Mental Health

Transcript of PBS Frontline: “Inside the Teenage Brain”

Start:
five four three two one i think the problem parents have is once
0:44
their kid becomes a teenager for a brief period of time as though they've been invaded
by another body
0:49
they need to learn how to relate to being a kid i think they forgot we now know that
there's a lot of
0:55
dynamic activity in many ways
1:00
[Music]
1:10
those thousand connections that are used will survive and flourish those cells and
connections that are not
1:15
humans with all of the things that teenagers have available to them
1:21
their sleep has been shoved into an ever narrowing
1:33
[Music] tonight frontline takes you inside
1:39
the teenage frame
2:01
the sun is up and inside the o'donnell's house they are trying to get charlie up
2:18
and then charlie senior chelsea
2:25
[Music]
2:34
by the time he gets up in the morning to the time he warps out the door is uh a matter of
like 11 minutes
2:41
maximum so he's a procrastinator
2:47
they happen to live in east providence for that but parents everywhere will recognize the
look
2:53
and the pacing it's a school day and there's a teenager to get out of bed
2:58
we have to remind him to be here get your books take your backpack have your key for
the house
3:04
um it's a normal routine type of thing to study how do you study man
3:16
practice
3:24
yeah i'm sorry about that oh he's a very friendly person he's very outgoing
3:29
he's very well liked outside the house it's almost like a different kid than me is at home
3:34
because they don't get the attitude that we get good morning
4:03
pam and i are trying to make sure that charlie does well in high school so that he
doesn't unknowingly close some doors on himself
4:10
for future opportunities
4:21
[Music]
4:27
can i have another drink orange juice if parents often wonder what is going on inside the
teenage
4:33
brain tonight some answers perhaps more than most parents expect
4:41
here at the university of minnesota this 2 million machine is revealing the secrets of
4:46
another 15 year old boy to his father
4:56
while colin nelson lies calmly a scanning machine magnetic resonance imager will open
a
5:01
window into his brain the details are there but what does this
5:06
picture mean about mood learning memory so it hasn't been at the campus how come
he doesn't
5:12
remember to take out the garbage in the morning i know he's awake the first time he
5:19
scanned him when he was about nine with all that noise he fell asleep
5:27
charles nelson is a neuroscientist and child psychologist at the university of minnesota
teenagers
5:33
have particularly when they're first becoming teenagers have every reason to believe
and to feel
5:39
that no one understands them that they themselves are sometimes surprised at what
flies out of their mouth
5:45
and a personal example is when my son was 12 he one day just blurted something out
and then grinned
5:55
his father is trying to answer this question slowly a picture is emerging of the brain of a
6:01
boy not yet an adult not quite a child we can correlate it with real life and if
6:07
we show activation in the campus the question would be why is it that in this particular
case of calm why he
6:13
doesn't remember to bring his books on from school i think the problem parents have to
say
6:18
no matter how well they think they know their kid once their kid becomes a teenager for
a brief period of time it's as
6:24
though they've been invaded by another body or another brain and suddenly they don't
6:29
quite know that kid anymore and they get thrown off balance we've bending it's a give-
and-take
6:35
situation well they still like they're only about like that
6:41
they still got like that much more to go it takes a lot to let go
6:59
to the best of our ability you may think that the pattern on your ground cooler um oh
7:08
that's what works for us we feel good you're not a kid you don't have to abide by your
rules
7:14
you have to abide by his rules
7:32
in an artist's studio in cincinnati jim borgman is capturing the flashpoints of life
7:37
with teens a pulitzer prize winner boardman developed the popular zits cartoon with
7:43
artist jerry scott now syndicated in 900 newspapers jeremy
7:48
and his comic strip family are familiar to parents everywhere
7:54
90 of the letters we get fall into one wonderful category which are you must
8:01
have a camera in our house or you know this is my son exactly i can't believe it how are
you doing this
8:08
jeremy is 15 years old he can't drive he's still stuck within the orbit of his parents
8:14
rules and uh they are still a much bigger factor in his life than he would like
8:20
and so there's that moment before he can get out of the house and drive off on his own
when there is the maximum
8:28
tension in the house many parents are thrown for a loop when their kids
8:33
get to be an adolescent in some respects and what i think they need to do is recognize
