Welcome to Parent Night #2

1. Welcome to Parent Night #2 A review of Why Do They Act That Way? By Dr. David Walsh

3. “Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

4. “The purpose of this book is to prevent and cure those dark thoughts to help you see more clearly what your teenager is going through.” Dr. David Walsh

5. Adolescence: • Hard to define • Starts at puberty, and ends…. • Characterized more by what it isn’t than what it is • An “in between” stage (not childhood, but not yet adulthood) • A “cocoon” stage Adolescence can often feel like the “terrible twos”. There is a reason why they share similar characteristics. Adolescents are growing and developing at a greater rate than any other time throughout their lifespan, with the exception of the first two years of life.

6. Discussion Question: What are some of the biggest challenges you face in raising/ working with adolescents? What things do you find yourself arguing/disagreeing/worrying about the most?

7. A guided tour of the adolescent brain: The human brain is comprised of three main components: • Brain Stem • Limbic System • Cortex

8. The Brain Stem: • Also called the “reptilian brain” • Responsible for many of the functions that keep us alive • Responsible for unconscious physiological functions (breathing, heartbeat, involuntary responses)

9. The Limbic System: • Physically “rings” the brainstem (from the Latin word limbus) • The “seat” of emotion • Important structures: • Amygdala • Hippocampus • Hypothalamus • Ventral Striatal All play an important role in development!

10. The Limbic System: Amygdala • The seat of fear and anger • Responsible for “hair trigger” anger

11. The Limbic System: Hippocampus • Named for the Greek word for seahorse • Plays a key role in encoding new memories

12. The Limbic System: Hypothalamus • Control center for the endocrine system • Involved in sexual orientation, sex drive, and sexual behavior

13. The Limbic System: Ventral Striatal Circuit • Involved in motivation

14. The Cortex: • The brain’s layers and folds • “Gray matter” • The brain’s executive CEO • Gives us consciousness, thought, and reason • Responsible for higher brain functions such as calculating, planning, and language • Responsible for planning ahead, considering consequences, and managing emotional impulses • The brain’s conscience

15. Brain Development 101 • Three specific processes of brain development • Use it or lose it • Blossoming and pruning • The window of opportunity Each of these are critical in understanding how our adolescents’ behavior and thought processes develop.

16. Use it or lose it Think of the brain as an electrical system. At any time, your brain is generating the equivalent of twenty-five watts--enough to power a light bulb! The brain’s neurons are specifically designed to conduct and send electrical signals to each other. As with a muscle, the brain needs exercise to develop. Neurons that “fire” more frequently become hard-wired into the brain’s electrical networks. The ones that don’t, are expendable and wither away.

17. Use it or lose it: Example: One particular circuit that develops in the adolescent brain enables teens to manage strong emotional impulses. The more we encourage adolescents to think before they speak or act, the stronger those connections become. Teens who are never held accountable for taking charge of their impulses have difficulty developing this crucial skill.

18. Blossoming and Pruning: • The brain develops in fits and starts, not in an even, uniform way • During the stage of blossoming, the area of the brain ready for growth starts to search for connections. This process is known as “blossoming” • Experience causes certain neurons to fire, bridging one cell to another to form connections in the brain • The neurons that don’t fire, shrink and eventually disappear, a process called “pruning”

19. “If you want your children to be brilliant, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more brilliant, read them more fairy tales.” Albert Einstein

20. The window of opportunity: Think of the blossoming stage like a piece of fruit that you buy at the grocery store. You have a limited window of opportunity, while the fruit is ripe, to eat it. If the fruit is not consumed during this time, it is inedible. The same is true of the connective networks in your brain. When a window in the brain closes, you lose that opportunity. (Example: phonemic awareness) Adverse experiences during this time have a greater negative impact because more damage is done to the brain during its most vulnerable times.

21. Why Adolescents are Impulsive The Prefrontal Cortex is the executive center of the brain. Its job is to think ahead to consequences and to control impulses that shoot out of other regions of the brain. Because it is still developing during adolescence, teens do not have the impulse control of adults.

22. Why Adolescents are Impulsive Even though it is not the teen’s fault that his brain isn’t fully under control, it’s his responsibility to get it under control. And, it’s your responsibility as parents to help him. While the PFC is being pruned, you as a parent need to provide the guidance and structure that he will eventually internalize.

23. 3-step process to follow when things are getting heated with your teen: • When it’s time for you to enforce a consequence, take a minute and visualize how you want to handle it. Picture yourself as calm and firm. • Tell him/her that it was his/her choice that is causing the consequence. Don’t expect him/her to take this message calmly. He/She may try to talk his/her way out of it or may want to argue. Don’t join the argument. • If you feel you blood pressure rising, take a deep breath and remember this advice: When you feel like taking the wind out of their sails, it is a better idea to take your sails out of their wind.

