Adolescents should be taught how their brains work
Hormones do increase during adolescence — but the emotional upheaval is actually the result of physical changes in their brains.
Neuro-psychiatrist Professor Dan Siegel, says these changes are a “re-building” in the teenage brain.
But the volatility of the ‘terrible teens’ doesn’t just last a few years — that’s a myth. It can endure for a dozen, from age 12 right to 24, says Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California in Los Angeles.
Siegel, who runs psychotherapy clinics for families and has reared two teenagers, has published a book, Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, which delves into the labyrinthine workings of the teenage brain.
Siegel says physical changes to the structure of the brain during “the second dozen years” impact how adolescents think and behave — and he urges parents to learn about the process.
“A lot of people presume that it’s about hormones. Up to 15 years ago, we didn’t know about the huge changes which take place in the brain of the adolescent,” he says. “When you understand the changes, you understand the way they think and behave.”
Technology allows researchers from UCLA and from the National Institute of Mental Health to look beneath the skull of a healthy, living person. “They could look at the brain of a child and track the structural changes in the brain as the child grew up. My role is to synthesise the science,” says Siegel. When we learn, we create new connections in the brain.
In adolescence, the brain pares back the surplus brain connections to streamline functioning. You would be wrong to think adolescents accumulate more connections in this ‘growing’ period: the opposite is happening — the brain is removing connections the teenager’s not using.
This is called ‘pruning’, Siegel says, and it happens to the brain cells and connections formed up to the age of 11 in girls, and 12½ in boys.
The connections an adolescent no longer needs are discarded, and the ones they’re using — for example, if they are musical or mathematical — are retained. A substance called myelin is laid down around these brain cells and connections to form a sheath.
“What this does,” Siegel says, “is it allows you to make the connections among these neurons 3,000 times more effective.”
Major changes also takes place in the frontal lobes — the brain ‘command centre’, which is located in the area of the cortex, behind the forehead — which will allow the fledgling adult to regulate their emotions better, assess risks, plan ahead and have empathy.
“The whole brain is remodelling and the frontal lobe is coordinating the whole thing and allows the different parts to work well together,” he says.
But the teenager’s parents are left with a sort of construction site, bits of which, Siegel says, “go offline” at various times.
Adolescence is not a “time of immaturity,” following which teenagers will grow up, he says. “It’s about remodelling an existing building and, sometimes, it’s easier to build a new house than to remodel the old.
“The adolescent period is about making the brain more specialised — the child is like a sponge, a generalist, but the adolescent is a specialist.”
This accounts for changes in interests and hobbies during adolescence. The structural changes make a teenager more emotional and are the source of often infuriating teen attributes.
“The firings of the lower part of the brain are more intense and influence decision-making, which could account for the volatility, irritability and unpredictability,” Siegel says.
These changes, though difficult for parents, are important, because they fuel the child’s passion to get out into the world.
“Adolescence should not be thought of as a period of immaturity. It should be thought of as a period of transformation,” he says.
There’s a downside to this ‘evolution,’ because, from early adolescence, it sparks changes in the levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, and dopamine creates our drive for a reward or buzz.
“The brain is saying, ‘do something now’. Dopamine gets you motivated to leave the house,” says Siegel. And when you do something, you’re rewarded with a dopamine release, which makes you feel good. “There is a reward situation — dopamine increases leave you more satisfied. It’s a reward circuit.”
This fuels the necessary drive to get out and experience the world — but it also explains why so many teenagers gravitate towards excitement and thrills. Some studies, says Siegel, have shown that adolescent baseline dopamine levels are lowered, so a dopamine release gives them a powerful ‘buzz’ . In this context their tendency to impulsive, risky behaviour can be understood — they are concentrating on the ‘reward’ rather than on any possible consequences. So while it fuels the necessary drive, dopamine can also create problems.
It can make teenagers more susceptible to addiction — all addictive behaviours, such as alcohol, drugs and the intake of sugary foods, involve the release of dopamine.
Adolescents should be taught about what’s happening in their brains, he says, because it would help them to cope better.
“What we want to do is optimise the positive opportunities in adolescence,” Siegel says.
The objective of his book is to lay it out for them and for their parents.
“I am shocked that they are never taught about their own brain, but this is an opportunity to change the cultural conversation about adolescence.”
And that conversation is always negative — our culture perceives adolescence as an excoriating, but inevitable, war between the generations, which both sides must simply endure before some semblance of humanity returns to the teenager around the age of 19 or 20.
“People see adolescence as a period of immaturity, insensitivity and total selfishness — getting tattoos, getting drunk, driving too fast,” says Siegel, adding that teenagers tell him that all the messages they get about being an adolescent are negative.
“The book gives them the positive side.”
It may also, he says, provide a solution to parents and adolescents and ameliorate the frustration and anger on both sides.
Parents can benefit, too — adolescence now lasts longer than ever before, Siegel says — so you’re in for a pretty long run.
A century ago, adolescence began around the age of 15 for girls, and slightly later for boys — and, soon afterwards, they were starting jobs and families.
Now, however, puberty often comes earlier than the teen years for girls and those traditional adult responsibilities happen much later.
“Understanding really improves things greatly,” he says, and being aware of what’s going on can be very powerful.
“Adults get so angry and irritated that they stop communicating with their teenager and then there’s war.”
Try looking at, and understanding, their world, he says — and keep your sense of humour.
As parents, we have a choice; go on an exhausting ‘war footing’ for some 12 years — or take the time to understand the impact of what’s physically happening to our child’s brain, and use this as a guide to those turbulent years.
Aim to be open, receptive and responsive, instead of reactive.
That way, says Siegel, we can learn “to connect rather than correct.”
* Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, by Daniel J Siegel, is published by Scribe and costs €18
* Educate yourself about the evolution process that is happening in your teenager’s brain. Support him or her in strengthening the positive aspects of the “remodelling”.
* Don’t be threatened by your adolescent’s sudden lack of interest in home and family, and their all-encompassing focus on their friends.
If parents understand that one of the purposes of adolescence is to help prepare the individual to leave home — that is why they want to associate with peers more than parents — it can really help.
* Be authoritative. Make sure your teenager knows the boundaries, but be flexible and maintain good lines of communications: “If you agree on an 11pm curfew with your teenager and they don’t come in until after midnight, you’ll see and understand that they are trying to push boundaries,” he says.
However, make it clear that this will not happen again, pointing out that this is not an “opinion”, but a safety issue.
If it does happen again, impose a consequence to help them remember the rule.
“If you’re about to lose the rag over something, take a deep breath and realise that teenagers are designed to push against the rules. Say you feel frustrated that they are pushing against the rules and try to work the situation out together, he says.
* Interpret a teenager’s behaviour from the larger picture of what it is: “It’s not just a personal attack on you, it’s a long, evolutionary process. Reframing adolescence as a period of courage and creativity is helpful for everyone.”
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