Thursday, August 14, 2014

Understanding Teen Anxiety


While the beginning of the school year can be energizing for adolescents, we also know that it can produce some stress, in some cases even anxiety, beyond what may be considered typical.  Linked here is an article from The New York Times entitled, “Why Teenagers Act Crazy” by Richard Friedman, a professor of clinical psychiatry and the director of the psychopharmacology clinic at the Weill Cornell Medical College.  In this article, Friedman explains that during adolescence, children experience an increase “in anxiety and fearfulness.”  As Friedman says, “Different regions and circuits of the brain mature at very different rates. It turns out that the brain circuit for processing fear — the amygdala — is precocious and develops way ahead of the prefrontal cortex, the seat of reasoning and executive control. This means that adolescents have a brain that is wired with an enhanced capacity for fear and anxiety, but is relatively underdeveloped when it comes to calm reasoning.”  According to Friedman, this period of brain development can also explain why teens are such risk takers and susceptible to “...injury and trauma. The top three killers of teenagers are accidents, homicide and suicide.”
Although extreme cases of anxiety may be rare, it could help us as parents, guardians, and educators to be aware of the potential increase in anxiety for all of our children as they go through adolescence. Knowing this may help explain, while not necessarily excuse, their behavior and will allow us adults to have some perspective when our teens act out.  As Friedman says at the end of the article, “Adolescents are not just carefree novelty seekers and risk takers; they are uniquely vulnerable to anxiety and have a hard time learning to be unafraid of passing dangers. Parents have to realize that adolescent anxiety is to be expected, and to comfort their teenagers — and themselves — by reminding them that they will grow up and out of it soon enough.”