Listen to this and the Teen Brain Will All Make Sense! with Kathryn Berkett
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi and welcome to School Shorts with me Melissa Chan-Green, journalist and mum of two with a passion for education. Now we often talk about rapid brain development in the early years and as parents you often hear a lot about those first thousand days but there is another period where there is also really rapid change and some might say an update, and those years are perhaps a little more misunderstood. So here to help us through some of that information is neuroscience expert and author Catherine Burkett with her new book, What's Going On In There. Catherine, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me here. So when we think about teenage brains, often they are portrayed on television and stories as kind of moody and shut down.
And it's not just on television. I would say that, you know, in chats between families, it's like, oh, the teenage years.
What significant changes occur in the teenage brain?
But you like to frame it as an upgrade. What do you mean by an upgrade?
uh well one of the reasons is i can give you a little bit of science behind it but really i think it's important that we use that phrase because when we talk about shutdown it means it often allows us to time out and just leave them and what we've got to understand is and and by scanning the brain and looking at the brain you can see the changes i mean there's a huge increase in dopamine sensitivity. There's areas of the brain that have got increased activity and then some that are reducing. And the ones that are reducing, if we don't use them, they might reduce too much. So all of this is going on. And if you think about your adolescent, they are literally eating more and should sleep more at that time.
And that tells us how much energy this whole change is taking. So it is an upgrade, which means if we appreciate that and we understand it, we can put in the right info to help that upgrade instead of just stepping back and ignoring it if it's a shutdown. So I do think it's important to use that language because it means our behaviour can change.
Okay, so there are things that we can kind of do or help with in that period to help with the changes that they are going through as opposed to we've just got to let them go through it.
Absolutely. And that's why, I mean, my idea of writing the book was because there is so much going on. And like, for example, they increase the ability to read people's faces is advancing because we need to form a new tribe and we need to be able to tell what other people are thinking and So it increases. Now, why we often say it's a shutdown is because while it increases, it glitches. So they do find it harder to read your face, but they're actually upgrading that ability. So we need to make sure when they go, why are you angry or why are you moody or why are you... We sit with them and go, actually, do you think I look angry or what did you see on my face? Not, you don't have to be that specific, but we do have to still take them out to meet people, to be in social spaces because they're learning.
But it's also quite overwhelming. So we need to recognise that maybe only a few people at a time, not too many.
So is this why there's more sensitivity and awareness? I grew up with sisters, so I can only really relate it to teenage girls. Teenage girls do become quite sensitive, like, oh, she looked at me funny, or she said that, but her face was like that. So actually, there is something going on in your brain as a teenager. that you are picking up on more kind of micro signals and faces?
So it's the fusiform gyrus area. I did once say to my daughter, she goes, why are you so angry at me during that time? I went, sweetheart, it's your fusiform gyrus. So you can use that. I love that. She didn't, but it helped me not overreact.
How does the concept of a 'shutdown' relate to adolescent behavior?
But it's upgrading. And so while it upgrades and why I call it a glitch is because as a baby, we understood happy, sad, and angry. They're the basic emotions. Then during our terrific twos, we upgrade them and we learn confused and frustrated and hungry. And then at adolescence, because of the upgrade, we sort of glitch back to the basics.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–1:04
2
What significant changes occur in the teenage brain?
1:04–3:53
3
How does the concept of a 'shutdown' relate to adolescent behavior?
3:53–5:29
4
What does it mean when we refer to adolescence as an upgrade?
5:29–9:35
5
How do hormonal changes affect teenage social interactions?
9:35–15:45
6
What role does dopamine play in adolescent risk-taking?
15:45–32:50
7
How does screen time impact the developing adolescent brain?
32:50–40:10
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from School Shorts
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