Help! It's an Adolescent Brain!
What happens to the brain during adolescence?
No, it doesn't shut down or go off-line, although it can sometimes seem that way.
Rather, it goes through an astounding remodel. When parents, educators, and mentors understand this physical process, they can be empowered with confidence, effectiveness, and empathy.
Understanding our biology is a critical part of the journey to spiritual strength, emotional health, and relational wisdom. Learn how the brain remodels itself over a ten-year period, approximately ages 12-24, and why this knowledge is critical.
Click here to order your copy of The Great Brain Remodel of Adolescence or purchase from Amazon
Visit Stephanie Presents for resources, to book speaking engagements, and get the weekly newsletter, Hi(Impact)!
#adolescence
#teenyears
#teenager
#brainremodel
#spirituallystrong
#emotionallyhealthy
#relationships
#lifeskey3
#smartrelationships
#parenting
#raisinggodlykids
#raisingadults
Transcript
If your desire is to become spiritually stronger, emotionally healthier and relationally smarter, you're at the right place.
Speaker A:Speaker and writer Stephanie Smith inspires and equips you to achieve these three key aims.
Speaker A:If you're a parent, you also learn how to raise empowered kids ready for adulthood.
Speaker A:Let's get started.
Speaker B:Welcome Back to the LivesKay 3 podcast.
Speaker B:Whether you are a first time listener or you've been around for a while, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker B:That's not something I take for granted.
Speaker B:And if you haven't already, would you just make sure to leave a rating and review that really helps other people to first of all to find this podcast and then to know, hey, this is worth listening to today.
Speaker B:I am very excited to talk to you about something that might be a little different initially than what some of our programming is.
Speaker B:But, you know, the focus of this podcast is to help people to become, and then to raise kids to become spiritually strong, emotionally healthy and relationally smart.
Speaker B:And one of the things that is, is part of all of those is our physical bodies.
Speaker B:There is a connection between our bodies and our emotions, our thoughts and on in our spirituality.
Speaker B:We're not just this, this set of thoughts or ideas or this spirit that just kind of walks around in this body that is somehow separated from the rest of us.
Speaker B:It's not just like it's a, it's a casing that houses the important parts of us.
Speaker B:Our bodies have been as much designed by God and are as sacred to him as our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions and our spirit.
Speaker B:And we see this all throughout scripture in how God honors the, the dead and how also he doesn't just leave our bodies here on earth after death.
Speaker B:He promises there will be a resurrection of our physical bodies.
Speaker B:Sometimes it can be a little easy to think of our bodies as kind of earthly and temporary and, and to miss that.
Speaker B:God honors this.
Speaker B:This is as much part of his design and his purpose.
Speaker B:It wasn't like he thought, well, okay, we're going to have a spirit.
Speaker B:This mind is these emotions.
Speaker B:I just need a container to put it in for the time being.
Speaker B:That is not how we are designed.
Speaker B:So one of the ways that we can become strong in our spirits is when we understand the connection between our bodies and the impact our bodies have on our spirits and our spirits have on our bodies.
Speaker B:Emotional health has a lot to do with our physical bodies.
Speaker B:And to be relationally smart also includes understanding our physical bodies.
Speaker B:As the mom of five boys, for example, one of the things that I know that is different is in the male body than the female body.
Speaker B:This as.
Speaker B:As a general rule, certainly there will always be individual exceptions.
Speaker B:But as a rule, male bodies do not produce as much serotonin and as which is a chemical hormone as female bodies do.
Speaker B:And that's one of the reasons, biologically, it is more difficult from a physical standpoint for a male to calm down.
Speaker B:And that's one of the reasons why there can be so much tendency to react with aggression.
Speaker B:And you see that even in little kids.
Speaker B:So understanding that doesn't mean we just throw up our hands and go, oh, well, you know, there's nothing to be done about it.
Speaker B:No, it's just the opposite, because we understand that then we parent differently, we treat each other differently as adults.
Speaker B:We live with understanding, we live with wisdom.
Speaker B:We're not victims of our bodies, but we do need to live aligned with the truth of how God has designed our bodies.
Speaker B:God doesn't just care about our mind, our thoughts, our emotions, and our spirit.
Speaker B:He cares deeply about our bodies.
Speaker B:You know, the Bible speaks about things that are present in God's creation that he has hidden from us.
