Teenagers’ brains are going through an immense period of development during their GCSE years, but their brains don’t actually finish developing fully until their mid-twenties. It’s no wonder that students’ behaviour can change during adolescence given the developmental rollercoaster they are on, but what really makes teenagers act like… teenagers? 

Madeleine Inkin, psychotherapist and Tassomai co-founder, unpacks what causes the behavioural changes we typically associate with teenagers in the hope that parents and teachers will be better equipped to understand and empathise with students.

Teenage brains are going through a fascinating period of development, which can often lead to strained relationships and family dynamics as they figure out how to handle everything their mind and body is throwing at them. The best thing we can do as parents and as key figures in their lives is to listen and try to understand why they react the way they do. This way we are better placed to recognise what they really want and need.

Problems

Our teenagers’ brains are powerful creatures primed for learning, but this can also be a problem. It is also easy for the wrong sort of learning to slip in at this stage in the form of addiction. Addiction is a form of learning, from drugs, gaming, alcohol, lack of sleep and smoking to multitasking and stress. Yes, multitasking and stress can be addictive but how often do we ask our teenagers to slow down, to stop, to breathe, to do nothing for a while.

Hormones & Sleep

Putting things down to ‘teenage hormones’ has become a lazy shorthand way of recognising that your child is changing. Hormones are chemicals that some of our glands excrete, and they can affect behaviour but they also do a whole host of other things like keep your heart beating and your body hydrated. 

Your beloved teens are far less ruled by their hormones than you might think. There are many other things to consider, including a chronic lack of sleep. This will make them very distressed, depressed and irritable. Sleep is vital to everyone, but for children and teens, sleep is when their pituitary gland releases an essential growth hormone necessary for development. 

Sleep timings change as we age, and as puberty begins, your child will have a sleep clock that gets pushed further and further back. The normal sleep cycle is driven by a daytime release of cortisol, which keeps you awake, and release of melatonin, which helps you wind down when it gets dark. Most adults start creating melatonin at about 10:00pm, but teenagers may not start producing their melatonin until 1:00am. This will be why they are energetic at night and then have a really hard time getting up in the morning. In the main, they are not being disobedient or bad, or lazy, it is their body is out of sync with yours.

Attitude and Behaviour

Adults use the prefrontal cortex to make decisions and choices, while teenagers will mostly use their 'gut reaction' – the emotional centre, the ‘amygdala’, which is located further back in the brain and develops before the prefrontal cortex. This explains why teenagers experience mood swings, they tend to react quickly from the emotional part of their brain and don’t run their reactions through the more rational frontal cortex.

So, what happens when the rational part of your brain is still developing? How do you decipher life and your relationships? Well, things get misunderstood, misjudged, misconstrued; concern can be perceived as anger, and worry as disappointment. When the prefrontal cortex and the emotional amygdala are not totally in sync and speaking to one another it makes life very hard and this can create more reactive and impulsive behaviour.

Rewards

Adolescents have a very powerful brain, which is primed for learning – and learn they do! This is the time when they are likely to experiment with whatever they are curious about, computers, games, alcohol, drugs, sex, friendships, music, their special interests are not always in their own best interest. More fortunate young people have uplifting interests – a focus, a sport, a passion, a vocation. However, if this is not the case they struggle to find a way to feed their reward centre, the part of their brain that makes them feel good.

The prefrontal cortex is developing during this time but the ‘reward zone’ has formed a long time ago and now needs large rewards to register any form of elation. So, as any parent might tell you: the young person’s response is a shrug, a “you have to say that” to words of encouragement or parental support. On the other hand, if they have a large reward their brains will fire up like a slot machine, and this does not always result in good choices, especially when their thrill seeking impulse is combined with peer pressure.

In the end, the best you can do as parents and key figures in a teenager’s life is maintain your own equilibrium, offer clear, clean choices and firm boundaries. The saying ‘two ears one mouth’ comes to mind when dealing with our young loves – may we hear twice as much as we speak and keep that precious equilibrium.

Teenagers are preparing for the adult world and they will take unconscious instructions from you. Try to be kind, thoughtful, forgiving, and available. If you practise clear communication, this long and difficult period of time will pass and you’ll be able to see your young person's impulsivity as courage or independent thinking, their excitement as passion, their moodiness as an empathic response to the world. There is a lot of energy floating around and they will learn to use that energy wisely in time. 

- Madeleine Inkin