The Teenage Brain

WKCD (What Kids Can Do) includes information on how our kids learn. Research shows us why teens act the way they do with behaviors such as “mood swings, surliness, impulsivity, poor decisions, insensitivity (or too much sensitivity), and more.” The brain’s frontal lobe, the area that affects judgment, is not fully developed until ages 25-30. As the brain grows, young people have difficulty making decisions quickly, don’t notice errors in judgment, have trouble identifying other’s emotions, and are “vulnerable to stress.” So—it’s good for all of us to remember that there is a biological reason for why teens are the way they are, why they do the things online that they do even when they know better, and that we need to be patient as we wait for their minds to mature.