Parents of Southern Ocean County Explore the Adolescent Brain

Do you wonder why your child does what he or she does?

If parents understand their teenagers' brains, they will better understand their behavior and gain the resources they need to help their teens develop life long success, Dr. Karen Lindgren, a senior neuro-psychologist at Bancroft Brain Injury Day Treatment Services said to a crowd of about 50 parents, children, and community leaders Friday evening at Priff Elementary School in Waretown.

Although teenagers sound like adults because language is fully developed by age 10-14, their brains are not fully developed until they are in their early 20s, Lindgren said. And whether teenagers spend their time on Facebook or learning to play the cello, or whether they nurture positive or negative thoughts and emotions, "the behavioral patterns that get ingrained stay ingrained," she said. 

"The things that we choose to get good at or that we choose to do a lot ... are the connections that are going to get really strengthened in our brains," said Lindgren. 

Behaviors and consequences are linked through our emotional systems, she said, and teenagers process their emotions through the amygdala, which is responsible for gut reactions and knee jerk responses while adults process theirs in the frontal lobe, which directs, controls, and organizes behavior, said Lindgren. 

Additionally, there is a surge of the neurotransmitter dopamine and a decrease in serotonin in the teen brain. Dopamine is a pleasure neurotransmitter and serotonin regulates behavior. Add to this combination the fact that hormones "flip the switch" on the amygdala in adolescence and the potential for risky behavior peaks.

"We have all the skills we need to address this," Lindgren assured the audience. "If you can teach teens the connection between their behavior and the consequences in an immediate enforceable way and provide reinforcement for good decisions, you are teaching their frontal lobes to wire for positive things."

Parents can do this by:

1. Helping teenagers to see and label situations correctly.
2. Walking teenagers through potential challenges before they arise, just like they taught their children to cross the street carefully when they were toddlers. 
3. Listening beyond teenagers adult sounding language to the logic of what they are saying and letting them figure out the logic themselves by asking open ended questions.
4.  Encouraging self-understanding: "The key is finding something healthy that brings them enjoyment and positive reinforcement," Lindgren said. 
5. Helping them recognize the emotions in others: "It's not only critical for their  ability to communicate and have social communication. It's critical for their empathy and their ability to understand what another person is going through, and empathy is a corner stone of moral behavior. People who can't empathize are more likely to engage in criminal acts because they don't really understand what their victims are going through," Lindgren said.
6. Encouraging them to get proper amounts of nutrition, exercise, and sleep (9.5 hours is optimal) and educating them about the fact that drugs and alcohol permanently alter the neurochemistry and structure of the brain. 

"The Adolescent Brain" was co-sponsored by the Municipal Alliances of Ocean, Barnegat, Lacey, and Stafford Township and Prevention First, a non-profit organization that provides substance abuse and violence prevention education in Ocean and Monmouth counties. 

Lacey Township Municipal Alliance Coordinator Heather Scanlon is responsible for bringing Lindgren to the attention of Municipal Alliance members. A lot of parents think it's not bad for kids to engage in risky behaviors like alcohol and experimenting with drugs, Scanlon said.

"This gives them good information. Hopefully they'll take that message," Scanlon said.

Jeffrey Vonschmidt is a local baseball coach whose children graduated from the Ocean Township school district.

"I'm here as an interested parent. We can always learn to listen a little better," Vonschmidt said.

Lacey Township Committeeman David Most expressed frustration that more parents don't take advantage of educational opportunities like this. 

"Parents could learn so much. We try to reach out to them in the Municipal Alliance, especially in that target group where the kids at a younger age are so impressionable and it's so important to be teaching them at that age so you can really notice the problems and help them," Most said.

Prevention First has a resource center at 848 West Bay Avenue in Barnegat that is open to all Ocean County residents, Director of Adult Services Denise Stevens said.