24. Limits and Consequences Dealing with impulsive behavior is one of the biggest challenges for parents. Outbursts and misbehavior can seem normal, but setting firm limits and consequences is essential. Teens need structure from their parents while their “brain’s supervisor”, the prefrontal cortex, is under construction. Parents have to become their teen’s “external brain” for a while.

25. Risky Business: Helping Teens Put on the Brakes Quickness to Anger The adolescent inability to check their impulses becomes a worse problem when coupled with a teen’s quickness to anger, which seems to come out of nowhere. Quickness to anger coupled with poor impulse control often results in rudeness and verbal abuse.

26. Risky Business: Helping Teens Put on the Brakes Hormones: • Testosterone - boys’ main growth hormone. By the end of adolescence they can have 1,000% the amount of testosterone in their bodies that they had before puberty, and 20 times more than girls have at the same age. • Causes boys to become “emotional powder kegs”. • Likely to trigger surges of anger, aggression, sexual interest, dominance, and territoriality.

27. Risky Business: Helping Teens Put on the Brakes Hormones: • Estrogen and Progesterone: Girls’ growth hormones. • Estrogen triggers physical changes in girls. • Affects the brain, also.

28. Risky Business: Helping Teens Put on the Brakes Neurotransmitters: • Norepinephrine - energizer transmitter. Prepares the body for the flight-or-fight response. • Dopamine - feel good neurotransmitter. • Serotonin - stabilizes mood. Can help us feel relaxed and confident.

29. What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate What did you argue about most with your parents when you were a teen?

30. What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate What did you argue about most with your parents when you were a teen? Grades Chores Money Religion Curfew Disrespect Dress Music Friends Alcohol / Drugs

31. What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate Miscommunication and the Brain • Adolescent brain interprets emotional expressions differently than an adult’s brain. • Adolescents frequently misread emotional signals. • Adults use the rational part of the brain to read emotions, but adolescents basically do so with a gut reaction.

32. What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate Communication Tips: • Begin statements with “I” rather than “You”. • Avoid generalizations. • Be as specific when asking for something. • Ask a question that requires more than one word to answer. • Stick to one topic at a time. • When there is tension, avoid attacking. • Listening is more important than talking.

33. Food, Exercise, and the Story Behind Tired Teens • Glucose - the Brain’s Building Blocks • Protein - the Energy Food • Fats - the Brain’s Insulators • Vitamins, Minerals, and Other Micronutrients - the Brain’s Guards • Antioxidants - the Brain’s Protectors

34. Food, Exercise, and the Story Behind Tired Teens Strategies to Encourage Healthy Eating: • Eat a rainbow. • Don’t skip breakfast. • Avoid food wars. • Start small. • Eat meals together as frequently as possible.

35. Food, Exercise, and the Story Behind Tired Teens Exercise and the Brain Animal research has been showing the movement/brain power connection for decades. Now, neuroscientists can study children’s brains with MRIs, and they’re finding brain changes as well. What they’ve learned is that kids who exercised and played vigorously for twenty to forty minutes a day were better able to organize their schoolwork, learn math, and do class projects. The more active kids also showed more brain activity in the front part of their brains, where a lot of thinking occurs.

36. Food, Exercise, and the Story Behind Tired Teens Sleep and the Teen Brain At puberty, two big changes affect sleep patterns: 1. The way the brain regulates sleep and the amount of sleep needed begins to change. 2. The timing of the sleep/wake cycle shifts, so the times of day that adolescents get sleepy and feel fully alert and awake can be at odds with what we adults may think of as normal. Although most adolescents are in no danger of the extreme consequences of being low on sleep, many of them are not getting enough. Anyone who does not get enough sleep has difficulty focusing, reasoning, driving safely, learning, and working.

38. The Importance of Connection & Guidance “ There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings.” -Anonymous

39. The Importance of Guidance and Connection • Research shows that the most protective factor for teens is parent connection and involvement • The worst mistake parents can make is granting the “divorce” their kids ask for • We need to strategize ways to stay connected • It’s also important to keep other adults involved in your teen’s life

40. Strategies for building connections • Avoid making personal attacks / accentuate the positive • Admit when you are wrong • Spend twice as much time, and half as much money • Listen more than you talk • Decrease the amount of time your adolescent spends with media, and increase the amount of time they spend on one-to-one communication • Invent new ways to be part of your adolescent’s life--be creative! • Ask them to make a CD or playlist for you of their favorite music • Put notes in their book bags or lunch boxes • Maintain family traditions (even if they complain) • Don’t stop going to school activities

41. Guidance is so important! • Choose your battles carefully • It is hard for teens to resist temptation. Limits like curfews provide the structural support for good decision making • Adolescents hate “sermons”, so have a conversation about values instead • Try “work cards” to teach responsibility • Instead of sheltering teens from life, we need to teach them to cope • Look for opportunities to let them spread their wings • Be consistent! • Remind your adolescent, often, that you love them