Wellness Matters Webinar - Oh no! The teenage years approach!

The teenage years can be turbulent yet exciting and amazing times. It can be hard for parents and teens alike to navigate these years and can be a bit daunting for both. This talk is designed not only for parents of teens and preteens, but also for teens and preteens as well. In this talk, you will learn about the teenage years in relation to the teenage brain. This will include gaining an understanding of teenage brain development and why things seem to get mixed up in the teenage years. Parents and teens will also learn some practical strategies to help navigate through these important years.

Facilitated by: Cynthia Smith

FAQs

• What is happening in the teenage brain during adolescence, and why does my teen seem so emotional?

  During adolescence, the teenage brain is “under construction.” Although the brain is almost adult-sized, it is only about 80% developed, and the prefrontal cortex (responsible for planning, judgment, impulse control, and thinking about consequences) is the last area to fully mature. Because this part is still developing, teens rely more on the amygdala—the emotional, instinctive part of the brain that handles fear, anger, and the fight/flight/freeze response. This is why teens can seem very emotional, reactive, or overwhelmed and later genuinely say, “I don’t know what I was thinking,” because they were mostly feeling rather than rationally evaluating the situation.

• Why do teenagers take more risks and make impulsive decisions?

  Teenagers take more risks for both biological and developmental reasons. Their reward centres are highly sensitive, which means the “thrill” of a behaviour can feel especially powerful and motivating. At the same time, the connection between the emotional brain (amygdala) and the decision-making centre (prefrontal cortex) is still being strengthened, so feelings often come online faster than careful reasoning. This combination can lead to riskier or impulsive choices, but it also helps teens explore the world, build new skills, and discover their passions when guided in healthy ways.

• How much sleep do teenagers need, and what happens if a teen is sleep-deprived?

  Most teenagers need 8–10 hours of sleep each night, and some go through phases where they may need even more (up to 12–13 hours) as their brain pruning and remodeling ramp up. Biological changes in the teen circadian rhythm mean many teens don’t naturally feel sleepy until around 10:45 p.m. and aren’t ready to wake up before about 8:00 a.m. When teens consistently get less than eight hours of sleep, research links this to higher rates of depression and anxiety, increased emotional reactivity and impulsiveness, more risk-taking (including substance use), and lower academic performance. Adequate, consistent sleep supports learning, self-control, mood regulation, and overall mental health.

• How can parents support healthy teenage brain development and improve communication with their teen?

  Parents can support healthy brain development by encouraging positive risk-taking (sports, creative activities, trying new hobbies), praising effort and small successes, and modeling the behaviour they want to see. Open, honest conversations about “hard topics” like sex, substances, social media, and peer pressure help teens process information and build better decision-making skills. It often helps to talk while doing something side by side—driving, walking, or making tea—so direct eye contact feels less intense. Tools like “rewinding” a conversation (giving each other a do-over), asking whether your teen wants problem-solving or just listening, and helping them build good sleep habits all strengthen connection, resilience, and healthy brain growth.

Transcript

Welcome, everybody, and thank you for joining us for our Wellness Matters talk this evening, entitled “Oh No, the Teenage Years.” My kids are already well into their teenage years, so I won’t give any spoilers. But it sounds like Cynthia is going to—honestly, I could have used this sooner. Maybe you still might get something. Actually, even as it’s coming out of my mouth, I know I’ll find lots of tips that are very relevant to me.

It’s so nice to have all of you with us this evening. My name is Nicole Imgrund, and I’m the owner and director of Rivers Edge Counselling Centre. Tonight’s talk is part of our Wellness Matters series. We have many of these talks already recorded on our website on the blog page, so you’re welcome to check out the others, and also to check out any upcoming talks we have.

