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It is called “Developmental Neurocircuitry of Motivation
in Adolescence: A Critical Period of Addiction Vulnerability.” Now
there is a title only a psychiatrist could love.
If you can wade through the shrink-speak, though, this
study by the Yale School of Medicine, published in the “American
Journal of Psychiatry” (where else), is fairly instructive. Like a
lot of studies it falls under the general heading of “Things We
Already Knew,” but in America nothing is true until a study says so,
so it’s worth a look.
According to the report, part of the brain circuitry
that goes into overdrive during adolescence causes teenagers to seek
new experiences. Unfortunately this develops well before the grey
matter that houses judgment, impulse control, and the other
psychological niceties that keep curiosity from becoming a fatal
condition.
I have observed this phenomenon in the two-teen
experiment I call my family. After witnessing one inexplicable
stunt or another, I have been known to mutter something to the
effect of “The kid’s brain must not have gelled yet.” Now I have
the science to back me up.
According to the researchers this condition leads to all
sorts of risk taking, such as the use of illegal drugs. Social
conditioning and culture are factors as well, but study director
Andrew Chambers notes “Several lines of evidence suggest that
socio-cultural aspects particular to adolescent life alone do not
fully account for greater drug intake … Normally these processes
cause adolescents to be more driven than children or adults to have
new experiences. But these conditions also reflect a less mature
neurological system of inhibition, which leads to impulsive actions
and risky behavior, including experimentation and abuse of addictive
drugs.”
Fortunately most kids outgrow thrill seeking somewhere
this side of the morgue, but not all. For others it results in
entrenched habits and addictions that are hard to shake later in
life. The Yale report notes “The median reported age of initiation
of illicit drug use in adults with substance use disorders is 16
years, with 50 percent of cases beginning between ages 15 and 18 and
rare initiation after age 20.” Further, over 40 percent of adult
alcoholics “experience alcoholism-related symptoms between ages 15
and 19.” Smokers too generally start in their teens.
Yale’s findings are important not so much because they
verify a fact of life most of us understand intuitively, but because
such research can lead to changes in the ways problems are
approached. Aside from my fear some may see this as a job for
government, knowledge is good and the problem is serious enough to
be worth a second look.
I suggest we start by considering why we are wired this
way in the first place. Perhaps someone can drum up an evolutionary
advantage for a trait that tends to wipe people out just as they’re
ready to enter the gene pool, but it eludes me. And it doesn’t
start with teens; parents see something similar to what Yale
describes about the time children hit age one. Most tots take their
first steps around then, and proceed to get underfoot, wander into
hazards, pull objects onto their heads, and trip headlong over
anything bigger than a pencil.
Like the disconnect between the ability to take those
first steps and the good sense to know where to walk, Yale’s
research demonstrates we are created to be parented. Teens may not
have all the tools to manage their impulses, but, ideally, the
unique relationship between human adults and their offspring fills
the gap with guidance, and if necessary, control.
This isn’t always easy. However it is the way it is and
how it is done defines a parent’s job – and their children’s lives. |
