As your child transitions from being a pre-teen to an adolescent, changes in her behaviour can make you anxious and worried. Adolescents differ from adults in the way they behave, solve problems, and make decisions. Stuart Goldman, MD, director of psychiatric education at Children's Hospital in Boston says, "Adolescence is a time of rapid change for kids both physically and cognitively.” You need to understand how different your teenager’s brain is compared to that of an adult to understand why she is making those decisions and choices.

As per research by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, human brains continue to mature and develop throughout childhood and adolescence and well into early adulthood. Based on the stage of their brain development, adolescents are more likely to act on impulse, misread or misinterpret social cues and emotions, get into accidents of all kinds, get involved in fights, and engage in dangerous or risky behaviour. They feel a great need for independence, personal space, self-identity, and peer acceptance. They also have a tendency to develop romantic relationships.

So, before reacting to any of your teenager’s unusual behaviour, you should understand that it is the changing brain structure that is causing those seemingly strange psychological and emotional changes.

To know more about the mystery behind the teen brain, please flip through the ClipBook by Arundhati Swamy.

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