Your amazing brain
From around age 12-24, there is a burst of growth and maturation taking place as never before in our lives. The adolescent period of life is the one with the most power for courage and creativity. As Dan Siegel, MD writes in ‘Brainstorm, the power and purpose of the teenage brain’, “Life is on fire when we hit our teens”.
Your brain is exploding with growth, you are going to need to explore new things, to push against boundaries, to take risks. What you need to know is that adolescents make up the largest group with avoidable causes of death, like accidents, drug use, woundings from weapons, suicide and murder. The period from 12-24 is one of the most exciting, but also the most dangerous time of our lives.
With awareness, you can notice your instinct to push against what is known, safe and familiar. It is natural and part of growing up. So instead of following in your parents’ or older siblings’ footsteps and spending copious amounts of time scrolling on your phone or ipad, why not think outside the box and consider better ways of doing things than what has been modeled. Perhaps use that drive toward danger and take up surfing or fencing. We don’t get the same satisfaction watching others engaged in activities; you need to actually feel the rush yourself.
Our society desperately needs new strategies for dealing with the constant interruptions and distractions of our phones in order to do anything of importance. So consider suggesting everyone put all technology away for mealtimes- including your parents. Or perhaps you can all take a walk without phones. You can suggest no talking too, if you just want to enjoy silence and want to avoid potential lectures or too many questions. Another idea is to suggest activities without phones, which frees you from the fear of being filmed while attempting something new.
To get the full benefit of this brain developmental period, make sure you get quality sleep by turning off your phone, or better yet, suggest a no phones in bedrooms rule for the family. How rebellious you will seem when you pitch this idea to your parents and insist they participate. How punk rock to be unreachable and not ‘tracked’ every second by family and friends.
Neuroscientists know that we need ‘default mode’ moments, time for our minds to wander and ‘just be’. These are crucial for allowing us to think creatively and consider ourselves, our desires, our own thoughts. I can’t wait to see what you and your fellow teens are capable of. Try and encourage your peers to put down their distracting, tracking devices, in order to do something new, do something better, and try something exciting in this world. You need it and so do we.