Teenage "Tantrums"
- Sanya Samant
- May 30, 2019
- 4 min read
They are dramatic, irrational and scream for no reason. They do stupid things and have a deep need for both independence and tender loving care. You can say this not only for toddlers but also for teenagers. This is because after infancy, the brain's most dramatic growth spurt occurs in adolescence, and this growth leads to a very muddled up teenage mind. Teen brains are also wired to seek reward, act out, and otherwise exhibit immaturity that will change when they reach adulthood.
Being a Teenager is hard. Trust me, being one i know. You go through weird phases, you have to face life-altering exams, explain how you 'feel' to other people, when honestly, you yourself can not understand what is going on through your mind. All of this when your brain is going through huge changes.
Most of us teenagers don't clearly know what we want or what we can do, we like to experiment or try different things. This helps us discover ourselves or "find our calling " as some would say. The constructive approach to identity formation, should be supported be parents and teachers, or someone with influence on the teen. One way to do this is to encourage the teen to find new activities, new hobbies, try new classes. Supervised exploration of new territory should be encouraged. We need guidance not unrestricted freedom, novelty but within bounds. During the teen years, under the influence of massive new hormonal messages, as well as current needs and experiences, the teenage brain is being shaped and reconstructed.
One of the most important thing to remember is that, what a teen does and is exposed to during this critical time in life, has a huge impact on the teen's future. This happens because experience and current needs shape the pruning and sprouting process of the brain. For example if a teen plays a lot of video games his\her brain will be shaped in away the the child might become an excellent fighter pilot. Being the class clown will develop the brain skills that are needed to make good sales person later on.
The two things that does not help a teens brain is alcohol &drugs. The teens brain is changing at a rapid pace, new experiences are pleasurable an very quickly become habits. Thus the teen will become addicted to substances much more easily than an adult will. Alcohol and drugs cause a Swiss cheese like change in the brain, so that some areas function normally, and others, like holes in a cheese, under-function to a large degree. This change occurs throughout the brain, but the Pre frontal cortex is markedly affected. To understand the different changes in the brain we need to understand the structure of the brain. I would like to describe the overall structure of the brain as an ice-cram cone with two scoops. The cone itself is the most important part of the delicious dessert as it hold the scoops together, just like the brain stem holds the basic functions of the brain together. Sitting on top of the cone is the first scoop : the emotional brain (limbic system). It is responsible for hormonal control, memory and automatic emotional responses. The second scoop of ice-cream is the conscious, thinking, planning brain (cortex). One of the most important parts which remain underdeveloped till mid twenties lies in the second scoop called the Pre-Frontal Cortex. In adults the limbic and pre-frontal are balanced, while a teenage brain is more like one big scoop and one small one.
During her teenage years, musician Adele almost got expelled from school for continually turning up late. She said," I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't bunking. I just couldn't wake up." But research shows that a good night's rest is essential for learning : students who consistently get a good night's sleep get better grades. In a test, adults were shown a picture of a person's face and had to choose wether the emotion expressed was fear, shock or anger. All the adults answered correctly identified the look of fear, whereas only half of the teenagers got the right answer, One possible reason for this disparity is that a teenager's limbic system is less accurate than an adult's pre-frontal cortex. The limbic system also elicits an increased emotional response, so teenagers are more likely to misread an emotion and overact while doing so.
Let us play a game. I will give you 5$ for free. In a bag in front of you there are blue and red tokens. You don't know how many tokens are blue or how many are red. If you draw out a blue token you get double your money. If you draw out a red, you lose your 5$. Would you do it ?? This was essentially a question posed by researchers to teenage and adult participants. They found that when odds of success aren't known, teenagers are far more likely to gamble, which could further to lead to an addiction. These results show us that teenagers have a tendency to take risks wether or not they are beneficial due to the hormonal changes in their brains. Basically this shows that we should not be blamed for all the bad choices that we make, It's our brains fault.
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