that this is
8:38
just another phase of child development and even though their children may be
shouting more talking back more and
8:44
kicking and and throwing temper tantrums it's just a temper tantrum and a five foot tall
body instead of an
8:51
18 inch long body and nelson knows he's an expert on
8:57
little babies this one natalyani can already recognize her mother's voice and she's just a
week
9:04
old by measuring small brain waves researchers at nelson's lab at the
9:09
university of minnesota can show how babies are learning quickly taking in
9:14
data from the vivid world around them that period of dramatic growth in natalie's brain
will happen once again
9:22
just before she becomes a teenager i think the transition into purity is
9:28
analogous to the transition to being a baby in many respects that a child suddenly is
undergoing
9:34
fairly substantial changes in their brain development at a very very rapid pace and that
period of time often
9:40
that lasts only a year or two is a time when we really need to pay very close attention to
what's happening to our
9:46
kids but paying attention to a teenager
9:51
brings a different set of challenges we have rules that you have to follow while you're in
the house did you
9:56
like it or not did you like your family rules probably not you don't remember it probably
10:03
i still have a good relationship with my father yeah but did you like his rules
10:10
i would assume he had rules that i didn't care for but uh while i was living in the house i
10:16
had to abide by bye rules and i feel you know did you want to move on today as soon as
possible
10:22
because it goes no
10:43
15 years old a teenager with wheels that are too small with ambitions to drive to fly in a
10:51
larger world [Music]
10:58
late at night dr j.d heads to work he too is grappling with a teenage world
11:05
trying to untangle the workings and wirings of the adolescent brain
11:10
this doctor is crossing over a new threshold to a fresh understanding of adolescence
11:17
i think people for generations have been fascinated by teen behavior and what's
happening in
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teens but for so long to actually look inside the biology of teen behavior
11:28
has been very elusive and we just haven't had the technology the tools
11:34
to try to appear into the so-called black box but now he does dr ghee to the national
11:41
institute of mental health gets the use of this imaging machine one night a week to look
at the brain structure of normal
11:48
children teens come in and sometimes even sleep in this large magnet so we can take a
long hard look inside
11:55
their brains now for the first time in our human history we can actually start exploring
12:02
the living growing activity of the human brain five four three
12:16
[Music] an area called the frontal cortex was an
12:21
unexpected growth spurt an overproduction of cells just before puberty
12:27
this is a process that we knew happened in the womb maybe even the first 18 months
of life
12:34
but it was only when we started following the same children by standing their brains at
two year intervals that we detected a second wave
12:41
of reproduction and this second way more production is manifest by an actual
thickening
12:48
in the gray matter or the thinking part in the front parts of the brain many people did
mistakenly believe that
12:55
most of the changes occurred in the first few years of life and that after a child was
about three it was actually relatively little change
13:02
occurring and we know that that's absolutely incorrect i think the most surprising
13:07
thing has been how much the teen brain is changing by age six the brain is already 95 of
13:13
its adult size but the gray matter or thinking part of the brain
13:19
continues to thicken throughout childhood as the brain cells grow extra connections
13:24
much like a tree growing extra branches twigs and roots it's like this the brain grows like
a
13:32
tree first there is a flurry of growth then unused branches or pathways are pruned
13:39
and it is this pruning that gives the tree its shape for the future
13:49
[Music]
14:01
the skills he's acquiring will strengthen certain neural pathways what he practices will
combine with his
14:08
own genetic heritage to consolidate the wiring in certain parts of his brain
14:14
and not others [Music]
14:23
perhaps even more interesting because a leading hypothesis for that is to use it or lose
a principle those
14:30
cells and connections that are used will survive and flourish those cells and connections
that are not used will
14:36
wither and die so if the team is doing music or sports or academics
14:42
those are the cells and connections that will be hardwired if they're lying on the couch or
playing
14:50
video games or mtv those are the styles and connections that are going to survive
14:56
it is not only what a teenager does that matters but how old he is and what the
