Why Does Growing Up Have To Suck: Part 2

Well if you’re back to read more about teenage brain development, that must mean you’re not easily frightened. If you haven’t read “Why Does Growing Up Have To Suck” you may want to go read that first, that will give you a little insight to why I decided to write about this.
Drs. at the National Institute Of Mental Health have determined that the human brain doesn’t stop maturing at age ten, as once believed. They have found that our brain continues to mature sometimes into our twenties. We actually get a second wave of overproduction during this time, something that they previously thought only happened at eighteen months of age.
Following this overproduction we go through a pruning process. During this process, connections among neurons that are not used, wither away, while others that are used more often are strengthened. It’s the brains way of eliminating all the clutter collected during the over production process.
If you’ve ever listened to teenagers talk, it’s probably pretty hard to understand them. Just yesterday, my son was talking so fast a few times I had to ask him to repeat himself so I could understand what he said. Not only do they talk fast, but they have so many things they are thinking about at any given time it’s hard to keep up with which topic they’re on.
The good news about these findings is, 1st) it helps us as parents realize there is actually something physical going on inside their heads that they really can’t control. 2nd) There is a part of the process they can control. That is the process of what neurons they are going to keep. If they lean more towards art, music, sports, engineering, being a doctor, or lawyer, we as parents can help guide or encourage them in that direction. Taking into consideration, that what we would like for them to do with their lives may not be what they would choose. A lot of times their choice may be genetic, like the families where there are generations of doctors, or military families, but sometimes there will be those that will break the cycle. They have a different agenda for themselves, and I believe that we as parents will be disappointed if we try to force them to follow a path they don’t want to go down. They may or may not succeed. If they don’t succeed they could see themselves as a failure. If they do succeed, but aren’t doing what they love then they will be miserable. (check out my blog post “Dreams”.)
As I said at the beginning of part one, I’m one of those people who likes to try to figure out what makes other people tick. As parents you try to figure out what your kids are good at, and lead them in that direction. For example buying my son a guitar. He like it for a while, then he put it on the back burner for a while. When he started playing it again he said he didn’t know why he stopped, he remembered how fun it is. Now he has been playing hours every day and writing songs as well, not because he is being made to practice, but because he has decided he likes it.
As parents, it’s also hard to know when to discourage them from making a decision. I was just thinking about what professional skateboarder Tony Hawks parents must have been thinking when he told them he was going to ride a skateboard for a living. I would have like to have been in on that conversation. Now, he has skateboarding video games. I guess doing what you love is the key. I know it sounds cliche’, but success really isn’t measured financially. What good is being rich is you’re miserable.
I know there are some teenagers who don’t drink alcohol, but I think they are probably the minority. Next time we’ll look at the affects of alcohol on the teenage brain, and teens dealing with emotions.
Thanks again for your bravery of attempting to understand our teenagers,
Paul