Teen Brain 101: A Crash Course in Understanding the Perspective of Your Teen

You have heard the phrase that you can’t truly understand a person’s perspective until you have “walked a mile in their shoes.” In regards to your teenager, you really can’t understand their perspective until you have considered what it would be like to think a thought in their developing brain, or walk a mile through their developing brain tissue. Countless studies have demonstrated through MRI’s and testing that adolescent brains are developing in many ways that have a direct impact on the various stereotypical negative behaviors of teens. So, before you yell at your teen for their mood swings and irrational decisions, take a moment to walk through the construction zone of your teen’s brain to see what is happening in that space between their headphones.

There are many things that are a work in progress in a teen’s brain that make it unfair to expect things that an adult brain may have mastered:

• grey matter is different
• white matter is different
• structural connectivity is different
• neurotransmission is different (chemicals that send messages in the brain)
• Their brain is different in sleep studies, electrophysiology, functional imaging, pharmacological challenge, and stress reactivity

How do those differences in the teenage brain impact their behavior? They impact emotional responses, social behavior, risk-taking behavior, sexual behavior, intellectual growth, and their sleep patterns, among many other behaviors that are still being studied.

Learn more about how a teen’s developing brain impacts their ability to take another’s perspective and other associations to common teenage behaviors in this video:

Now that you are more of an expert on the teenage brain, what are you going to do about it? Take another moment to see things from their perspective.

Here are some adult-equivalent examples of how your teen may feel sometimes with your parenting:

• How would you react if your boss said that you could no longer use the employee microwave at work and didn’t explain why?
• How would you feel if your spouse and your boss only pointed out your flaws in a condescending way?
• How would you feel if your boss decided when you could take your vacation days, where you would go, and who you could spend time with, without asking for your opinion on the matter?

Click here to go to a really great link that helps you evaluate your communication with and the perspective of your teen.

Good luck in your adventure of figuring out how to work with a teenage brain that thinks very different than yours! Keep your head up and use that noggin of yours to continue strengthening your relationship with your teen through their brain construction phase. 

We welcome your comments and participation below:

How does knowing more about the developing teenage brain help you in your relationship with your teen?

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Steinberg, L. (2009). Commentary: A behavioral scientist looks at the science of adolescent brain development. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2904973/ 

National Institute of Mental Health (2011), The teen brain: Still under construction. Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-still-under-construction/index.shtml#pub4