Speaker B:But it is to his glory when we discover those things.
Speaker B:You know, if you think of if, if you have children or you've been around children, and if you've ever had a scavenger hunt, or maybe it's Christmas or their birthday and you have hidden some gifts, or you've put something in their stocking, or you, you've hidden clues around the house or the yard or even maybe around town for a scavenger hunt.
Speaker B:And at the end of that, there's going to be something really exciting and meaningful for them.
Speaker B:You have delight as they open those gifts, as they discover those clues.
Speaker B:You don't get frustrated and upset with them.
Speaker B:It is part of the whole joy to go through that process of discovery.
Speaker B:And God has created us to be people of curiosity who delight in discovering things.
Speaker B:And so he hasn't just hidden things from us in some sort of sadistic way.
Speaker B:Rather, it is because there is a delight for him when we discover whether it is the laws and the universe about how, how the world works, or it's also about understanding how our bodies work.
Speaker B:And understanding these things can make a big difference in people's lives.
Speaker B:And another difference between boys and girls is that young boys do not hear, and even as they get older, do not hear often on the same type of wavelengths as girls do.
Speaker B:And so there are certain sounds that aren't just softer in volume, they are softer in terms of like a wavelength and boys ears, because their internal ears are designed a little bit differently, oftentimes really don't hear those sounds.
Speaker B:So you take a child who's in kindergarten or first grade and sitting in a classroom, he doesn't even necessarily know that he's not hearing something.
Speaker B:There's nothing to clue him in necessarily to that.
Speaker B:And so he can go for a long period of time and he's truly not hearing.
Speaker B:He's not hearing well, he's not hearing at all.
Speaker B:And then that can end up just making him look like, well, he's not listening, he's not paying attention, he's not engaged.
Speaker B:It may just help me.
Speaker B:He is truly not hearing or he's not hearing well.
Speaker B:And for a teacher who knows that and understands the biology of that, what are they going to do?
Speaker B:They're going to make certain that they have the boys sit in a place where they are going to be in front or that teacher is going to make sure that they project their voice or they're going to walk around the classroom and they're going to repeat instructions.
Speaker B:They're going to be intentional about making sure how they're teaching aligns with how the bodies of their students work.
Speaker B:So when we learn about biology, when we learn about how the world works, when we learn about how our bodies work, this isn't something that is insignificant.
Speaker B:It's not, well, that's not very spiritual or that's not worthy of my time.
Speaker B:No, it's just the opposite of that.
Speaker B:And I think that aligns with what we read throughout the Bible and we especially read in the Book of Proverbs.
Speaker B:And that is that we are to be intentional, to seek to pursue, to find wisdom and knowledge and understanding.
Speaker B:And that's not just about big moral issues or ethical issues.
Speaker B:It's just about the ordinary nitty grittiness of life itself.
Speaker B:So what I'm excited to share with you about is there is a book that I have released.
Speaker B:You can find it on my website, Stephanie presents.com you can also find it on Amazon.
Speaker B:It's called the Great Brain Remodel of Adolescents.
Speaker B:And the subtitle is How Contractors and Alligators empower understanding.
Speaker B:Ages 12 to 24.
Speaker B:And this is an imprint that's the short and savvy guide.
Speaker B:So you can read this in just a short period of time.
Speaker B:I also encourage you have your adolescent read this even though it's written to parents and then also to educators.
Speaker B:There's nothing in here that your adolescent can't read.
Speaker B:And I would really encourage you to do that.
Speaker B:Even if they are early in adolescence, or maybe they're not quite into the.
Speaker B:The physical stage of adolescence yet, but it's coming up soon.
Speaker B:There's power in being able to know, hey, this is what I'm going to go through, or this is what I am going through, through.
Speaker B:And so it gives both of you some information that you can share together and to have a mutual understanding.
Speaker B:Now, what I've done is I have kind of acted like your AI program.
Speaker B:I have read a tremendous number of books and articles on this subject of what happens in the brain during adolescence.
Speaker B:Some of you might be saying, I know what happens to the brain during.
Speaker B:During adolescence.
Speaker B:It just shuts down.
Speaker B:Well, not exactly.
Speaker B:It really goes through a profound physical remodel.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:It remodels itself.
Speaker B:And when you understand the.
