“Pick up your room or you’ll be grounded! But Mom…!”
New research on the teen and pre-teen brain shows not only do kids react negatively to Mom’s nagging, but parts of kid’s brains actually shut down when she begins her familiar litany.
Teen-parent relations can be a tricky business. And parents as well as kids easily fall into ruts in how they deal with each other. Now neuroscientists from several leading US universities think they’ve found some new brain evidence that helps verifies what kids and Moms all know. Here’s the main take-away: when listening to Moms’ criticism, and for a period afterwards, the teens’ brains showed more activity in areas involved in negative emotions (no surprise there) but they actually showed reduced activity in regions involved in emotional control and in understanding and taking other people’s point of view. Kids seemingly become defensive and then just shut Mom out. Scientist are still on the track of why. However, in the long run there might be a benefit to these behaviors, because we all know it’s not smart to mess with Mother Nature.
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