Parents get a peek into the mind of a teenager

"They can look like adults, their brain hasn't caught up yet." Ron Fisher, Brainwave Trust educator

Having a teenage brain is like driving a Bugatti you don’t know has shoddy brakes.

You’re going to want to go fast, but you won’t realise it was a bad idea until you crash.

In a seminar to parents, Brainwave Trust Manawatu/ Whanganui educator Ron Fisher said parents and teachers want to teach teenagers how to be responsible adults, but it’s not reasonable to expect them to act like they already are.

‘‘There’s a lot of skill required to think as an adult... [so] even though at 13, 14, 17 they can look like adults, their brain hasn’t caught up yet.’’

From as early as 9 or 10-yearsold, the development of the emotional part of the brain kicks into overdrive, but the part of the brain that thinks of consequences, the brakes, won’t catch up until the mid-to-late 20s.

Adolescence is the second most important time in our brain’s development, when we begin to fully understand other people’s emotions and, eventually, how to rationally think things through. That’s why Palmerston North Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools invited Fisher to give parents a seminar on adolescent brain development at boys’ high on Tuesday.

‘‘Adolescence is the second wave of opportunity to set the foundation for the rest of their lives. [And] it’s all about relationships,’’ Fisher said.

Being surrounded with supportive adults was vital to that.

‘‘They need you not to give up on them, no matter how much they might try to push you away sometimes.’’

Michelle and Gareth Weston, who have 14-year-old at boys’ high, said Fisher’s seminar mainly solidified what they knew from experience about teenage boys. But it helped to know that’s just the way teenagers are wired, that every emotion hits harder and when they’re stressed the logical part of their brain basically shuts down.

‘‘[Next time] we might try to not just snap at him, but come back later and explain why what he did was wrong and ask questions and talk in a calm manner,’’ Gareth Weston said.