We also have an amazing winter/spring lineup. The next one, in early January 2024, is Sex Therapy: What It Is and How It Can Help with Ken K. Pelc. In February, we have Boundary Setting: How and Where to Draw Your Lines with Nicholas Rena. We have a talk on systemic and cultural fat phobia. We have a couple of in-person talks also coming up. We limit them to only 30 participants, so sign up soon if you’re interested. One is on the journey to becoming a stepfamily—celebrating the joys and navigating the challenges along the way—and another one on cultural influences on mental health. We also have one called Pregnancy to Postpartum, and one on navigating parenthood with a child on the autism spectrum, one on OCD—so all kinds of great talks coming up.

You may be aware that we rolled out new programs and groups—workshops that we are offering at the centre this fall. They were really successful, and we are just finalizing dates for winter and spring offerings for those too, so check out our website under the program page to sign up soon for any of those.

I am going to introduce our speaker this evening, Cynthia Smith. Cynthia sees counselling as a supportive place in which to safely explore and process experiences, and all of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that go with them. She believes that everyone has the capacity to be strong and resilient, and that everyone has an innate ability to grow and heal and overcome their scars and struggles. But sometimes people need support and guidance to find these qualities within themselves, and so Cynthia’s role as a counsellor is to offer support and guidance in uncovering these qualities, and in experiencing the growth and change that her clients desire.

Cynthia is a registered psychologist, and she has experience and training in providing counselling to children, teens, adults, and families. Cynthia has a wealth of experience—more than 15 years—working in a variety of contexts with school-age kids, teens, and their families, including not-for-profit, detox and addictions, and school settings. Cynthia has been with Rivers Edge—how many years now, Cynthia?

It’d be about four years now.

Yeah, I was thinking: a while. We’re so fortunate to have her. Cynthia always tailors her counselling approach to what her clients need, so it’s a good fit for them. She draws on a lot of strength-based methods. Her approach is person-centred, but she also draws from solution-focused therapy, CBT, and mindfulness-based approaches. She has a strong passion for working with kids and families, and when she works with kids, she uses a play therapy approach. I can definitely attest to that. I love walking down the halls when Cynthia is working with a kiddo, because you can hear lots of activity inside—play, laughter, noise. Good work is being done; we can always tell.

With that, I’m going to turn it over to you, Cynthia. I’m going to be looking at the chat if anybody needs any technical help. Near the end of the hour, if we have some time, we’ll look at the chat and answer any questions that you have, and we’ll go from there.

Yeah, perfect. Thank you for that wonderful introduction, Nicole. I’m going to just share my screen now. Okay… there we go. Sorry, guys—I’ve just got to move things out of the way so I can actually share my slides.

So, welcome, everybody. I’m very excited to be here. I love talking about the teenage brain, and teenagers. They are pretty amazing. I’ve actually worked with teenagers now—I calculated that it’s like 22 or 23 years—in different settings: from group homes, to detox facilities, to correctional centres and correctional programs, to community programs, and now as a registered psychologist. I’ve met a lot of amazing, amazing teens. They are interesting and fascinating, but I think they often kind of get a bad rap. So I’m hoping that out of this tonight you’ll get some ideas and a different outlook on things, because I know going into the teenage years can be very scary for a lot of parents, but it can also be a time of amazement. That’s what I hope you get out of this.

I hope that some of you parents did convince your teenagers to come to this as well. If you didn’t, when you get the recording of this, I strongly encourage you to watch it again with your teenagers, just so they also have that understanding of what is going on with their brains and bodies and all of that kind of stuff. Hopefully I’ll give you some ideas at the end to help things feel a little bit smoother into these teenage years.

During the teenage years, there are many changes that take place, and some of these changes are often overlooked. We often focus on puberty and hormonal changes, but these changes are not only physiological; they’re also psychological, as well as social and emotional. So not only do those hormone changes and puberty affect the physical sense—there’s a lot of impact that goes throughout our systems.

Changes in growth and sex hormones have impacts on both the brain and the body. Just a fun fact: the term “teenager” was actually not coined until the 1930s, and prior to that, those teenage years were considered either childhood or adulthood, with nothing in between. That’s kind of an interesting distinction that we now make that wasn’t once made—and it just says how much research has come since the 1930s.