Speaker B:The significance of this and the process of this, it will help you to be empowered as a parent and also as an educator, because you can understand, okay, this is real stuff that's going to happen to every adolescent.
Speaker B:It's independent of environment, it's independent of gender.
Speaker B:It happens a little differently between the genders, but it's going to happen.
Speaker B:And so being mindful of, okay, then how do I align my parenting?
Speaker B:How do I understand the significance of this?
Speaker B:That can make a tremendous difference, not just on how adolescence goes, but upon how the rest of your child's life goes.
Speaker B:Because they do exit adolescence with a different brain than they start with, and it's going to be the brain that they carry with them into adulthood.
Speaker B:Certainly, as we have learned more about the brain, we recognize that it does retain a higher level of plasticity throughout adulthood than what we once thought.
Speaker B:But one of the big factors in the adolescent brain remodel is the brain exchanges efficiency for plasticity.
Speaker B:And in this book, I break down into a very easy to understand way.
Speaker B:All of this, this research and the science, so you don't have to go read all of the different books and articles and delve into the intricacies of what happens at the cellular level.
Speaker B:I've done that work for you.
Speaker B:And then I put it into a way to understand by using a home remodel as an analogy.
Speaker B:Because most of us can relate to that, whether.
Speaker B:Whether we've been through that ourselves or we've watched it happen on HGTV or at a friend's house.
Speaker B:And just like there are contractors that come in, in a home remodel process, there are contractors that show up in an adolescent's life As a result of this physical brain remodel, the brain rewires itself in a physical way.
Speaker B:Risk takes on a whole new meaning during adolescence.
Speaker B:Rewards take on a different meaning, relationships change.
Speaker B:And I know it can sound like, well, yeah, duh, but when you understand the physical biology behind this.
Speaker B:So, for example, the dopamine receptors in the brain during adolescence increase in both quantity and sensitivity.
Speaker B:Now, they don't remain like that throughout all of adulthood.
Speaker B:It's during adolescence, and the brain literally begins to crave dopamine, because that's one of the mechanisms that it uses to decide, how am I going to do this remodel.
Speaker B:You see, during childhood and pre adolescence, the brain is making neural connections at astounding rates.
Speaker B:We don't exactly know the exact rates of those neural connections.
Speaker B:Estimates are now, get this, anywhere from 30,000 to 1 million neural connections per second, at least in the first three years of life.
Speaker B:And then those neural connections continue being made.
Speaker B:That is astounding.
Speaker B:I mean, imagine watching a machine connect 30,000 Legos like per second for at least three years and then continue that process.
Speaker B:And that's on the low, conservative end of that.
Speaker B:By the start of adolescence, a person has trillions of these neural connections in the brain, more than the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
Speaker B:And at some point, it's kind of like the brain says, you know what?
Speaker B:I'm going to need to remove some of these connections and I'm going to need to make the ones that I keep more efficient.
Speaker B:And it does this through a process called myelination.
Speaker B:And I describe that in the book.
Speaker B:And in order to decide, well, what connections am I going to get rid of and which ones am I going to keep?
Speaker B:Dopamine becomes a huge part of that process, because things and activities and thoughts that trigger dopamine, which is a feel good chemical and neurotransmitter hormone in the body, those things, the brain says, hey, I want to keep those.
Speaker B:I want to make sure that I preserve and protect the neural connections that are going to lead to this dopamine.
Speaker B:And understanding then the role of technology as how it has just radically altered how much we experience dopamine makes this even more critical information for parents to have today.
Speaker B:And the brain doesn't just look at what's happened in the past.
Speaker B:The brain also then says, okay, how do I know if I want to keep something?
Speaker B:How do I know if something is going to be valuable for me or not if I don't try it?
Speaker B:And this is where risk becomes also very Biologically driven.
Speaker B:It's not just all about external peer pressure.
Speaker B:It's not just all about environment.
Speaker B:There's a biological drive to take risks during adolescence.
Speaker B:Now certainly that risk taking behavior can lead to some very destructive decisions and it can lead to life altering or tragically even life ending decisions during adolescence.
Speaker B:But it's also the very same drive that can cause an adolescent to reach out and to do new things with their life, to try out a new experience, a new relationship, to get curious about things.
Speaker B:So this isn't just all bad.
Speaker B:We don't want to deprive someone of saying, well, the whole goal here is just don't take risk.
