Why Teenagers Do Stupid Things (They Really Can't Help It)

How many times have you looked at your teenager and thought to yourself, "Have you gone completely mad? What on earth were you thinking???" Probably more times than you can count, right?

Dealing with teenagers on a good day can be a maddening proposition. Trying to understand their logic or lack thereof can be just as exasperating.

But, in their defense, teens really have a biological and neurological reason for their complete lack of judgment and inability to find the laundry hamper. They might blame it on Rio. But science blames it on their lobes, their frontal lobes, to be exact.

The Teenage Brain

Harvard neurologist and mother of teens, Francis Jensen, felt compelled to study the development of the teenage brain after she watched her own sixteen-year old son, Andrew,

"morph into another being"......as she put it, when he....."dyed his hair black with red stripes and went off to school wearing studded leather and platform shoes. And his grades went south."

According to Jensen, scientists used to think that the human brain had completed its development by the time we are aged ten and that the teenage brain is simply a younger version of the adult brain. Jensen learned, however, this is not the case.

The Frontal Lobe in Teenage Brains are Not Fully Connected

Scientists have learned that in the teenage brain, the frontal lobe area, the area of the brain where judgment is formed, is not fully developed. Or more accurately, the neurological wiring between the two lobes is not fully connected.

According to Jensen, much of this is due to the fact that the nerve cells in the teen brain are sluggish. They do not have as much myelin, says Jensen, a fatty coating, also called, "white matter" that the adult brain has.

Jensen likens it to "insulation on electrical wiring" and says that in order for nerve signals to flow freely in the brain, myelin is needed. Since teens have less myelin in their brain, there is inefficient communication between the frontal lobes.

Hence, their inability to have good judgment or the ability to fully think through the potential consequences of their actions at times. So, if as a parent, you've ever joked that your teens have "faulty wiring." You're not too far off. They actually do.

Furthermore, according to another study done by the National Institute of Mental Health, it is the faulty wiring, so to speak, that also accounts for why many teens struggle with having good organizational and planning skills.

Teenage Brain Lacks Organizational & Planning Skills

According to the study, the gray matter, the thinking part of the brain, thickens throughout childhood and peaks sometime around age eleven and twelve.

After that, the gray matter begins to thin and the frontal lobes, the area of the brain where judgment and organizational and planning skills occur, continue to develop and "wire together" so to speak.

This lack of neurological connection between the frontal lobes along with the thinning of gray matter then, is precisely why teens tend to do stupid things and seem incapable of remembering where the clothes hamper is - at least as far as most adults are concerned, anyway.

But, according to Jay Giedd, the neurologist who spearheaded the National Institute of Mental Health study,

"The teen brain is not done being built yet and that it's rather unfair to expect them to have adult levels of organizational skills or decision making before their brain is finished being developed."

Jay Giedd also says that this is the time in the neurological development that the type of activities teens engage in could have a long term impact on how the brain hard-wires itself, pointing specifically to the dangers of drug and alcohol use during the adolescent years.

They Just Can't Help It

So parents, the next time you feel tempted to blow your own wiring over something incredibly stupid and inane that your teen has done, take a deep breath, count to ten and remember: they really do have brain damage.

Sources:

"The Teen Brain: It's Just Not Grown-Up Yet". March 1, 2010. NPR.org. January 31. 2011. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124119468

"Inside the Teenage Brain". January 31, 2011. PBS.org. January 31, 2011. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/interviews/giedd.html