Partnering to Understand Brain Development

The tribulations of teenagers are trying at times. All parents and teachers have ‘war stories’ about seemingly trivial matters that became gargantuan issues in the mind of a teen. The longer view of adulthood knows we can rebound from most issues - we learn and grow in the process and develop resilience along the way.  Patience is critical in these moments - while we may ‘know’ the answer to solve the immediate problem from our own experiences, we need to guide from sidelines and let children learn so they develop their own grit. I know from experience as a parent and teacher how hard this can be - we want to spare our children any pain even when we know intrinsically that it may be part of their learning curve towards adulthood.

While we may have the experience and handed on tradition of the trials of adolescence to adulthood, we can all learn from the advances of neuroscience in the past few decades. We have moved into a new age of understanding from behavioural psychology to matching physical brain development with how the teenage brain interprets the world. In explaining actions it gives us insight as to why many actions of this age group happen without the thought we would apply to a situation. It is literally fruitless to ask a teen “what were you thinking?!?” because usually they were not able to think in the moment they acted!

The good news is that we can seek to understand this age group better and we can create structures to help our children learn and become independent. More recent research demonstrates that our brains only fully physiologically develop in our early twenties, yet teens are actually better learners. Unfortunately, they are prone to more addictive behavior development and it is imperative that we provide an educational environment that promotes healthy, holistic development. I would like to invite all of our community to explore this topic in more depth through reading a great book together on this topic, The Teenage Brain, by Frances E. Jensen. It explores both the research and approaches to how we can use this research to support healthy development in our teens (and pre-teens!). We will host a discussion event November 13th (more details forthcoming in partnership with our Parents Association) and I hope we can open an ongoing dialogue about our partnership in helping all our children grow and thrive. 

Tobin S. Bechtel
Head of School