Understanding Teen Athlete Brains: The Difference Between Teenage and Adult Brains
Parents and teenagers share a unique relationship, as do coaches and teens. The teenage years are filled with many changes, from emotional and physical changes to shifts in the relationship dynamic between parents and teens and coaches and teens.
Teen athletes may have done much of their physical growth during their childhood. The workout demands of athletes can even make them larger and appear more physically mature than their peers, and the discipline required of being an athlete may even make them seem more emotionally mature than some of their peers. These factors may make it tempting to expect a teen athlete to react and behave in a way older than their chronological age. However, despite changes in their physical appearance and some mature habits, teen athletes’ brains are maturing at the same rate as their peers.
There's a noticeable gap that emerges when parents and coaches struggle to comprehend the reasons behind the behaviors of teenage athletes. Understanding the unique aspects of the teenage brain can help bridge this gap, fostering better communication and support.
As an adult, it’s easy to reflect on your teen experience and remember positive memories. While you might recall some negative experiences, time has erased many of them.
When you’re dealing with teen athletes as a coach or parent, it’s an entirely different experience. You’re on the outside. Plus, you’re dealing with the generational differences. If you find yourself at a loss for understanding what’s happening in your teen’s world, there’s a logical reason—their brain.
Teen Athletes Brain Are in Development
While teen athletes may have completed much of their physical growth during childhood, it's crucial to remember that their brains are still in a developmental phase and will continue to mature into adulthood. This ongoing development is a journey of exploration, learning, and adaptation, with each new activity forging new connections in the brain.
Information is absorbed from the world around them. New connections are made, forming a neuronal network. This type of development is crucial for sustaining good mental health. These connections can guide mood regulation, new learning abilities, and behaviors.
Executive Functioning
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functioning skills, including impulse control, problem solving, rational thinking, critical thinking, judgment, and planning. As teens grow, this area of the brain still has a lot of growth to do, which explains why their decisions seem irrational. Their brains aren’t developed enough to focus and process effectively.
Conversely, adults have a fully developed prefrontal cortex and can approach situations with the tools necessary for control and focus.
Emotional Control
Teenagers are often viewed as emotional, and teen athletes can be highly reactive in high-pressure sports situations. It is easy to blame this on raging hormones, but the truth is that the emotional center of the brain is at its peak development time during the teen years. The amygdala regulates emotions, processes feelings, memory formation, and learning.
Hormone production is less controlled, causing a roller coaster for their system. This explains why mood swings are frequent and fast, and our athletes take mistakes and disappointment hard. It also explains why outbursts and over-the-top behaviors occur. An adult can be faced with a challenge and write it off as a minor inconvenience. A teen, however, will be more prone to being triggered and emotionally spiraling.
Stress Responses Differ
Everyone deals with stress, no matter their age, and there are times when that stress causes a struggle. It may be difficult for adults to manage, but teen athletes are wired differently. As mentioned, their emotional regulation is still developing. So, when stress creeps in, they don’t have the full ability to rationalize and calm themselves down. They also have the disadvantage of perceiving stress as something more dangerous than it is. This misconception can lead to acting out and overreacting. For this reason, teens are more susceptible to overreacting, internalizing, anxiety, depression disorders, illness, isolation, and substance use.
Sleep Habits
One area worth noting is that teens rarely get enough sleep. The teen brain differs from the adult brain in how it responds to melatonin, the sleep hormone.
In the teen years, the brain releases more melatonin at night, leading to that up-all-night, restless energy. Going to sleep late but still having to function early makes them more likely to be groggy and moody. This altered sleep cycle can cause sleep deficiencies, poor emotional control, and cognitive challenges.
Helping Your Teen Athlete
There’s much more going on during the teen years than meets the eye. They are trying to figure out who they want to be and doing it while their brain is still developing. If your teen athlete is struggling with focus, confidence, reactivity, or performance issues, they could benefit from a better understanding of how their brains and emotions affect their performance and life and build new coping skills.