Page 24 - Blue Valley Issue 6 2022

TODAY’S CHILD

There is also the matter of sleep. It has been Still, the frontal cortex continues to build and on their personal development, assess their
extensively researched and reported that teens prune networks throughout puberty and into early boundaries and acquire decision-making
have a different body clock to adults and require adulthood. Frontal and parietal lobe development skills. For example, embarking on a romantic
far more sleep. This is because their melatonin (a continues and appears as increasing amounts of relationship will help a teen understand what
hormone made in the body that regulates sleep white matter on MRI scans. These developing areas kind of partner they want in life.
cycles) rises and falls later in the day than in adults. are important for enabling a person to regulate
This explains teens being able to party till the early emotions, problem-solve, maintain attention Adolescents today are growing up in a more
hours of the morning. and engage in abstract reasoning. Intellectual open society, aided and abetted in large part
stimulation is vital at this age, when there is huge by technology. Thanks to digital advancement,
BRAIN DEVELOPMENT capacity for learning. their access to the wider world is immediate
From the day we are born and throughout our and communication takes place at the touch of
childhood, the brain builds connections between Brain imaging shows that the areas of the brain a button. It’s also a time of invention, flux and
neurons. It then starts to prune back (remove) associated with reward generally develop more creativity, where new ways of interacting and
redundant neural pathways, allowing for more quickly than those associated with inhibitions and learning are occurring at breakneck speed. This
efficient networks. This process makes a child’s self-control – which explains a lot! The scans show poses questions about how best we can parent
brain particularly malleable and enables a baby to greater dopamine activity in teenagers compared and guide our children. It also means that
grow into a toddler. to adults and younger children. Dopamine is studying in the traditional ways may not apply
associated with pleasure and curiosity. This is why in the near future.
Certain perceptual and motor skills such as teens are more likely to try new experiences.
language are stabilised long before adolescence, In addition, research shows that teenagers
making these skills harder to learn after this The willingness to try out new things can be experience increased activity in the medial
childhood phase. positive as it enables the teenager to focus prefrontal cortex. This area of the brain is

22 • Issue 6 2022 • BLUE VALLEY NEWS