Every TEen Parent and PreTeen parent... read this...

[Tracy]

I don't have a teen, my DS is only 6... but I was watching PBS tonight and Frontline's episode was....drum roll....

FRONTLINE: Inside the Teenager's Brain.

There brains are different, mommies. I know you know it but it really is...
The frontal part of the brain just a wee bit before puberty kicks up and starts to thicken. This is similiar to when a baby is around 18 - 24 months and when they start to get into stuff and fidgety and short fused...

sound familiar? That's going on with the teens.

And that frustration you guys feel as to why your son can not remember to take out the trash or do a simple task but can list all the characters and plot lines to their favorite tv show. Parents personalize it but in truth...it really is biological.


And of course.. the importance of sleep!

please take a look at this link and you can read the transcripts.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ows/teenbrain/

it is worth it.

[Oriole]

I know some here will disagree with "teenagers' brain is different, and that's what causing the reactions that surprise / upset their parents", but I believe it *shrug* Research seems to support it, just like in this section of the article you have pointed out.

Reading a book on this topic, and understanding of what's going on, really helped me turn my relationship with DSD around a year ago. Thanks for sharing, I hope it will help others to minimize conflict for those families that struggle to find common ground with their teenagers




.

[BelovedK]

I'll read when I get more time, thanks for the link I knew there was a reason for the lost phones, cleats, ties, books, shirts, coats :

I guess this is a good reason to be careful with vid games and meds during this transformative time.

that said, we are a gaming family, but this year I am making every effort to limit it.

[Ruthla]

What I'd like to know is how teenage brains differ from children's brains.

Are adolescents' brains on a linear growing curve from early childhood, or taking on a whole new direction temporarily?

It seems logical to me to expect a teenager to be "more mature than a little kid, but less mature than an adult". Is this research showing something other than that?

[Oriole]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

What I'd like to know is how teenage brains differ from children's brains.

Are adolescents' brains on a linear growing curve from early childhood, or taking on a whole new direction temporarily?

It seems logical to me to expect a teenager to be "more mature than a little kid, but less mature than an adult". Is this research showing something other than that?

It does explain the development of a brain a process that experiences two peaks of overproduction of gray matter: first time during early childhood, and then again during early puberty. After that, the brain begins to "prune" itself, according to the article here, meaning... adolescence is the time when the brain is "getting rid of" cells that it is not actually using. In that sense it does show how it differs from what we think of as "childhood" years (second peak of overproduction and the process of "use it or lose it" of overcrowded brain cells).

They have observed it through a longitudinal study following development of a brain at two year intervals. (In this particular study, the program itself references a number of studies on this topic).

[Tracy]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

What I'd like to know is how teenage brains differ from children's brains.

Are adolescents' brains on a linear growing curve from early childhood, or taking on a whole new direction temporarily?

It seems logical to me to expect a teenager to be "more mature than a little kid, but less mature than an adult". Is this research showing something other than that?

in broad strokes, all research lines up with maturity. But specifically how the brain talks to itself and the body is what is clarified. And from that can be a maturity but it explains more.

If you can check your PBS affiliate, they might repeat it this week. And I think you'll see some of it in the link.

[NaomiLorelie]

I am actually astounded when I see people on here arguing that the teen brain is the same as the adult brain. Just from my own personal experience I remember my own thinking changing in my late teens and then again in my mid twenties. I am a TOTALLY different person than I was ten years ago, and I believe that only part of that has to do with becoming a mother.

[Tracy]

Originally Posted by Oriole

It does explain the development of a brain a process that experiences two peaks of overproduction of gray matter: first time during early childhood, and then again during early puberty. After that, the brain begins to "prune" itself, according to the article here, meaning... adolescence is the time when the brain is "getting rid of" cells that it is not actually using. In that sense it does show how it differs from what we think of as "childhood" years (second peak of overproduction and the process of "use it or lose it" of overcrowded brain cells).

They have observed it through a longitudinal study following development of a brain at two year intervals. (In this particular study, the program itself references a number of studies on this topic).

good description...thank you I was too tired to write it out and think it out and you did it beautifully.