Within these areas of change, there are often things that parents hear about that cause feelings of dread. These include: expression of more and stronger emotions, unpredictable mood swings, risky behaviors, poor decisions, and impulsive decisions. Yes, all of these things do happen in the teenage years, but being aware that these things will happen is often a good first step in getting through these years. Again, I’m going to give you some ideas at the end that will hopefully make all of these things seem a little bit more manageable and not quite so scary.

There’s a lot that can bring fear and dread, but there can also be a lot of amazing parts, too. The teenage years are such an amazing time of great learning. It’s a time of exceptional plasticity, where the brain can remodel itself in response to the environment, and the teenage being is able to adapt and be resilient. It’s a time of amazing growth in a lot of different areas, which we’re going to touch on. Watching this growth—where they’re taking in so much of the world—can be very inspiring. You kind of see the world in a different way as a teenager.

It’s also a time of building and developing the things a teen loves and is passionate about. As teens become more passionate about things, this can lead to an increase in talents in different areas.

I’m getting a bit nerdy tonight, so you’re all going to see my nerdy side, because I find the teenage brain is super fascinating. I’m going to share a lot of things that I find interesting.

Some interesting brain facts: at birth, an infant’s brain weighs 300 to 400 grams, which is a fourth the size of an adult’s. So you’re already a quarter of the way to being developed when you are born. By the time a child is six years old, their brain is about 90 to 95% of adult size. It’s almost fully developed by the time you’re six years old, size-wise.

At birth, a newborn’s brain has almost all the neurons it will ever have. There are a few neurons in the cerebellum that will form in the first 18 months of life, but more or less, the brain has everything it needs in order to grow and become an adult brain.

Another interesting fact is that while the brain is almost adult-sized by adolescence, it is actually only about 80% developed. The last section to develop is the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is responsible for cognitive processes such as reasoning, development, planning, and judgment—which is where we get those “dread aspects” of things. This is really important to note: that is the last area of the brain to be developed.

Not only is brain development happening during adolescence, but the brain is also undergoing a process of remodeling. This remodeling continues into adulthood. Some research states it continues into the mid-20s, and there’s research coming out talking about it possibly being into the 30s. So if you think about our expectations on teenagers—we expect them to be an adult by 18—but their brain is actually not fully developed, possibly until their 30s.

Remember: when a child is born, they have almost all the neurons they will ever have. A neuron is the basic makeup of our brain—it fires for us to have thought processes and all that kind of stuff.

At birth, the number of synapses per neuron is 2,500, and by age two or three, it is about 15,000 synapses per neuron. The neural network expands exponentially from birth, then slows down a little bit. Every experience excites the neural circuits.

I’m going to try to share a different screen, so bear with me for a [Music] moment.

Okay—so, again: at birth, the number of synapses per neuron is 2,500, but by age two or three it’s about 15,000. Here’s how I’m going to demonstrate this with my super awesome drawing.

If we picture this as a neuron, and we start developing synapses with every action taken by an infant… they learn to pick something up, it creates a synapse—starts creating those neural pathways. They pick something else up: another. Something else: another. And it can even be similar objects. Say they pick up a red crayon, a blue crayon, a purple crayon; they pick up a purple car, a red car—each experience can create these synapses.

By the time a child is two years old, they’ve developed millions of these. If this process were to continue, by adulthood they could have a billion synapses, and the brain would not be able to sustain that. It would get overworked. People aren’t really sure what exactly would happen, but the brain isn’t able to sustain that. Because of this, the brain goes through a process of pruning.

Pruning starts around the age of two and really ramps up into adulthood. Think of pruning a tree—and you’re cutting off branches. Things are being taken out. This process starts at the back of the brain and ends in the front.

You might notice that something your teen can do one day, the next day they can’t do anymore. Maybe it’s putting away their backpack every day. A lot of parents find that it’s like one day they’ve done something every day for two years, and then suddenly that is gone. And it really can be gone because it’s probably something that has been pruned out.

Teens, you might feel confused at times—like, “Mom and Dad are getting mad at me for something; I know I can do this.” Chances are there’s something that’s been pruned away that’s contributing.

