"Recent advances in brain research have confirmed for us that there are qualitative differences between the brain of an adolescent and that of an adult, impacting the way adolescents remember, think, reason, focus attention, make decisions, and relate. Dan Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA School Medicine, and author of many books related to the neuroscience of behavior and relationships, writes that these changes show up in the following ways - the adolescent's search for novelty, the company of peers, emotional intensity, and creative exploration."
"Saying, for example, that your teenager can't control his flagrantly combative temper or targeted and vile cursing because his brain is still maturing (or because his hormones are raging) is, I believe, a very different conversation from the one Dan Siegel is having about teenagers experiencing an increase in emotional intensity or engaging in riskier behaviors. A reactive, dysregulated fifteen-year-old who's freaking out over a canceled concert is displaying altogether different behavior than the teen who walks over to his younger brother, who is rummaging through the refrigerator, and shoves him out of his way in order to assert his dominance. A teenage girl who lashes back at friends in response to a social snubbing is an altogether different kid from"
Adolescent brains differ qualitatively from adult brains, altering memory, thinking, reasoning, attention, decision-making, and relating. These neural changes increase novelty-seeking, peer influence, emotional intensity, and creative exploration, which can lead to impulsive or risky actions. However, novelty-seeking and emotional intensity explain less of aggressive, targeted, or disrespectful behaviors than commonly assumed. Labeling severe misbehavior as developmental immaturity or hormonal turbulence can obscure accountability and minimize the role of parenting and context. Distinguishing impulsive, dysregulated responses from deliberate, dominant, or intentionally harmful actions is essential for appropriate intervention and responsibility assignment.
Read at Psychology Today
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