Teenage dream is more like a nightmare

Young, dumb and full of … well, you probably know the rest.

Being graphic, racy or even gross wasn’t the ultimate intent (maybe a little) behind playing with that classic idiom in this family paper. Rather, it’s a pretty apt description of how the teenage brain works, factoring in physical development’s reign of terror over emotional and mental maturity.

Teenagers do dumb real well. I did; chances are any adult reading this did. We’ve all been there. And anyone with a ringside seat to this battle of wills, that is, teaching, living with or raising a teenager, can attest that anecdotal evidence is just as effective as scientific data any day of the week.

But science, well, it does help in understanding what makes a teenager tick … like a time bomb in some cases.

The teenage brain made news this week when a pair of researchers presented their unpublished findings during a national neuroscience conference on teens’ propensity for risky behaviors.

A study authored by neuroscientists from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City found that risky behaviors put teenagers in danger of dying at a rate of 200 percent more than pre-teens even though both are in similar stages of brain development.

What the study boiled down to is, when presented with stable, controlled and not-all-that tumultuous situations, “teens appear to be capable of acting rationally and making optimal decisions,” according to the study.

However, when stuff hits the fan, so does the ability to show self-restraint and calm under fire. The researchers imply at that “teenagers tend to be drawn to danger. It’s as if they can’t help themselves.”

That is probably a surprise to no one. Like so many medical and psychological studies, they don’t seem to provide moments of discovery, but moments of clarity and justification of what we already know — that teenagers are physiologically, chemically and developmentally unable to avoid acting like fools in most cases.

So give them a break and cut them some slack. Their indifference, defiance and general daffy disposition are part of an adult in development.

I have to remind myself of this on a daily basis as I spend time in high school classrooms all over the Valley. I can only imagine what a full-time cat-wrangler, or as most people call them, high school teacher, goes through.

Given the drama that comes with a breakup, a bad grade, or even a casual slight, teenagers can be thrown into a tizzy over fairly innocuous incidents.

The clinical causes of spazzing out might be a combination of the continued development of the frontal lobe of the brain; not enough sleep, as some research has suggested; or even simply the kneejerk reactions and lack of empathy from adults who expect teenagers to suck it up.

If you really dissect it, the teenage years and being a teenager, are mind-blowing concepts. We have near fully developed men and women doing and saying things, making decisions and processing their problems with the maturity of children.

Of course that is not always the case. Sure, there are socially advanced teenagers who think and speak with remarkable reason, showing responsibility and accountability.

And then there are the rest: mouth-breathing manchildren, ready to fight at the drop of a hat for no good reason, seething with the subtle potency of a poodle and a pant leg, or overdeveloped Barbie dolls experimenting with their mastery over the opposite sex, not all that clear on the consequences of their actions. Somewhere in the middle is everybody else, unsure, emotional, irrational, looking to fit in and denying that they ever wanted to.

You’ve got to feel for teenagers. It’s never a fun ride, and many of us either remember it as being better than it really was, or worse.

But that’s to be expected, with a frontal lobe going through a period of tectonic upheaval and permanent shaping, similar to the development that occurs in the first three months of life. All this with the virility and hormones of fully formed sexual beings at the height of their powers, or damn near it. That’s confusing, to say the least, and downright scary at worst.

So, when someone refers to a teenager as young, dumb and all the rest, that’s a physical condition where the only known treatment so far is patience, love and loosening up.

This column first appeared in the Imperial Valley Press, Nov. 14, 2013.