The psychologist Luis Cencillo said that the child described as strange, not very sociable and inhibited suffered a lot from his multiple labels.
If we were able to understand that more than strange, he is a shy child, everything would change.
Hence the great importance of the attributions that we make on the behaviors of children and adolescents.
Based on Cencillo's ideas, I have always believed that the adolescent has been (and is) greatly misunderstood.
We do not finish understanding their impulsive, arrogant, immature and challenging behaviors because we do not make correct attributions.
And the worst of all is that, behind the appearance of tough and independent that they show, there are some people in the process of being adults who suffer a lot, because no one escapes that adolescence is a true emotional and hormonal tsunami.
I think that if, mothers, fathers, teachers and professionals, we knew more about brain function, adolescents would cease to be the great misunderstood.
Finally we would understand them and we could make, as Cencillo said, correct, realistic and coherent attributions about their attitudes and behaviors.
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Sometimes we describe our children and teenage students as impulsive, stubborn, selfish, immature, irresponsible, and with sudden mood swings that do not follow any logic.
I do not doubt that they often behave in this way, but the reality is that their behaviors are like this due to the brain metamorphosis that is taking place inside their skull.
With the naked eye we cannot see what is happening in his brain, but today, thanks to modern neuroimaging techniques and the vast research that exists in neuroscience, we know many things about him that can help us understand them and demystify many of the ideas mistakes around this stage.
Having more knowledge about their development will not make those emotionally changing behaviors, those impulsive and even insolent behaviors disappear, but it will help us to make attributions about them and their behaviors that are more coherent, realistic and fair.
Due to the little that we know and know as parents and teachers about the functioning of the adolescent brain, I often say that adolescents are grossly misunderstood.
Not because of what they are like, but because of how little we know them and what happens in their brain throughout this stage that evolutionarily implies a great opportunity for change and constant learning.
If something characterizes the adolescent brain, it is the large number of changes that take place from when they are no longer children until they begin to be adults (physical, hormonal and, of course, brain changes).
It is a transitional stage.
In all the years that adolescence lasts, the brain is subjected to profound changes that will mark and condition its future adult life.
We can say that your brain is under construction.
Most outstanding characteristics of this stage
Impulsiveness and visceral reactions
Preference for novel and intense stimuli
Need to experience strong emotions
Interest in the peer group (friends, classmates, soccer team, etc.)
The need to belong to the group and be seen by peers intensifies
Emotional and physical distancing from their parents
Sometimes challenging and challenging with authority (parents, teachers, etc.).
Unmotivated and little persevering with the tasks that do not interest them
They underestimate the negative consequences of their actions
Difficulty regulating your emotions
Hyperactivity
Changing emotional state
Poor performance in tasks of concentration, inhibition of impulses, planning, memory, especially if the task is not rewarding for them.
I am sure that many of the distinctive characteristics or traits that we have just listed are well known to both parents and teachers of the adolescent stage.
Just say that they are general characteristics, not at all attributable to all of them, since there are significant individual differences.
The adolescent brain
If we compare their brain with that of an adult, we will see that the area in charge of managing and regulating everything that happens in the rest of the brain (
prefrontal cortex
) is still very immature, which is why they are so impulsive, temperamental and they emotionally regulate so poorly.
And it is that, your prefrontal cortex, establishing a technological simile, is updating its applications and reorganizing its neural wiring to become a more balanced brain adapted to the adult stage.
One of the things that happens in the adolescent brain is a kind of general cleaning, where those useless neurons are eliminated and those that are useful are reinforced.
The iron law of the brain is
use it or lose it
.
Behavior in the adolescent stage is so impulsive and explosive because there is a great lack of coordination between the emotional zone of the brain (cerebral tonsils located in the subcortex) and the thinking and executive zone (prefrontal cortex in the neocortex).
The
cerebral highway
that connects both areas is not yet a toll highway, but rather a regional one.
It can't handle all the traffic a teenage brain has.
The truth is that the adolescent's prefrontal cortex has an extreme need for dopamine, hence they look for intense emotions and immediate reinforcement that, sometimes, can lead to small or big scares (accidents with the skateboard, heated arguments with their parents and unwanted pregnancies).
Sometimes we describe them as irresponsible and immature, but the truth is that their brain structure proves us right: their prefrontal cortex, the one in charge of assuming control, tranquility, order and balance of the person, is not yet ready for this, it is under construction.
Therefore it is immature, of course it is.
Adolescents have a great need to be seen by their peers and to belong to the group.
Their behavior is very changeable depending on where they are and with whom.
Their behavior has nothing to do with them when they are alone, when they are with their parents or with their friends.
They grow when they are with their peers and are inhibited in the presence of their parents.
An interesting study carried out by Laurence Steinberg from Temple University (Philadelphia, United States), proposed teenagers to participate in a video game where they had to drive around the city in a responsible way.
When he played alone, he drove in a fairly prudent and consistent manner.
On the other hand, when he played in the presence of his friends, he took twice the risk than when they played alone.
Therefore, in the absence of friends they are much cooler and more responsible, while in the presence of their peers they carried out a more impulsive and hot driving.
For all these reasons, the adolescent stage is a period of brain refreshment, but what improvements will the brain have in the post-adolescent stage?
This “new” brain has a greater amount of myelin in the axons of neurons, which facilitates the speed of communication in the brain.
In addition, the corpus callosum, the area that connects both hemispheres, has increased in size.
Performance in executive tasks such as concentration, impulse inhibition, decision making and emotional self-regulation, among others, is much better and faster than in the adolescent stage.
In conclusion, the connectivity between the different parts of the brain strengthens and improves after adolescence, which leaves us with a more balanced, healthy and prepared brain for the adult world.
Continuing with the technological simile, once the tsunami of adolescence has been overcome, the gift it leaves us is a brain that navigates at maximum speed but safely.
Practical Guide for Parents and Teachers
To conclude, we will see a series of general guidelines that can serve as a guide for both mothers and fathers and teachers who have daily contact with young people at this stage of their life:
· Knowledge of the brain: the best advice I can give you to intervene effectively with your child or adolescent student is to understand their brain function.
· Patience: the brain takes around 25 years to reach maturity.
Women are, on average, more brain mature than men.
Let's have high doses of patience.
· Grief: parents of teenage children have to mourn for the loss of our child's childhood.
He is no longer a child, he is now a teenager about to become an adult.
· Second chance: there are two especially sensitive and favorable moments to connect with our children and develop their brain in an organized and healthy way: 0-3 and 10-15 years.
In adolescence there is a second chance.
Let's take advantage of it.
· Referents: adolescents allow themselves to be carried away and influenced to unsuspected limits by their references and idols.
Let's be careful what kind of references they have.
· Rest, food and exercise: these are three of the essential pillars for a healthy brain.
Get enough sleep and hours, eat a balanced diet, and exercise daily.
· Exercising the prefrontal cortex: we have already commented that our adolescent children have their prefrontal cortex at work, so we must accompany them and exercise their rudder in these years of change.
* Rafa Guerrero is a psychologist, doctor of Education and director of Darwin Psicólogos.
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