Ep 24: Adolescent Neuroscience

Lucy Maddox, author of Blueprint: How Childhood Makes Us Who We Are, discusses the fascinating science of why social experiences are also heightened during the teenage years. In this episode she reveals what you should teach your teen about friendships and relationships.

Full show notes

After all these years, you think you’d know your kid, but there seems to be no end to the surprises, bombshells, and blind turns! Just when you assume your teenager will behave one way, they start doing what you’d never expect. As a parent, you know that teens make often make irresponsible decisions, change their opinions like T-shirts, and behave in ways that generally don’t seem to make any sense at all.

So. what the heck is going on inside the adolescent brain?! Without knowing what’s going on under the hood, we never know if our will listen to our conversations or discount them as “uncool” before embarking on their own program. It can feel impossible to decode the adolescent brain and understand teenagers’ motivations.

However, there is a way to help the adolescent brain develop the right decision-making tools, so our teens are prepared for a life good choices. The answer comes down to having the right approach. If we can educate ourselves on the right way to talk to a teenager, we can avoid pursuing strategies that simply fail in the end.

My guest in this episode is Lucy Maddox, author of Blueprint: How Childhood Makes Us Who We Are. She also has her own psychology practice in Bristol, England, where she works one-on-one with kids and teens every day. As a writer, university lecturer, and expert in cognitive behavioral therapy, she is a great source of knowledge for how we can understand the adolescent brain and use that understanding to become better parents.

Molding the Adolescent Brain for Success

The first thing parents need to know about molding the adolescent brain is how flexible it is. For example, Lucy’s book examines how we experience a phenomenon called an “adolescent memory bump.” This refers to the way memories from the adolescent brain are recalled much more vividly or intensely than memories of other times in our lives. The adolescent brain is very impressionable, and the experiences we have during this time can stay with us for a lifetime. That’s why it’s important to guide our teens through this period, so that they can enter into adulthood happy and functional.

Lucy has done a lot of research into how we can shape the adolescent brain with conversations about tricky topics—with some pretty interesting results.

She starts by critically examining how we often focus on our children’s behavior. Often, we help our kids make good choices by rewarding or punishing them for good and bad actions. Sometimes, in doing this, we forget to talk to them about the values at work behind their decisions. According to Lucy, these value discussions are some of the most important talks we can have with our kids, because they go deeper than the surface. Instead of just scolding or praising them for their behavior, we are providing them with guidelines for how to approach any situation.

It harkens back to the classic idea of teaching a man to fish. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. But if you can teach him how to fish, he’ll be able to feed himself for the foreseeable future! If we simply tell kids how to act, our words may stick for a moment but likely will not last in their heads. By teaching your teen to have strong values, they’ll be able to evaluate situations and act according to their moral compass, even when you’re not around.

Finding Time to Talk (And Listen!)

It’s delicate, however, to find the right time to sit down with our teenagers to talk about such broad and important topics. Research shows that the adolescent brain can be pretty resistant to advice from their parents. Lucy suggests converting these conversations into bite sized pieces and slipping them in during everyday activities. Try talking to your kids about the importance of hard work while driving. Teach them about the importance of kindness while taking a weekly trip to the grocery store.

It may seem strange, but by putting less emphasis on the discussion, your teenager is more likely to be receptive to the ideas you’re sharing. By keeping things simple and casual, it’s easier to transmit your message to the adolescent brain. They may not even notice that you are trying to give them serious advice--and this may work to your advantage.

Even though they may be difficult, Lucy explains why these kinds of talks are extremely important for the adolescent brain. She and I discuss a study which examined the development of “grit” among teenagers, or their ability to move past obstacles with hard work and dedication. The study revealed that the more support individuals have from their community during adolescence, the more likely they are to successfully deal with hardships that come their way.

In fact, it showed evidence that even just one strong relationship during youth helped to keep this ability to persevere strong as teens move into adulthood. As a parent, you have the chance to form that strong relationship with your teenager that will help them persist through anything.

An integral part of these discussions is taking the time to listen. Often times, we want to warn our teenagers about everything to stop them from going through all the things that we experienced at their age. While this is important, it’s very valuable to have an open mind to what your child is saying and understand that they are likely experiencing different things than you are. One thing Lucy stresses is not coming into these conversations with everything planned out, but instead letting the conversation be fluid between the two of you.

Taking Pressure off The Adolescent Brain

Remember that the adolescent brain is under enormous amounts of pressure nowadays. Teenagers have to make decisions on a daily basis about their social lives, academics, and extracurriculars. They’re considering the future, trying to decide who they’re going to be and what they’re going to do with themselves. Everything feels so intense during this period, your teen may feel that one wrong decision can ruin their life. They may need to talk to you about all this confusion and fear.

Lucy stresses the importance of reminding them that life is long, and not every choice is as important as it seems. She also promotes the idea of helping your teen identify the positive and negative consequences of every decision. This is another good behavior to teach them that they can carry with them as they go forward in life.

According to Lucy, this idea of evaluating pros and cons is helpful for stopping bad behavior as well. Instead of telling a teenager that smoking weed is wrong, talk to them about what happens when they decide to partake in the drug. While they will feel temporary relief from anxiety or may seem cool to their friends (pros), they risk becoming dependent on the substance, becoming distracted, or doing regrettable things under the influence (cons). By addressing the pros along with the cons, you’re showing your teenager that you understand, instead of just bossing them around.

In the episode, Lucy discusses these ideas and more. She breaks down just how the adolescent brain is thinking. Although it may seem like an unsolvable puzzle, Lucy has decided to share her secrets with us. She’s here to break down specific methods of talking to your teenager to help guide them through changes to come out as a happy, healthy adult.