Raising a teen is incredibly tough; it doesn't come as a surprise that often parents and teenagers are standing on opposite sides of a corner during discussions.
What most parents don't know, however, that teen reactions such as showing negative emotions are not by their own volition. Rather, their brain tends to shut down when they are exposed to parental criticisms and nagging.
In a recent study, researchers have discovered that certain sections of the brain tend to become less significantly active when teens start to hear complaints, nags, and other forms of negative comments and reactions from their parents.
The neuroscientists of different universities, namely, Harvard Pittsburgh, and California-Berkeley, studied 32 teenagers whose average age was 14 years old. About 22 of them were girls while the rest were boys.
The teens then listened to audio recordings of their respective mother's criticizing or angry voice. Using a brain scanner, the neuroscientists then measured and analysed brain activity while these teens listened.
Even though the teens may appear normal, many changes are already happening in the brain. The section that governs cognition control and social cognition tends to slow down while the affective region becomes more active.
This simply means that teens are compelled to show some reaction when they are criticized since their sense of control to such an emotion is significantly diminished. Moreover, because the social cognition function is decreased, the teens cannot also easily understand the other person's reasoning.
Does this mean that parents should stop scolding their children? The answer is no. However, the researchers hope that through this research, parents may be more encouraged to improve the way they deliver their feedback to their growing children.
Nevertheless, one neuroscientist slash writer Christian Jarrett of Wired has a different opinion in which the shutting down may be more of a protective mechanism to avoid worsening the conflict.