The other part of restructuring the teenage brain is remodeling, where connections are strengthened. These connections become bigger and better. They go through a process called myelination, where neurons are wrapped and protected. This allows different areas of the brain to become connected. So say this was picking up a blue car, and this was picking up a red car—these might connect with each other, and things become a little bit easier in a way.

This remodeling also allows for faster information processing and increased conduction of neural impulses. That’s important, because as we know, kids and teenagers might take a little longer to think through things. This remodeling helps that process become faster as they move into adulthood.

Pruning begins at the back of the brain and ends in the front, and the prefrontal cortex is remodeled last. Reminder: the prefrontal cortex is in the frontal lobe and is responsible for decision-making, planning, problem solving, thinking about consequences, and controlling impulses. This might not be complete until the mid-20s—possibly 30s.

Okay, and I’m going to go back to sharing my slideshow. Hope you enjoyed my super awesome drawing.

This is another image of development of all those synapses. As you can see, when a baby is still in utero, it’s similar to the newborn look. They’re born with all those synapses and neurons already. At three months it gets busier, six months even busier, and at two years it’s very, very busy. Imagine if you kept going—by adulthood we’d be looking at blackness, and it wouldn’t function very well. It wouldn’t be quick at processing information and events. So pruning starts at age two, and by four and six years you can see things thinning out, which we want.

So, summary: the teenage brain is under construction. It undergoes pruning—which starts around age two and really ramps up in adolescence—and remodeling, which lasts into adulthood, with the prefrontal cortex being last.

Let’s talk about teens versus adults, because it’s a really important distinction. Adults have a developed prefrontal cortex, and they’re thinking with their prefrontal cortex, which is the brain’s rational part. It responds to situations with good judgment and awareness of long-term consequences.

Because the prefrontal cortex is still developing, teens rely more on the amygdala. They use the amygdala to make decisions and solve problems, but this is an emotional part of the brain, associated with impulses, aggressiveness, and instinctive behavior. The amygdala is also the hub for strong emotions, including anger and fear. If you’re familiar with anxiety and our survival response, the amygdala is the hub for fight/flight/freeze, and it can kick in quickly and automatically.

In the teenage brain, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing, and not always at the same rate. The emotional part might come online before the decision-making part is caught up.

That’s why teens often have overwhelming emotional input, and they can’t explain what they were thinking later. You might ask, “What were you thinking?” and your teenager might honestly say, “I don’t know,” because they actually felt more than they thought. They might not even totally remember everything that happened because they were feeling it versus thinking it.

Parents: you might notice that sometimes your teen’s thinking and behavior seems quite mature, and other times it seems illogical, impulsive, or emotional. Teens: you might notice sometimes you say things or do things without thinking first. It’s that back-to-front development of the brain that explains that.

Other things to note: there’s a correlation between the brain’s reward centers and riskier behaviors. Reward centers have a lot of sway over decision-making and behavior. Heightened reward sensitivity may prime teens to take more risks, but it also motivates them to get out in the world and learn new skills they need to become successful adults. That’s important. A lot of times, the thrill is the reward.

The amygdala is also responsible for learning through rewards and punishment. If you think about the amygdala and the fear response, punishment might not be the way to go, because it can elicit fear and fight/flight/freeze—then you get avoidance instead of understanding.

Teens are also really sensitive to social and emotional information. The amygdala is responsible for social communication and understanding, including how you interpret someone’s intentions. Keep in mind: feelings are mixed in, and social cues are interpreted by feeling versus thinking.

The amygdala also handles implicit or unconscious memory—like riding a bike, tying shoes. Again, when the amygdala is kicking in, learned behaviors can get disrupted.

Stress also has an impact on the teenage brain. Society sometimes thinks teens have it easy these days, and in some ways they do—they have information at their fingertips and access to things other generations didn’t. But there are many more stressors now that other generations didn’t have to deal with: different standards for things like clothing, social media engagement, being exposed to news constantly. These contribute to stress that many parents didn’t experience in the same way.