[Jeanne D'Arc]

When i was a teen i started to have some i guess"typical" teen
issues. Later on i saw an ND who got me on hormone modulation
(glandulars and vitamins ) and miraculously went away. I stopped
being moody, and short tempered, and another cool side effect
was my painful periods and pms went away too! So i dunno i think
allot of teens can also just have messed up hormones or be deficient
like i was. It depends.

I am one of those people though, that doesnt think the brain is
exactly the same as mine is now, but i was an extremely mature
teen. I think teens are fully capable of being responsible , and mature.
I think our society encourages the infantilization of teens. And i think
the media, and society plays a huge role in the "immature teen"
stereotype. It wasn't too long ago that as a teen you had stepped
into threshold into being a "man " or "woman" and it was/is also so in
many many native tribes. Either side has its own arguments, but I am on
the side that with agrees with the latter.

[choli]

Originally Posted by Jeanne D'Arc

When i was a teen i started to have some i guess"typical" teen
issues. Later on i saw an ND who got me on hormone modulation
(glandulars and vitamins ) and miraculously went away. I stopped
being moody, and short tempered, and another cool side effect
was my painful periods and pms went away too! So i dunno i think
allot of teens can also just have messed up hormones or be deficient
like i was. It depends.

I am one of those people though, that doesnt think the brain is
exactly the same as mine is now, but i was an extremely mature
teen. I think teens are fully capable of being responsible , and mature.
I think our society encourages the infantilization of teens. And i think
the media, and society plays a huge role in the "immature teen"
stereotype. It wasn't too long ago that as a teen you had stepped
into threshold into being a "man " or "woman" and it was/is also so in
many many native tribes. Either side has its own arguments, but I am on
the side that with agrees with the latter.

I totally agree, and I think the infantilization of teens is detrimental. Teens live up or down to expectations. My own expectations for my teen are pretty high, and so far she has lived up to them. Mind she is only 13 yet, so I have a lot of teen years to go through yet

[Lissacamille]

My husband and I are both teachers (he is retired now) and we understand the teenage brain very well. It doesn't help a whole lot to understand it when you are wanting a child to do the dishes or pick up their bathroom, though. Then it is just frustrating.

[panamama]

Originally Posted by Lissacamille

My husband and I are both teachers (he is retired now) and we understand the teenage brain very well. It doesn't help a whole lot to understand it when you are wanting a child to do the dishes or pick up their bathroom, though. Then it is just frustrating.

: and

[Tracy]

Originally Posted by Lissacamille

My husband and I are both teachers (he is retired now) and we understand the teenage brain very well. It doesn't help a whole lot to understand it when you are wanting a child to do the dishes or pick up their bathroom, though. Then it is just frustrating.

true. I think it would be very frustrating. But it helps make it less personalizing.

[Tracy]

Originally Posted by Jeanne D'Arc

When i was a teen i started to have some i guess"typical" teen
issues. Later on i saw an ND who got me on hormone modulation
(glandulars and vitamins ) and miraculously went away. I stopped
being moody, and short tempered, and another cool side effect
was my painful periods and pms went away too! So i dunno i think
allot of teens can also just have messed up hormones or be deficient
like i was. It depends.

I am one of those people though, that doesnt think the brain is
exactly the same as mine is now, but i was an extremely mature
teen. I think teens are fully capable of being responsible , and mature.
I think our society encourages the infantilization of teens. And i think
the media, and society plays a huge role in the "immature teen"
stereotype. It wasn't too long ago that as a teen you had stepped
into threshold into being a "man " or "woman" and it was/is also so in
many many native tribes. Either side has its own arguments, but I am on
the side that with agrees with the latter.

The Frontline piece didn't really go on and on about maturity. They really just talked a lot about the science of the brain. How things connect, die off, more stimulation, sleep stuff. Which does not necessarily fly opposite of a parent's expectations. It just offers up biological information. The old biology versus society dialogue we have been hearing for years and I think both have merit.

Having said that I do wonder on that bigger, maybe Darwin level about the brain doing what it does in preteen/teen enviroment. Perhaps on that big level, this surge of hormones and brain stimulation is exactly there in order to let the species survive. Independence, no fears, free of death fears, let me go out and conquer.. all that energy could allow, and this is broad strokes, the teen tribe go off into the world to forge their own lives and repopulate and create their own groups. which could increase survival. just a weird thought.