immature brain is capable
15:02
of doing some areas coordinate and oversee others and it is those parts of the brain
that
15:08
have long interested neuroscientists we've known for a long time that what we actually
call the pre-frontal cortex
15:15
the part that sits behind your forehead is involved in planning behavior your use of
strategies a technical term
15:21
we call cognitive flexibility which is can you change your mind you have sort of a fluid
way of going about solving
15:27
problems part of the brain that is the so-called ceo or the executive degree is still being
built during the
15:33
teenage years teens are capable of enormous intellectual and artistic accomplishments
but that
15:41
basic part of the brain that gives us strategies and organizing and perhaps
15:47
warns of potential consequences isn't fully on board yet the risks of a severe
concussion or a
15:53
turned ankle for instance an adult brain might call for an easier or suggest this is not
15:59
quite the moment to take a drag but when you're very good very determined and very
young it's easy
16:10
[Music]
16:17
it's not that much for me if i fall because i'm kind of used to it
16:24
[Music]
16:30
well not that risky would be one way to put it
16:46
adolescence has always been a period of high risk we know that teenagers engage in
risky
16:52
behavior and they have always engaged university behavior there's nothing new about
that now and because the child 13 or 14 and 15
17:00
year old still has an immature carnal cortex they often do not make the most
responsible reason decisions
17:06
and by virtue of having things available that can do harm they often wind up in a higher
risk
17:12
group than i experience as a child myself
17:20
the prevalence of drugs for instance here at a rave party ecstasy and other drugs similar
17:33
to never says
17:47
it's also a particular cool irony of nature i think that right at this time when the brain is
most vulnerable
17:53
is also a time when teens are most likely to experiment with drugs or alcohol if they're
doing drugs or alcohol
18:00
evening it may not just be affecting their brains for at night or even for that weekend
18:05
for the next 80 years of their life
18:13
sullenness boredom one word answers the misery you know it always looks a
18:19
lot more humorous to us in retrospect
18:28
at the old carousel in riverside rhode island britney house nether and her friendly crawl
18:33
ride around just as they did when they were kids but now the thrills are elsewhere
18:41
so what happened last night did you guys think you can't say anything no why not
because
18:48
why i don't know how why not i don't know okay how could you want to
19:06
we just walk around that's all we ever do is like walk around or like you really can do
anything you go to the
19:12
beach sometimes sometimes you put a little more sometimes you go to the movies for
pretty much all you do is sit around and just say talk go in the pool or
19:22
whatever brittany can change from fed-up teen to focused artist very quickly she's a
good student with
19:30
many talents and a lot of support from the teen expert in her house her mother beverly
19:38
they're trying to make the best way they can they're trying to put the pieces together the
best way they know how
19:44
and on top of it all they've gone through this this time on thing and peer pressure and all
this other stuff
19:50
feb is sympathetic to the ups and downs of teenage life she is easy about britain's
swings and
19:56
mood able to tolerate a lot of teenage acts
20:01
aggravated last few days
20:11
a very open and comfortable person with females um rather than being intimidated
20:18
by brittany is not going to be intimidated by her brother friend
20:25
you're all right you're not going to deny it with me too so why aren't you mad at that
that's why
20:30
i get mad at leo i don't get mad at you because lee always sits in your room with you
and follows you guys and talks to you guys
20:36
i don't get mad at you i get mad at leo so why are you mad at me get mad at your
friends tell your friends
20:46
i i [Music]
20:55
[Applause] [Music]
21:13
let's go
21:20
[Music] she knows it could all pass in a moment
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we think that the dramatic changes in mood for example a child having an outburst of
one moment and then being
21:38
very calm and happy the next is due in part to changes in hormones because we know
that
21:43
as a child enters puberty these changes in mood are much more dramatic and as a year
or two after puberty is begun
21:50
things level down a little bit but we think the ultimate responsibility for regulating these
mood changes
21:56
resides in the frontal cortex and that's what's overseeing this whole operation [Music]
22:03
jim boardman a parent himself recalls his own teenage mood swings with great clarity
22:09
uh remembering those years and how they felt and how insecure we were and how
22:16
