Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Teens are biologically set to seek out thrills and take risks. From an evolutionary viewpoint, these changes evolved to spur this age group to leave a safe home, to increase their range of experiences and learn new skills, and to become independent.

So the changes that take place in adolescence are adaptive and serve a positive purpose. Yet, the teen brain still has a long way to go to reach adulthood, and the thrill seeking and risk-taking teens do along the way can make parenting them a tricky business.

Even though our children grow bigger and smarter and stronger during their teen years, the chances of them getting hurt or running into trouble go way up. Most of the time the cause is a bad decision. A teen sneaks out in the middle of the night and gets a citation for breaking curfew. Another tries smoking pot, likes it, and ends up getting hooked. Another hooks-up with someone met at a party and winds up with a sexually transmitted disease. And yet another sends a revealing photo online, and in a matter of minutes it’s shared with countless others.

For decades we’ve believed that teens make these deliberate but reckless choices because they weigh the risks as low, assess their smarts and skills as high, and conclude, “I’ll be fine. Nothing bad is going to happen to me.” Based on this explanation, parents have mostly tried to curb teen risk-taking by emphasizing the risks and then counting on their teens to logically think things through. I know I did.

Each time my teenage son went out the door, I reminded him of the dangers at the top of my mind and encouraged him to stay safe… to think before acting…. to make good decisions. And his response invariably went something like this: Don’t worry, Mom. I always weigh the pros and cons when I’m thinking about doing something you’d call dangerous. Back then I took comfort in knowing that he was thinking things through; I now know that my comfort was misplaced.

New evidence from 300 studies on teenage risk-taking strongly challenges the notion that teens think they are invulnerable. National surveys show that teens typically overestimate the chance that something bad will happen. The trouble is that they’re just not much bothered by it. New brain research sheds some light on why.

Brain changes tracked by neuroscientists suggest that teens’ reward systems (unlike those of younger children or adults) seem to bias their choices and decisions towards the thrill even if there is some risk. In fact, getting teens to deliberately weigh the costs and benefits of risk-taking (as my son assured me that he did) may actually encourage a riskier form of reasoning. The benefits of fitting in with their peers and the lure of excitement and rebellion right now will almost always outweigh the cost of consequences later.

So what does this mean for us parents?

Crucial Don’ts
Don’t think teens believe they are invulnerable. They don’t. Research clearly shows that teens are well aware of the risks in their world.

Don’t think that if you emphasize the risks, you can count on your teen to logically think things through and consistently reach the same conclusion you would. They won’t. The strategy of pointing out the risks isn’t very effective when teens already overestimate that something bad will happen if they take risks but still choose risk-taking when they logically deliberate.

Crucial Dos
Do monitor and supervise your teen. In today’s teen culture, there are so many temptations and so many ways for our kids to go wrong. They need our sturdy presence. Although we can’t be with them at every moment, and at the end of the day our teens must make their own decisions, we can make it more difficult for them to make bad decisions, and we can help fill their time with positive activities.

Do help your teen see benefits of good choices differently. Bad consequences are in the too distant future or are too poorly understood (or both) to be strong deterrents for teens. Instead, teens make decisions based on the benefits they expect – especially short-term benefits. So to make risk-taking less appealing for your teen, highlight the benefits of making wiser, safer choices.

Do be collaborative, aiming to guide your teen rather than trying to control them. Our parental control systems become less effective as our kids get older. So rather than viewing control as something we do to our teens (or giving up on them because we can’t control them), we need to find ways to influence our teens and work with them. The next post will look at some specific ways for doing just that.

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How would you describe the teen brain? Not your teen’s brain specifically – but in general, how would you describe the brains of these maddeningly moody and impulsive risk-takers?

A Quick Review of Teen Brain Science
We used to think that brain development was largely done by the time children reached kindergarten. We now know that during adolescence the brain undergoes a massive remodeling that lasts well into the 20s. During this time, brain connections that are not being used get pruned back while the others grow and then get wrapped in a blanket of fat called myelin that helps electrical signals move much faster (up to 100 times faster) and more efficiently.

The teen brain undergoes changes in nearly every area – from language to logic to impulses and insight. Perhaps most important, researchers have learned that the brain develops unevenly as remodeling during adolescence progresses from the back of the brain (at the back of the head) to the front of the brain (by the forehead). As a result of this wave-like progression of remodeling, pleasure and thrill seeking regions of the brain develop well before other systems designed to put the brakes on questionable actions. In fact, the prefrontal cortex – critical for planning, decision-making, and impulse control – is one of the last areas of the brain to fully mature.

It’s Nearly Perfect
The above review (not to mention most of what has been written in popular articles and scholarly papers over the past decade) could easily lead you to conclude that the teen brain is anything but perfect. However, those working on the edge of neuroscience have recently begun to remind us of something that seems to have gotten lost in translation: Teens’ sensation seeking and risk-taking, the delayed completion of their brains’ prefrontal area, and even their moodiness are adaptive. In fact, from an evolutionary viewpoint, teens’ brains are wired almost perfectly for the scary task of leaving a safe home and learning how to function independently in a complicated world.

For more on this brighter story about your teen’s brain, check out “Beautiful Brains” by David Dobbs, the feature story in the October issue of National Geographic.

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