I’m going to bring up a video clip. If you’re not familiar with Dan Siegel, he is an amazing author who writes about the brain. He’s very well known in his field. If you’ve never read any of his books, they’re a great starting point. He has one called The Whole-Brain Child, which focuses on younger kids, and another book called Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. Highly recommend both if you’re a book reader.

I’m going to stop sharing and share in another way.

Adolescent period is absolutely amazing. People often give it a negative approach, saying, “Oh, it’s a time where adolescents are going to lose their mind,” or “They’re just immature,” or “Raging hormones drive them crazy.” These are not only wrong—they’re myths that mislead us and actually disempower us, whether we’re adults or adolescents. They give us the wrong message and make it so there’s nothing we can do.

So what is actually the truth? The truth is that instead of raging hormones, what’s happening is remodeling in the brain in ways we never could have predicted. We now understand two big things are happening in the brain—things you as an adult can support adolescents in developing well. If you’re an adolescent, you can use this to help your brain grow in an optimal way.

What are those two things? The brain is pruning itself. Imagine that in childhood you’re growing like a tree and establishing all these branches and all these leaves. In the brain, that means connections among the basic cell, the neuron, called synapses, are being established. You’re soaking in the knowledge of the world, and that’s beautiful. The tree is just growing, growing, growing.

But then what happens that surprised everyone is the brain begins to prune itself. You start carving away some of those leaves, some of the smaller branches, even some of the larger branches. The reason for pruning is to specialize the brain. While the child is developing in a generalized way—learning everything they can—an adolescent begins to find their passion: things they like, things they love doing, and to drive their development in that way.

Pruning is actually a “use it or lose it” principle. If you don’t use something, you’re going to lose it. So if you like sports, or dancing, or music—do those things, so you continue to establish those circuits.

The second thing that happens in the remodeling adolescent brain is myelin formation. Myelin is a healthy sheath that allows connected neurons to communicate with each other in a much more effective way. The signal is sent down a neuron and can communicate with another neuron much faster. When you’ve put down myelin, you’ve made your neurons communicate dramatically more effectively. That’s a great thing.

The great thing, too, is that you as an adolescent can use the focus of your attention: be aware of your emotions, be aware of other people, be engaging in activities, be doing things with your thoughts that reinforce the parts of your brain you want to hold on to. The good news about the remodeling story is that neuroplasticity—how the brain responds to experience—shows us that what you do with your mind can change the activity and therefore the structure of your brain.

If you come up with the statement that the ultimate goal of brain remodeling is to make an integrated brain—to differentiate areas (that’s pruning) and myelinate them (that’s linkage)—when you increase differentiation and linkage, you make the brain more integrated. An integrated brain is the pathway toward well-being.

You can do mindsight exercises—exercises that increase insight, empathy, and integration. If you do them as an adolescent—and you can also do them as an adult—you will increase integration of your brain as your brain is growing, not just during adolescence but throughout the lifespan.

What’s the outcome of integration? When integration is made visible, it’s kindness and compassion. What we see through adolescent development is that our relationships become built on connections that are deep and filled with honoring each other’s vulnerability—that’s kindness—and supporting connections that are compassion-filled, with a sense of caring about other people and wanting to help them. This is the kind of world we can build as we move through life and support each other in our [Music] development.

Yeah—Dan Siegel: great researcher and author on brain development. If you’ve never checked out his work, he has TED Talks, lots of resources.

I’m going to move into practical things to try: how to build a healthy teenage brain. We need three areas covered: encourage positive behavior, promote good thinking skills, and help your teen get plenty of sleep. I’m going to break each of these down and hopefully give you things to try.

Encouraging positive behavior:

Encourage healthy risks. Teens are going to take risks—we might as well provide healthy ones. Healthy risks are anything that brings excitement: roller coasters, sports, trying new activities, trying new things, going new places. Encourage positive behavior by helping your teen take healthy risks.

Explore new and creative outlets for expression of feelings. A lot of teens find it helpful to have an outlet because feelings can be big, overwhelming, and strong, and they don’t know what to do with them. Sports, music, art—any of those can be an outlet.

