A Step-by-Step Guide on (Trying to) Explain How the Teenage Brain Works

I’ve tried all the highly recommended methods for a stumped teenager: thinking while eating, daydreaming, head-knocking-against-the-wall-in-a-rhythmic-tempo thinking, and hand-massaging-temple-thinking. I’ve tried all of these methods in the hopes that something will spontaneously pop into my mind, because for the fifth time today my brain has come up with nothing to write about for this blog. And finally, as I endure the mind-numbing-massage-at-the-temples stage a neuron in my brain made a friendly gesture to another neuron, and I formed an interesting thought. I wanted to connect my unfortunate case of “being a teenager” (or writer’s block) with the real-world assumptions about teenagers, and the science to back it up. So I continued to ask myself:  Why are teenagers always so… forgetful, lazy, awkward, challenging, unfocused, irresponsible, not good decision-makers, impulsive… in a nut-shell: why do we act the way we do? And another question that popped instinctively in my head: why do these words simultaneously pop into our minds when we think teenager? And this is the part where the teenager tries to dissect her own brain in the hopes that people will not assume the ugly stereotype that is so often associated with her in the future.

Let’s lay some groundwork. Before the 90’s, everybody thought all teenagers were just slower than what the science was telling them. Then came along the brain scan- this really cool imaging device introduced us to the notion that our brains actually take longer than the marker of elementary school to develop. In fact, between the ages twelve and twenty-five (yes, contrary to popular belief: the joys of being a teenager don’t end at 19), your brain is going through such a major reassembling that it could be relatable to a computer upgrade. At the end of all this “synaptic pruning and sewing” session, we’re striving to reach Mac Book Pro quality while we started somewhere around the computer I’m working on right now… a 2003 Dell. We’re talking about a major change in everything from your hippocampus- the memory directory, to the corpus callosum- the bridge between the left and right hemispheres (which isn’t fully built until you go through adolescence). The part of the brain teenagers refer to as the “filter”, scientists call it the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is responsible for motor skills (which I am still lacking in), problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgment, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior. Most of these skills I unknowingly mentioned before in the list of things teenagers struggle with: further proving my point.

Now that we understand why our brain’s are more immature than most, let’s start fixing the problem. And while some people would consider our brains to be the problem, I think that the problem lies solely in the stereotype of the teenage brain. The stereotype of all teens being lazy, incompetent, trouble-makers teen isn’t always true. Look at me for example; I think just writing this blog hits the nail on that head. 

 

I say a thank you to: ... all of which are very interesting I might add

-http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124119468
-http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/teenage-brains/dobbs-texthttp://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/teenage-brains/dobbs-text