What Are They Thinking?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten a phone call or e-mail from a parent sharing some version of a poor choice committed by their adolescent child. “I mean what were they thinking?!”  is the parental cry that has been shared through the ages. Well, it is a good question actually. How can a being that looks somewhat like an adult and talks somewhat like an adult not seem to have the capacity to see that they are making choices that could impact their entire life?

I started my career as a school psychologist in a middle school and that shed a lot of light into this interesting time of development. I used to call the language these kids spoke “Sevenese” because although it sounded like we were speaking the same language, clearly something was missing.  While speaking to a student in middle school, even if I thought I was making myself perfectly clear, if I asked the seventh grader to repeat back what I stated, it didn’t sound like anything I had said.  This left me baffled, much like these parents. You are making eye contact, you seem to be listening, you are almost my height and are learning things in class that I can’t remember ever learning, and yet a two step command is at times way above your capacity. What ARE they thinking?

Adolescence is a time when many brain changes occur and there are actual reasons why these bizarre creatures who can be so smart and independent one minute can be almost unintelligible the next. It’s important to share with parents that they are not crazy for being so confused.  So much change is going on below the surface. It’s important for parents to understand so that they can express empathy and diffuse situations with their adolescent rather than igniting them.

Scientists have conducted brain scans on adolescents revealing late changes in the volume of gray matter, which forms the thin, outer layer or cortex of the brain. Originally, experts thought that the volume of gray matter was highest among childhood brains but the high point of this gray matter happens during adolescence. Gray matter includes regions of the brain responsible for memory, emotions, speech, self-control, and decision making. Throughout adolescence, however, there also seems to be a pruning of synapses in these areas of the brain because there is an overproduction that occurs during this time. These quite dramatic changes are one of the reasons why parents report that their tweens and teens tend to lack the problem solving and self-control they need.

Lets add another ingredient to the developmental brain stew. Brain circuitry changes during adolescence relates to how they experience emotions. Functional brain imagery suggests that teens’ responses to emotionally loaded images are heightened as relative to children and adults. This tends to cause responses in teens that can be seen from others perspective as “overreacting,”  when in fact they are not overreacting at all. Teenagers are reacting as they feel is appropriate based on their experiences and interpretations. Parents are urged to find the “kernel of truth” in their child’s response and validate their emotions while helping them to problem solve and stay solution focused.

I remember reading Ross Greene’s book The Explosive Child years ago, and he wrote that parents have to act as their adolescents’ frontal lobe until they have one for themselves. While this can be so frustrating it is so true! It’s important for parents to keep in mind that the changes in their child’s brain are real and that they are only temporary. Try to enjoy this time as much as you can by reminding yourself that as hard as raising a teenager can be, soon they will be grown up. And you just might look back at this time and wish they could stay young forever. Be grateful for the time you have with them and enjoy the ride!

By Jennifer Sutherland