vulnerable we felt and the sadness and the loneliness and the
22:21
confusion and the isolation the strip is intended to be funny and i hope it is
22:28
but there has to always be that underlying layer of um you know the sudden touch you
have
22:35
as a teenager with the deep well of human experience
22:58
nicole ellis often feels vulnerable but today the picture she's trying to portray is
23:04
of the self-assured people the one who is running for student council at a toronto high
school
23:09
i've been attending the school for the past years and noticed the lack of interest taken to
make this one more exciting
23:15
that's why i'm running for social convenience one of the things i'd like to bring back to is
our school dance
23:20
today the students will give her a vote in contests
23:26
thank you but for a teenager confidence is
23:32
something touch that tell him one hour i could be really
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happy laughing the next arm is really really upset there could be one whole day i'm fine
23:44
and two days later i'm just mickey lives made her mother and two
23:50
brothers her mother gail knows the turbulence of the teenage years
23:56
i know her moves i know when somebody's bothering her i know when she
24:02
feels she doesn't want to talk and i know when it is the time to just leave her alone and i
also know he needs the
24:07
time to find out and find out what's brought in her asap and so i have to feed her out
24:16
sometimes i just don't feel like talking she knows she knows that's something angry
inside
24:24
confused what that's what she wants i don't even know she doesn't know what she is
24:36
the recent work on brain development in my mind enormously helps explain things that
24:42
we've known for some time in child development so people who studied adolescence
for many years
24:47
have pointed to these changes in behavior that we've been describing these changes in
mood and fluctuations in the wood and
24:54
the like without quite being able to pinpoint what was responsible for those changes
and now i think we have a much better
25:00
handle on that and i think my argument would be that it's the changes going on in the
federal
25:05
cortex that gradually give the child the ability to regulate those powerful emotions solve
problems more effectively to be
25:12
more plantable in their behavior so what's really new here is our ability to explain the
child
25:17
development work that we've known about quite some time
25:28
[Music]
25:40
i find that the quickest way to get shut out is to ask questions about things
25:46
that you're not welcome to know or to share so for me as a parent it has always been
more
25:52
a matter of waiting for the oyster to open and being present when it does
26:00
dr deborah jurgen todd and her associate stacy hoover are scanning the brains of
teenagers to
26:06
see how they read emotion a small but intriguing study at mclean hospital near boston
26:12
is mapping differences between the brains of adults and teens i came
26:18
to this research with the assumption that the teenager is going to look a lot
26:23
like an adult in fact i assumed that 13 year old brain would respond
26:29
quite similarly to the adult brain in terms of the kinds of tasks that we were asking them
to do
26:34
when they were in the magnet to explore this todd put teenage and
26:40
adult volunteers through an mri and monitored how their brains responded to a series of
pictures
26:47
here we go ready ready
26:53
the volunteers were asked to discern the emotion of these faces the results were
surprising
27:03
one of the interesting things about the findings are that they suggest that the teenagers
27:08
are not able to correctly read all the feelings in the adult face all the adults identify this
27:15
emotion as fear but the teenagers invariably saw something different
27:22
patrick how you doing tell me about those faces what were those faces feeling
27:28
a lot of them are shocked are angry and i
27:35
think i was uh okay shocked and angry yeah okay thank you they see
27:42
uh anger when there isn't anger or sadness when there isn't sadness and if that's the
case then clearly
27:49
their own behavior is not going to match that of the adult so you'll see a
miscommunication
27:55
both in terms of what they think the adult is feeling but also and then what the response
28:00
should be to that the reason for this she believes is that teenagers use a different part
of the
28:06
brain to assess the emotion on people's faces this is a really a nice picture
28:12
highlighting the fact that in an adolescent brain the relative activation of the
28:18
prefrontal region or this interior front part of the brain is less than it is in the adults
28:24
but in contrast to that the more emotional region or that gut response region has more
activation
28:31
compared to the adult so the relationship between these two regions is very different
and we think
28:37