Speaker B:As a matter of fact, one of the things that has been happening because of the technology that is now just a part of our adolescents lives is teens are becoming less risk takers.
Speaker B:And where that has some benefit in terms of we see some destructive behaviors going down, it also has a bad side effect to it.
Speaker B:We have teens who are becoming so cautious and they're going into adulthood and they're not stepping out, they're not trying things that they need to do to be able to live an empowered lifestyle.
Speaker B:And so there, while there is a downside, a potential downside to risk, there is also a necessary upside to taking appropriate amounts of risk in order for someone to not live fearful with a victim mentality, with anxiety and with depression, but with an empowered sense of life and purpose and meaning, you know, when it comes to relationships.
Speaker B:Another thing that is impacted by this brain remodel is that adolescents typically become less skilled, especially early on, at appropriately and accurately reading someone else's emotions.
Speaker B:Children can actually be better at identifying someone else's emotions or intentions than adolescents are.
Speaker B:And this makes them very vulnerable, typically at the same time that they start thinking that they're not that vulnerable.
Speaker B:And so it's not.
Speaker B:Again, it's not just a social vulnerability that exists because of things in the culture.
Speaker B:There's also a biologically driven vulnerability that we need to be aware of as parents and I think adolescents should be aware of as well.
Speaker B:The relationship between reward and, and relationships during adolescence and risk is also something that we have to be mindful of as parents and, and as educators.
Speaker B:You know, in this, in the book I share a story about these two girls and their encounter with a wild mama alligator.
Speaker B:And I'm not going to tell you that you're going to have to get the book and read that, but it's why I have in the subtitle how contractors and alligators empower understanding ages 12 to 24.
Speaker B:Because when you read that story, the reality that when two or more adolescents are together, the likelihood of them engaging in behaviors that they would never engage in if they were by themselves increases and often increases exponentially.
Speaker B:And again, while this can be to their benefit, it can also be to their detriment.
Speaker B:And that has also then increased exponentially because of the presence of technology.
Speaker B:And that's just something to be able to understand, because parents really need to be able to make informed decisions about technology.
Speaker B:And one of the things that this book equips you with is to understand what's going on in the brain that you and your adolescent aren't necessarily even aware of, based on external behaviors or things that are externally recognizable.
Speaker B:Because I use this analogy of a home remodel.
Speaker B:If you think about it this way, if you saw a house that was on your street and you drove by it regularly for days, for weeks, for years, you would have no way of knowing exactly what was going on in that house.
Speaker B:Even though you saw a lot of contractors, trucks pulling up over an extended period of time outside, and workers getting out with their tool bags and their tool belts and, and going inside that house and then coming out, you would know something's going on in that house.
Speaker B:But unless you went inside and you were able to walk around and see for yourself, you wouldn't know what was going on for certain.
Speaker B:Now, we can't climb inside our children's brains, but fortunately there's some technology that has been able to look inside the brain.
Speaker B:And it's fascinating to me how it confirms what even people said, comments that were made in ancient times about this age category, which is roughly between about 12 and 24.
Speaker B:The physical remodel of the brain takes on average about 10 years, and girls enter an exit a little earlier than boys.
Speaker B:But on average, it does take about 10 years for this brain remodel to take place.
Speaker B:So for yourself, whether you have children that are in this age range or you have kids are going to be in this age range, or maybe you have grandkids, or you are an educator or a mentor, you work with young people in some capacity.
Speaker B:This is.
Speaker B:It's an easy to read book, but it is packed with powerful information.
Speaker B:And so you can get this again, you can go to my website, stephanie presents.com you can also find it on Amazon.
Speaker B:The title again is the Great Brain Remodel of Adolescents.
Speaker B:How Contractors and Alligators empower understanding.
Speaker B:Ages 12 to 24.
Speaker B:All right, my friend, that's going to wrap us up for today.
Speaker B:We're going to be back next week with some more interviews.
Speaker B:In the meantime, be intentional about how you live because you do have an impact that is immeasurable, eternal and irreplaceable.
Speaker B:I'll see you next time.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening.
Speaker A:Visit the website stephaniepresents.com and sign up for High Impact to join the mission of building spiritually strong, emotionally healthy and relationally smart women and families.
Speaker A:You can also book Stephanie to speak at your event and check out additional resources.
Speaker A:Together we can invite and equip generations to engage fully in God's grand story.
