrontal white matter, the stronger the self-reported impulse control in boys and the actual impulse control in teenage girls. This helps us to understand how the development of the frontal and prefrontal cortex may lead to improved impulse control.
Another study reported that three-quarters of teenagers did not recognise fearful faces and were significantly less able than adults to read emotions in faces. Also, the frontal cortex showed low neural activity when shown angry and fearful faces. Reading fear in the faces of other people is a vital way by which we judge how safe a situation is. If teenagers are unable to see fear in their peers they are perhaps more likely to underestimate the danger of a particular act.
In many ways, the teen years are the healthiest strongest years of a human’s life – the immune system, physical strength – many physical traits are at their greatest and being able to take judged risks e.g., in a skate park is an important part of building physical skills.
In addition, teenage years are the peak time for the emergence of many types of mental illness including substance abuse, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety and eating disorders.
What can you do as a parent to support your teenager during their phase of development?
The most important thing you can do is to be aware of what is going on in your teenager’s brain. Your teenager is not necessarily trying to be difficult. Their brain development is driving them to distance themselves, a bit, from you. However, in this new independent state they may struggle to assess risks well.
This is temporary and your teenager is not a “lost cause.” All being normal, brain development will continue to develop into a teenager’s early 20s. It must also be said that not all teenagers are markedly rebellious or risk taking and this is down to a range of factors including:
You can encourage the move away from the family so it’s more thought-through and positive. Safe and organised risk taking might include activities like council run bouldering, trampoling, team sports or expressing themselves through music, writing or cultural community events where they will meet other community minded adults who can act as a mentor during this time of growth and development.