Offer praise and positive rewards. A lot of times parents are like, “My kid doesn’t want anything to do with me as a teenager,” but I promise you—they really do. Praise and positive rewards don’t have to be big; even “good job,” or celebrating minor accomplishments can go a long way. Going back to rewards versus punishment: you might not get far with punishment and consequences with teens because it can activate that fear response.

Be a positive role model yourselves. They’re going to learn from you. Whatever you don’t want your child doing, don’t do yourself.

Give reminders of resilience and competence. Teens are so focused on the moment that they can have trouble seeing they can play a part in changing bad situations. It can help to remind them of times in the past that they thought would be devastating but turned out okay—or even turned out to be the best. If your teen is having conflict with a friend, remind them of times in the past that has happened and how they resolved it.

Promoting good thinking:

Parents, don’t shy away from hard topics. Talk about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I know it can be hard, but if you don’t, they’ll get information somewhere else—often from peers who are going through the same teenage brain stuff.

Keep in mind that teens need to speak their mind in order to process information. Your teen might say or think about things differently than you, and it might seem like they’re arguing, but a lot of it can be about asserting independence and processing information—not defiance.

If you find these conversations hard, do something while you talk: take your kid for a drive, go for a walk, make tea. A lot of teens don’t like making eye contact, so this can help.

Sometimes making a joke to take the edge off can help: “So… sex. What is that about?” Even saying out loud that you’re uncomfortable talking about it can help: “I don’t know if I have all the answers, but let’s talk. This is awkward for me too.” It gets easier.

I also like games—coming from a play therapy point of view. Games like “Would you rather?” or “What would you do if…?” get kids thinking and talking about options and choices. This can help develop decision-making and problem-solving skills. Provide your own explanation to get the conversation moving.

Example: “What would you do if you were at a party and saw someone spiking someone else’s drink?” Get your teen to think it through. Follow-up questions: “Would you confront the person? What if you didn’t know either person—would that matter?”

For “Would you rather?” you can pull hundreds online or come up with your own. My favorite: Would you rather not be able to bend your elbows, or not be able to bend your knees? A lot of people say they’d rather not bend their knees so they could keep walking. I’m the opposite: if I couldn’t bend my elbows, I couldn’t feed myself, wash myself, or use the toilet by myself. I could handle walking straight-legged, but I could not handle someone doing all those things for me. Give your explanation to your kids as you ask these questions—hearing someone else’s reasoning can be eye-opening. It can be a fun dinner table conversation, or even a holiday conversation with lots of different answers.

Rewinding: I love this concept, and I love giving it to parents and teenagers. It can be really helpful. Think about rewinding a show: you miss something, you rewind, and you start from a better point. That’s exactly this concept—rewind to a better point in the conversation and restart from there.

In moments when your teen says something without thinking or filtering, cue them to rewind and give a do-over. Teens, you can do this too. You might have a moment where you realize you said something without thinking, and you feel bad about it—say, “Let me rewind that,” and give yourself a chance to go back to a better point.

It catches us in not-so-good thinking moments and gives us a chance to do good thinking in that exact moment. Try that tool—it’s really great. Parents, you can use it, and teens can also use it. I always say: as parents, we also say and do things in the heat of the moment. Sometimes we also can get a do-over.

Promoting good sleep: Sleep is really important to all of us, but it’s especially important to teenagers.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends children 6 to 12 get 9 to 12 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, and teenagers 13 to 18 get 8 to 10 hours a night. Teens: think about whether you’re getting that on average.

Teens can also go through a period where they sleep even more—closer to 12 to 13 hours a night. This is a normal phase and marks jumps in pruning and remodeling. There’s no set time for it, but you might notice your teen can sleep until 1:00 p.m. That can be part of this phase. It doesn’t last forever.

Research shows electronics of all kinds should be turned off an hour before sleep—for children, teens, and adults. Devices emit blue light that tricks the brain into thinking it should be awake and ready. The dynamic social exchanges on social media can also make it harder to fall asleep even after devices are turned off, because teens lie there thinking about what happened, who said what, and what they could have said.