that that's been a very important finding in terms of understanding adolescent
28:43
at behavior ellis's high school students often feel that they are the ones who are
misunderstood
28:49
not the other way around with some exceptions when you're looking on the border and
28:55
you see you essential how did your family factor into your life i would like a picture of
you
29:01
[Music] i don't want a mug shot i want a picture
29:06
patrick knight is a popular teacher often acting as a bridge between the students and
adults
29:14
we ask knight to gather a group of his students to find out what's on their minds
29:20
what's the stairs that spits on teenager's shoulders that no matter what they're doing
29:26
they're always causing trouble everything they do will end up causing trouble in some
way
29:31
yeah just that raw alliance is it yeah i think like
29:53
didn't have unknown bananas and nothing and they're just oh look at them i don't know
why teams love to watch treated my dad thinks that
30:01
i drink and i cause trouble and he thinks i'm always looking for ruckus and stuff that's
not true the funniest thing
30:07
though is just like they think that we're dumb and that we're whatever and then some of
these people that have that
30:13
attitude and they've even said stuff to me and some people they're the biggest
hypocrites i've ever seen i was
30:20
just like okay like be quiet you know like look at yourself and then fix yourself up before
you judge me the
30:26
teenager is not going to take the information that is in the outside world and organize it
and understand it the
30:34
same way we do i'll just be sitting at home watching tv and my mom's saying did you do
that for
30:39
me i forgot sorry you didn't forget you
30:44
chose not to do it you chose you decided that you did not
30:49
want to do that exactly because if you wanted to do it then you'd have done it right away
30:55
my mom will police she'll say oh but you didn't forget to roam street he didn't forget to
go out
31:00
in terms of interactions at the dinner table or on the weekend or doing chores or doing
homework it means that whatever
31:07
communication whatever conversation you have with them if you're assuming they
understood everything you said they may not have
31:14
or they may have understood it differently the new ways of looking at the brain
31:20
point scientists like j to a different understanding of how it works
31:27
the cerebellum in the back of the brain is a part of the brain that changes most
31:32
during the teen years so this part of the brain has not finished growing well into the early
20s
31:40
[Music] the cerebellum used to be about to be involved in the coordination of our
muscles
31:45
but we now know it's also involved in coordination of our thinking processes just like
one can be physically
31:52
cleansing one can be kind of mentally clumsy and this ability to smooth out all the
different intellectual processes to
31:59
navigate the complicated social life of the team and to get through these things
smoothly
32:04
and gracefully instead of lurching but adolescent seems to be a function of the
cerebellum
32:14
as a society we're less active than we ever have been in the history of humanity we're
good with our thumbs and our video
32:20
games and such but as far as actual physical activity running jumping playing children
are doing less and less
32:27
of that and recess and play seems to be the first thing that is cut out of school
curriculums and
32:34
tight times but those actually may be as important or maybe even more important than
some of the academic subjects
32:40
that the children
32:47
[Music]
32:59
often the hallmark of recognizing that your kids become a teenager after they say
something like i hate your dad or
33:05
hate your mom is that suddenly they find themselves sleeping until 11 in the morning
which they never did before
33:12
you're going to review this first period is just wrapping up in this ninth grade
33:17
english classroom nobody has okay this is the last
33:22
story the teacher is wide awake trying to inject a little life into his
33:28
students
33:33
multiple grade size a lot of people got that mixed up with the point all right prodigious
okay prodigious
33:42
yes but what you see in the classroom is a sea of sleepy faces and
33:49
notebooks and so forth when we bring those kids into the laboratory what we see is
33:56
a phenomenon that's of a lot of concern for us they start to look as if they have a
34:02
major sleep disorder at a sweep lab in rhode island director mary karskaton has become
a world
34:08
expert on adolescence and holiday sleep she is disturbed by what her studies
34:14
show that most teens are getting an average seven and a half hours a night when you
34:20
put that in the context of what they need to be optimally alert which is nine and a
quarter hours of sleep
34:27
it's clear that they're building huge huge sleep debts night after night after night with all
34:34
