Many parents and children struggle to understand each other when adolescence and puberty emerge.
To foster better communication and a more trusting relationship, it is important to know what and how your adolescent thinks…
Parents have gone through their own adolescent days and know that being a teenager is not easy. These are the years when a child wants to be more independent, pretends to be older than they really are, experiences sudden mood swings, has their first encounters with alcohol, contemplates sexual experiences, debates with parents, and engages in social media, among other things.
Adolescence is a significant challenge for parents, which is why it’s crucial for mothers and fathers to remember how they were during their own adolescence and to be aware of how teenagers see the world and why they behave that way, as reported by Telegrafi.
Carmen Viejo and Noemi Toledano Fernandez, psychologists from the Spanish University of Córdoba, revealed to the magazine “The Conversation” how adolescents think and what can help parents understand them better:
- Controversial Decisions
Thanks to research in the field of neuroscience, it has become clearer how adolescents make decisions. They have to solve problems in situations where their brains are still developing and far from fully maturing. Therefore, it is not surprising that teenagers often make poor decisions. An adolescent faces endless situations where they must decide what to do: whether to accept or refuse when offered something new, whether to break family rules, and how to approach the person they like.
All these decisions involve two areas of the brain that mature at different times. The first is the mesolimbic tract, which is responsible for regulating the brain’s reward system, among other things. This network of nerve connections in an active state encourages the repetition of activities that are pleasurable, such as having fun with friends. Activation of the mesolimbic tract is partly due to hormone production. Thus, during puberty, when hormones are particularly active, the mesolimbic tract is very active.
The second area is the prefrontal cortex. This is a key region of the brain responsible for various neural activity functions— including suppressing impulsive behavior, self-control, and predicting the consequences of one’s actions. However, during puberty, the prefrontal cortex is still maturing, so the adolescent simply is not yet able to control their behavior and understand what it may lead to. This imbalance helps explain why adolescents make the decisions they do. They combine a highly active pleasure system with an immature self-control system in their heads. This combination becomes the basis for what adults call risky behavior.
- The Need to Belong to a Group
It is extremely important for adolescents to communicate with their peers. Friends become an essential part of their world. Although boys and girls do not sever ties with their families, they now seek trust, support, and a sense of security not from mom and dad but from their peers. This is why it is so important for adolescents to be accepted in a certain society, and to achieve this, they are often willing to do anything. Their behavior is now regulated by the norms accepted in the group.
Adolescents try to act as they think their peers expect them to. Often, under the influence of society, boys and girls completely forget themselves. They may even think that other adolescents are constantly watching them, judging and critiquing their actions. Such a cognitive distortion is characteristic of adolescence.
- The Role of Adults
Often, adolescents have conflicts with their parents, but if adults try to understand them, the risk of such a relationship is lower. Here’s what experts advise:
- Treat mistakes and risky behaviors as part of the growing process. The most important thing is for the child to learn from them and to correct them in time.
- Calmly and empathetically explain the consequences of experimenting with risks that may lead to harmful outcomes for adolescents.
- Remember that the pleasure of such behavior clouds the ability to adequately assess consequences.
- Don’t forget that adolescents need not only the freedom to experiment and make mistakes but also limitations. Even though they try to be independent, they still need adult care.
- An adolescent’s perspective on the world is very different from an adult’s. This is why it is crucial to understand their viewpoint. Boys and girls need to be listened to and understood as they navigate through this dark forest called adolescence.