Teen Brain Development: A Proactive Approach

A few months ago, our long-term colleague, Dr. Denny Coates, published a book about the teen brain. The title of the book is How Your Teen Can Grow a Smarter Brain. Importantly, Dr. Denny’s book is not written for scientists or other medical professionals. It is aimed at both parents and teens themselves!

The Teen Brain – Timing is Everything!

The medical profession has understood for many years that the front of the brain, also called the prefrontal cortex (PFC), is what allows humans to solve problems, invent new things, predict the impact of decisions, etc. Yet, it was not until recently that neuroscientists discovered that the PFC begins accelerated development around the 12^th year of life. Modern imaging equipment has allowed neuroscientists to actually track the “blossoming” of the PFC – the most sophisticated part of the human brain.

{Blossoming} is a process we knew happened in the womb, maybe even the first 18 months of life. But it was only when we began scanning the brains at two-year intervals that we detected a second wave of overproduction. And this second wave of overproduction is manifested by an actual thickening in the grey matter, the thinking part, in the front parts of the brain.

Jay Giedd, M.D. , pioneering adolescent brain researcher

The Teen Brain Window of Opportunity

While it is important to understand when rapid growth in the PFC begins, it is also essential to know that the “window of opportunity” is fairly limited.

• A young person’s PFC is ripe for development from ages 12 – 24.
• Through the actions they take (or don’t take), parents can help (or hinder) teen brain development during the critical time period of ages 12 – 24.  
• If teens want to develop muscular strength or leg speed, they are the only ones who can “do the work.” The same is true for developing the foundation for executive functions in the prefrontal cortex. Parents can “help” and encourage their teens, yet ONLY the teen can “do the work.”
• The stakes are high and the window of opportunity does not wait for teens to become motivated. The “blossoming” teen brain will prune itself if its “call to action” goes unheeded. The teen brain treats unused “wiring” as “clutter” and trims it away, reducing the capacity for life-long, hard-wired chemical pathways that support executive functioning.

Executive Functions and the Teen Brain

My business partner, Camille, and I have seen direct evidence of what happens when executive functioning gets too little attention in the pre-college teen! Some of our college student clients made stellar grades in high school. Yet, during this time period, they failed to develop skills like problem solving, self-advocacy, relationship building, money management, assessing risks, saying “no” to low-payoff activities, etc.:

• We have coached a number of young adults who had virtually no confidence in their ability to talk to a college professor about their grades until we helped them develop their communication and self-advocacy skills.
• Some of our young adult clients have never learned how to maintain their cell phone or laptop or even how to get them repaired.
• Some young adult clients who take daily medication for ADHD symptoms have not learned to plan far enough ahead to keep from running out of medication.
• Other young adult clients have received poor grades because they didn’t learn the pitfalls of spending many hours per day on non-productive “screen time” and other activities.

What Parents Can Do to Help

Dr. Coates’ book is packed with examples of questions that parents can use to help their teens learn to think for themselves. If a teen asks a parent for help with a problem, the most effective thing the parent can do is to ask questions that will help the teen come up with his or her own answers. In other words, parents should use “coaching questions”:

• “What do you think is going wrong?”
• “Why do you think this happened?
• “What have you already tried to do on your own?”
• “What else could you try?
• “What’s the worst that can happen in this situation?”

Another thing that parents can do is to teach their teenage children how to set up teacher conferences while they are still in high school, before they leave for college. Parents can offer to accompany their teenage sons or daughters. Yet, they need to let their teens take the lead in student-teacher conversations. This is especially important if their teens have poor self-advocacy skills.

Coming up – More Questions and Tasks for Teens

In a follow-up article, we’ll go into more depth on questions that parents can ask teens to help them develop their teen brains. We’ll also discuss the types of tasks they should expect their teens to do in order to develop executive function pathways in their PFC.

The good news is that there are very specific ways to prepare teens for successful adulthood. The bad news is that an important window of opportunity is often missed by parents and their teens. This is often due to lack of awareness of the potential consequences of leaving everything to chance.

If you’re struggling with how to help your teen or young adult develop their brain in the most optimum way, please leave a comment or contact us at https://lamountaincoaching.com/contact/.

In the meantime, we highly encourage anyone who is interested in the development of teen brains to go to Dr. Denny’s website at https://drdennycoates.com/to learn more about the proactive approach to teen brain development.