TEENS CAN BE DIFFICULT: What’s Going On With The Teenager’s Brain?
(All ages mentioned are developmental, not chronological)

If kids fall asleep in your 2nd hour class, there might be a reason. Beginning at puberty, the cyclical release of melatonin, necessary to trigger sleep, occurs later in the day. So the teenage “night owl” syndrome is a normal condition! On average, teens grow sleepy 1 to 2 hours later into the evening than they did pre-puberty, but their sleep needs remain high (8 to 8 1/2 hours/night for optimum brain/body function). Many teens suffer from acute sleep deprivation (fewer than 25% sleep 8+ hours daily), contributing to raised stress levels, weakened immune systems, poor attention, lower achievement, and reduced problem-solving ability.

• Young teens, ages 11-15, have substantially more difficulty with verbal expression and logic than teens 16 and older.

• By the end of 6th grade, 50% of all students have moved securely from concrete thinking to the beginnings of abstract, symbolic thought. Tangible examples are needed to ensure understanding of abstract concepts for the others. By 8th grade, 80% of kids have a firm understanding of abstract concepts.

• The two greatest fears for young people are fear of failure and fear of peer disapproval. The fears grow more acute each year to age 16: then begin to lessen.

• It is believed that age 15 is the point of lowest motivation in the human life cycle.

• Maturation allows the brain’s frontal lobe (executive brain) to override the raw emotion of the mid-brain (amygdala). None of us can change the way we feel, but we can change the way we deal with our feelings. Very young children throw tantrums: emotionally mature humans demonstrate coping skills. This type of frontal lobe control is gained through modeling and rewarded practice - the window of best opportunity for wiring the brain for such “self-control” closes at 15. After that, it grows increasingly difficult to teach self-control.

• Human brains seek reward and pleasure - and both are dependent upon the presence of the brain chemical dopamine (a neurotransmitter). At puberty, there is a natural drop in dopamine production (cells in substantia nigra slow its production). This drop in dopamine, coupled with the lack of a mature frontal lobe to override emotion, is a dangerous combination. Not until age 16 does the quick re-ramping to adult and childhood levels of dopamine resume – to levels more apt to result in feelings of well-being and reward.

• Teens are natural risk takers. Dopamine’s presence in the frontal lobe plays a primary role in the human reward system. When dopamine production drops, the brain (seeking feelings of well-being) strives to increase dopamine levels in alternative ways. Dopamine surges with adventurous activity, nicotine use, and alcohol ingestion (to name a few). So teens, because of chemical changes in the brain, are more vulnerable to potentially harmful risk-taking. Young people require MORE monitoring and guidance, not less; and they need more challenge and guided opportunity for positive risk taking. How about open-ended tasks that allow academic risk taking? Sports? Creative endeavors - like art and music and dance and theater? Smiles?

• At age16, humans begin to think more independently: less bent on following others to gain peer approval. Self-understanding increases noticeably, as well.
(All ages mentioned are developmental, not chronological)