An interesting research statistic: adolescents who spend the most time on social media have twice the risk of disturbed sleep than those who spend less.

We also need to be aware of our circadian rhythm. Not getting up in the morning: is it human biology or attitude? For teens, it’s human biology. A teen’s inability to get out of bed before 8:00 a.m. is often a matter of biology. Sleep patterns of a teenage brain are different from younger children and adults. As a teenage body goes through puberty, its rhythm shifts about three hours backwards.

Due to biology, secretion of melatonin begins around 10:45 p.m. and continues to be pumped out until about 8:00 a.m. As adults, melatonin production stops way before that, so we can get up. For teens, it’s still in their system at 8:00 a.m. Essentially, teen sleep mechanisms don’t allow the brain to naturally wake before about 8:00 a.m., and the adolescent body doesn’t begin to feel sleepy until around 10:45 p.m.

Let’s talk about why sleep is important: sleep deprivation for teens is considered less than eight hours a night. Sleep deprivation impacts use of cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol. Incidence of depression and anxiety rises with less sleep. It can increase emotional reactivity and impulsiveness, and feelings of sadness and hopelessness increase as well. An interesting statistic: feelings of sadness and hopelessness increase from 19% up to nearly 52% in teens who sleep less than four hours a night.

Sleep also impacts teen car crashes. Teen car crashes are a leading cause of death for teenagers, and risk declines significantly when teens obtain more than eight hours of sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation diminishes the brain’s ability to learn new information and can lead to emotional issues like depression and aggression. Less sleep has also been linked to lower academic achievement. The amount of sleep, quality of sleep, and consistency of nightly sleep all affect brain functioning in regions crucial for self-control, learning, emotional reactivity, and reward processing.

Please encourage sleep—not only in your teens, but in yourselves as well.

A few other things to note: stay connected with your teen. Teens can shut parents out, but try to stay connected. Keep an eye on activities and friends. Go to games and practices. Have your teen’s friends over. Offer pizza. Those things help you stay connected.

Keep asking questions. You might get shut out sometimes, but still ask. Throw in “Would you rather?” questions—they can be fun and catch them off guard.

Learn about your teen’s interests, and encourage them. I know it can be hard when your teen has an interest you don’t, but even knowing a little helps. I work with a lot of kids who like Pokémon. I do not understand Pokémon—it’s confusing, and it’s not something I can fully learn—but I still take the time to ask, “What’s your best card?” It doesn’t have to be major. You don’t have to become interested in it yourself. You can also encourage interests practically: offer them a ride somewhere they can explore that interest.

Encourage empathy. Talk about feelings—yours, your teen’s, other people’s. Teens pick up a lot from what they watch and experience. If you’re out somewhere and something happens—maybe someone is emotional—it can help to talk about it: “That was uncomfortable for me. How did you feel about that?”

Finally: ask your teen if they need help problem-solving, or if they just need you to listen. This is really important. Parents want to solve their kids’ problems, but teens often need a place to talk and get things out. Sometimes they need help problem-solving, but they usually need to talk first. Often, as they talk, they work it out for themselves. So if your teen comes to you with a problem, ask: “Are we problem-solving this together, or do you just need me to listen?” Teens will tell you what they need if you ask.

And this is just my reference list. I’m going to stop sharing. I hope you all got something out of that and got a few ideas. I hope you enjoyed the teenage years. I’m going to be honest: I love working with teenagers. They are so amazing, and I’ve met so many amazing teenagers on my journey through life. They are inspiring.

That was amazing, Cynthia, so thank you. You did make it feel like an adventure.

It is. It’s a great adventure. It’s funny— as parents, you do get anxious feelings about going into the teenage years, and then you have this experience, and I hope every parent experiences this eventually—that moment where it’s like, “Oh my God, that is so cool that my teen thought of that.” I hope every parent experiences that, because it really is amazing when you first realize just how amazing that teenage brain is. [Music]