Understanding the Teenage Brain

*This is an interactive article. If you would like, grab a pen and paper and answer the questions as you read through the article. This will help guide you through the topic and foster better understanding while helping you tailor the knowledge presented to your own situation. 

Dealing with teenagers can sometimes feel like dealing with a time bomb; very delicate to handle and deadly if it explodes. But just like a bomb, understanding how your teenager’s brain is wired can help you deal with them without any permanent damage.

The first thing to know about the teenage brain is that it differs significantly from yours (we bet you already noticed that!). This difference is why you often feel a disconnection or a gap in your relationship, and communication may be significantly more challenging than it was in earlier years. 

What are the most challenging behaviors you face with your teenager?

We are here to help you understand the key factors that make the adolescent years harder to navigate and how to deal with them.

Teenage Brain Development

1. Brain Structure

During these early adulthood years, the brain is constantly undergoing structural changes. The prefrontal cortex – responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and reasoning – is especially undergoing heavy restructuring. In this period, your teenager will be going through constant fluctuations in emotional regulation, cognitive abilities, and behaviors.

2. The Dopamine Hype

Your teenager’s brain is running on dopamine in these years, and their sensitivity is heightened in this phase of their brain development. For that reason, you may notice that they are willing to take more risks and seek new experiences and instant gratification. They are more likely to prioritize immediate rewards over long-term consequences. Yes, even if it doesn’t even make sense!

3. The Mighty Amygdala

The amygdala is responsible for emotional processing and regulation in all of our brains. And while it is capable of self-regulation and handling emotional reactivity in an adult's brain, it can be rather sensitive in a teenage brain. You can see behaviors like increased emotional reactivity and sensitivity in your teenager, which result from their ongoing amygdala development. The connections between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex are also still developing. That’s why it can seem that your teenager is constantly angry and having trouble regulating their emotions or making sound judgments.

Your journey with your teenager doesn’t have to be a struggle. We understand that it can be a constantly triggering phase, and sometimes, it might feel easier to avoid communicating with your teenager altogether. But at The Jai Institute for Parenting, we believe that we can enjoy our journey as parents and foster a healthy connection with our children at all ages with enough awareness and the right tools. 

What are three things you appreciate about your teenager’s character?

Strategies for Developing Open and Meaningful Communication with Your Teen

1. Active Listening

Simply being present with your teenager and actively listening to their thoughts, emotions, and problems can be magical. We tend to jump into rescuing our children, offering advice, opinions, and—more often than not—judgments. 

2. Empathy and Validation

Your child (whether they are a 3-year-old or a 30-year-old) will always have the need to feel seen and heard. It can be particularly helpful in the teenage years to empathize with them and validate their feelings as they navigate a rough path of exploring new emotions, ideologies, and decisions, paired with a desire to fit in and an enormous amount of peer pressure.

3. Setting Boundaries and Expectations

Being clear in setting your boundaries and expectations will help you avoid unnecessary battles, leaving room for more meaningful conversations. You will also make your teenager’s life a whole lot easier if you tell them what they need TO DO instead of what NOT to do.

4. Mutual Respect

Respecting our children’s autonomy is often very easily overlooked. If we are not careful, we can find ourselves easily disregarding their opinions, feelings, thoughts, and who they are. It can be quite frustrating for them when they do not feel seen or heard, and this can be an underlying reason for behaviors like defiance and backtalk. 

5. Finding a Middle Ground

Instead of entering endless power struggles with your teen, you can always opt for a middle ground. Knowing that you always have more possibilities and solutions than a strict ‘no’ can foster a strong communication path between you and your teen. Also, it will offer a great opportunity to teach them problem-solving skills and sound decision-making, leaving them feeling that they are in control rather than being controlled.

6. The ‘One Team’ Mentality

Always coming to the conversation with a one-team mentality can help shift the end result towards a more positive outcome. Our frustration can sometimes direct the whole interaction with our teenagers to a more power-over dynamic, which will only result in a more stubborn and resentful teenager.

7. ANCHOR

Parenting a teenager can be quite challenging at times, and while we do not believe in perfect parenting, we believe that having the right tools can be life-changing. That’s why one of our favorite tools for regulation here at Jai is ANCHORing. 

ANCHOR is an acronym that will help you regulate your nervous system during stressful or triggering situations with your teenager. It allows you to approach the conversation with curiosity and openness. 

Here is what ANCHOR stands for:

A: Awareness of your body. 

We can easily slip into a fight or flight response to our triggers. Noticing what is happening inside our bodies (sensations, temperature, tension, ease, etc.) can help us remain in control.

What are some feelings that you feel constantly rising in your body when you go through difficult situations with your teenager?

N: Name what is happening in your body. 

“Name it to tame it” is one of our favorite expressions at Jai. Labeling your bodily experience can help you understand how you respond to the situation. 

C: Connect to your sensory calming tool. 

Finding tools to calm your nervous system is like hitting the reset button; it can help you regulate when you start to lose control over your emotions. Breathing deeply is one way to calm your nervous system. Other methods include listening to music, splashing your face with cold water, or even doing jumping jacks! 

What methods can you use to help your nervous system regulate?

H: Honor the process. 

Allow yourself to be human and make mistakes. Show up with empathy, compassion, and love for yourself and your teenager. Remember to give yourself some grace.

O: Open to connection. 

We can easily get pulled into “discipline mode” instead of being intentional about how we can CONNECT with our children. Being present and attentive can help us relinquish the pressure of lecturing or rescuing our teenagers.

R: Recommit to the present moment. 

We often lose opportunities for connection out of fear, usually about the past or the future. Focusing on the present moment keeps our brains engaged in the conversation instead of being reactive.

What is the one tool that you wish to practice right away with your teenager?

Every milestone in parenting will have its own road bumps. And while we know that adolescence is a particularly challenging period, we also know that showing up for your teenager consistently can create wonders. Being present for them, validating their experiences, and guiding them through adversity offers them the space to grow and develop the skills they need as they embark on their own journey into adulthood.

Meet Your Author, Tasneem Abdelhamid

Tasneem is a Jai Certified Parent Coach, Design Manager, and writer for the Jai Institute for Parenting. As a mom of two little ones, she travels the world through her designs and writing. Nothing brings her joy more than spending time with her family and knowing that she is changing the world one parenting moment at a time.