the things that teenagers have available to them from televisions and telephones and
34:40
computers their sleep has been shoved into an ever narrowing window fundamentally
the issue
34:48
is they're not filling up their tank at night and so they're starting the day with an empty
34:53
tank okay i want to know how many people have problems
34:59
oh yeah it's hard to get up because sometimes my brother-in-law comes with
35:05
milk and then it'll take you know they have to call me like 15 times before i actually get
up what's interesting is
35:10
there's another part of their brain that's the biological timing system or the
35:16
circadian clock that actually helps to prop them up at the end of the day
35:22
the circadian clock shifts forward as children become teenagers
35:27
i'm so used to staying up so late anything i just can't fall asleep 12 to like one
sometimes two what do you
35:34
want something i hope once i can't sleep most of the time when they start the day with
an empty
35:39
tank and there's no biological clock helping them in the morning
35:44
they really should be home in bed sleeping not sleeping in the classroom i'm not a
35:50
morning person at all not at all like when i get on the bus
35:55
i don't even remember what happens at home it's just like blood like just it's all
36:02
a big blur and so when they say i'm grounded when i get home i don't remember what i
did in
36:07
the morning the teenagers are really put in a kind of a gray cloud when they
36:15
aren't having enough sleep affects both their mood and their ability to think and
36:22
their ability to perform and react appropriately again
36:29
professor carlyle smith at trent university in canada specializes in sleep and learning we
asked dr smith to run
36:36
both nicole and charlie through a series of sleep studies
36:45
both teams will perform certain tasks go to sleep for the night and come back three
days later to repeat them it
36:52
doesn't matter what skills they have coming into the test it will simply measure under
various
36:57
amounts of sleep whether they will improve their skills
37:08
[Music]
37:17
the exercises are designed to get the brain learning something new
37:35
it's like learning an equation in math not only does charlie have to trace something
upside down
37:40
he must visualize the task in his brain and work from that picture
37:48
a special worry with teenagers is that they are learning a tremendous amount
37:53
trying to keep up with their peers and so on they're often stretching almost the limit of
what they can do and uh
38:00
sleeping in is one of the best ways that they can do to sort of stay stay abreast of what's
going on
38:07
and let them do them
38:16
yeah who makes the beds i do can you make money again yeah i'll make it for you can
you mess
38:22
it up no it's just from everybody getting it yeah i'll make it nice for you
38:27
no no no i'll give you a lot of corners would seem hard to go to sleep this way
38:34
but jeremy jacob needs to measure exactly what stage of sleep nikki is in
38:39
he's particularly interested in rem rapid eye movement the time of dreaming and
learning
38:48
the same part of the brain that was working when the teens were learning their new
skills continues to rehearse and practice when
38:55
the students speak the brain consolidates and improves on what they have just learned
39:01
in a sense the lessons are effortless happening while they sleep
39:08
the best predictor of how well someone is going to do be they at harvard or wherever it's
not
39:14
their sad scores or anything else is whether or not they get a good night's sleep
39:20
and then up again three days later the teens are back charlie there you go
39:28
one of you got a normal night of sleep almost what normally happens is you start off
with what's called a little stage one and he
39:35
goes two three four nicole she got 105 minutes around
39:40
that's quite a bit charlie on the other hand you only got 44 minutes you got less than half
of
39:45
what she got so you're a little short on rem sleep and as it turns out that's going to be
pretty important as to what happened to
39:51
your tests smith had purposely arranged for charlie to have less sleep
39:58
now after retesting the two students the evidence is clear about how important sleep is
to learning you
40:05
improved by six percent on the ball and cub i proved you improved by six percent
40:11
okay i thought i did crappy no you improved by six percent but the goal improved 11
40:18
we're looking at your degree of improvement and in terms of improvement uh you didn't
improve as much as the
40:24
corvette so she was over double what you had now then the mirror traits this we think
40:32
requires rem sleep nicole who got lots of rem sleep she improved 44 and you
40:40
charlie you were worse by 10 i can't tell you any more clearly having a good
40:45
night's sleep will give you more of an advantage than anything else you can do you can
re-learn this stuff but you're gonna run
40:51
out of time every day say well i'll catch up but oh you're catching up
40:57
nicole is busy going ahead i think maybe you should go back now
41:07
in response to the studies that show many teenagers are sleep deprived a number of
school districts across the
41:13
country have changed their school start times in minneapolis high schools start over
41:18
an hour later than they did five years ago trevor nelson notices a big change in
41:24
first period class a lot of kids are talking they're awake you know smiling it's a lot more
alert
41:29
than it was in middle school what we found is a result of the later start time is the
students
41:35
were attending classes they were more alert in class they're reporting they're
41:40
reporting themselves being more alert they're staying with the discussion with
41:46
the teacher they're raising your hand they're being engaged as learners
41:51
instead of struggling just to stay awake and or passively sitting there
41:56
wallstrom's recent report on the minneapolis school experiment meant attendance was
up but there was a downside particularly
42:03
for middle school students who now start two hours later i think it's really hurt
42:09
after school programs occasionally i'll leave school at 4 30 and i'll see students leaving
the
42:14
building and then at middle schools and i think you have no time to go have any kind of
after
42:20
school activities including tutoring or sports um or anything before you need to be home
and having dinner with your
42:26
families which is an important time as well and i you know there's for every study that
says kids do better with late start
42:32
times academically there's studies that say kids do better when they're involved in
activities and sports and choirs and
42:38
drama and all those things and so i think it's limited being that amount of kids that can
be involved in that kind of stuff
42:45
it's not only after school activities that are affected when school districts change their
start times
42:50
bus schedules child care everything changes when the school start time shifts even in
rhode island where much
42:58
of the groundbreaking sleep research was done later school start times have meant
resistance
43:04
there have been some other districts where it's just sort of blown up in the face of the
schools when they've
43:10
tried to delay the school is really the heart of the community in the heart of these
families
43:16
and if you do without any warning you know parents have structured daycare and child
43:22
care for the little ones being provided by the older ones and we just can get out of
control
43:30
applying new science to public policy has always been tricky and nowhere more so than
in areas that
43:36
affect children take for instance the debate over what science has said about early
childhood
43:42
parents used to be told that mobiles mozart and lots of stimulation would make their
babies smarter
43:49
if they didn't do it early there wouldn't be a second chance we now know that simply
isn't true
43:55
[Music] brain science has told us very little about what we can do to raise our
44:02
children and raise our children better john brewer is the author of a book the
44:07
myth of the first three years what we really have to be careful of
44:13
here is if we're talking about how fast three-year-olds learn or what kind of moral
decisions
44:20
teenagers can make the relationships between the behaviors and the desired behaviors
44:27
and the brain structure is totally unknown so these this simple popular news weekly
magazine
44:34
idea that adolescents are difficult because their frontal lobes aren't mature
44:39
there's one we should be very cautious of even dr j who seems to have penetrated
44:46
deep inside the teenage brain wonders about the kind of lessons parents can draw from
his science
44:53
the more technical and more advanced the science becomes often the more it leads us
back to some very basic
44:59
tenets and sometimes it's even disappointing to people that with all the science and all
the advances
45:04
the best advice we can give is things that our grandmother could have told us
generations ago to spend
45:10
loving quality time with our children so often what happens in the united
45:15
states is that we're on a pendulum we go from saying this is good to this is bad
45:21
and then we say what was bad becomes good ellen galinsky is a social scientist and
45:26
the president of the families and work institute she has seen scientific fads come and
go
45:33
but she says her research for a book about children shows there are enduring lessons
for parents
45:39
even though the public perception is about building bigger and better brains what the
research shows is that it's the
45:47
relationships it's the connections it's the people in children's lives who make the biggest
difference
46:00
of freedom or something and then they find that when they get into a problem they want
their parents help but they don't want to you know outright
46:06
ask their parents to step in and say hey you know you don't seem to you know happy
today
46:12
is everything okay because sometimes and i don't have trouble asking you know
expressing
46:17
my friends if someone doesn't come up and ask first surprise to me it's a surprise to
every group of
46:23
parents or teachers uh with whom i speak is that kids are actually yearning teens are
46:28
yearning for more time with their parents from since i was younger she was always
there for me whenever anything happened
46:34
it's her she's there anything went down you know what i'm feeling sad whatever it
doesn't
46:39
matter what it is she's the type of person who always makes sure you're fine
46:52
gail jarvis works two jobs every afternoon she heads out for the evening shift
46:58
leaving three kids behind yet even though gail has to spend a great deal of time away
from her
47:04
children they feel her presence she's like always calling
47:09
from work i mean she wants to like you've been someone else
47:16
okay my mom she's the way that she has to make sure that when we get up you know
she will come home she finds a house our day
47:21
as soon as we come like she knows the time we come home bring in rain okay
47:30
hello hey hi mom what'd i say yeah we have to leave early to go to
47:36
work [Music]
47:43
you have to be careful with kids it's a time when you push them off that's the time when
they really need
47:49
to to be heard so you have to be very very careful
47:55
because it's easy to say okay um call me later maybe you know talk to you but then later
48:01
might be a couple minutes too late so um
48:12
spends a lot of time listening to what's on the minds of her kids here she lets us set up a
camera to
48:17
observe a typical evening with brittany and her friend leia he's been suspended like a
hundred times
48:23
so he finally quit school because he was never in school anyway because he suspended
so many times she went to class like normal she was
48:30
just a little out of it she couldn't walk and then she passed out next to the toilet so they
just won't listen to us
48:36
no matter how hard we tried to leave them suck it up and um the name of my sixth page
report was
48:41
how to help to our children in this new first culture whatever that means just wanted to
be
48:48
open i wanted them to be able to talk back to me about anything and not
48:54
feel that they were going to be uh reprimanded or thought foolish or
49:00
insignificant or they didn't know what they were talking about because they were
children
49:06
but because they were kids i think kids are a lot smarter and a lot in tune
49:12
to what's going on than their parents ever given credit for growing up one of the things i
hated or
49:18
even when i was an adult in certain situations i hated that feeling when i got home i
knew there was going to be something
49:24
that was going to upset the advocate and that feeling you get in a bit of your stomach
and i don't ever want them to have that
49:34
kelly o'donnell regards his mom as a good sport
49:40
but he is still continuously battling for more independence i'm going to go to the falls
after high
49:46
school then i'll get my college paper then go to college it doesn't really matter where i
just want to get out of
49:51
the house i want to live in a dorm no paying the tools
49:56
i'd have to set them for myself
50:14
separation is the whole job of teenagers and as parents what we would say we want
50:21
what we truly want in our hearts is to launch them into rich independence
50:26
textured lives of their own and so in the teenage years here we get it and it doesn't
always
50:33
feel the way we thought it would i have a friend who says that teenagers
50:38
plant their feet firmly on your chest and launch themselves off into their own life
50:45
and that's just how it feels usually so i went back and i asked teens and
50:50
they said well yeah we are pushing our parents away because it's really hard for us to
50:56
come out and say i need you it makes them feel young or you know they want us to be
mind readers okay well we can't be mind readers
51:03
but what they said is hang in there if we push you away yeah we still want you so hang
in there
51:11
when you ask children whom they admire they often talk about their parents if they have
a good relationship they
51:17
talk about their parents i tell my mom mostly everything i gotta tell the guy things but
like i tell her
51:23
he'll see everything like about my friends and everything i just run around with
everything
51:28
i admire my mom because she's been raising me and my sister by herself
51:34
and she's if you know me and my sister you know that she's done a good job i i
51:39
think you can put more trust in your mom than you can to anybody else and i have no
shame you say i love my mom my mom could be clear down the hall
51:45
and i'll follow up just like that