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so

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according to science you were grown up

when you were 25

but what does that mean is the inner

child gone

is it bye bye easy living and hello

cruel world

and what is a grown-up

remember when you were a child when we

were children we loved and admired our

parents

we have all these sweet memories of

experiencing lots of things for the

first time

memories of our toys of our dreams of

our heroes

we thought that our dad was fantastic

when he sang in the supermarket

when we become 15 or 16 years old

everything changes

now it is so awkward when our dad starts

singing and everything is a big deal

we start insulting or arguing with our

parents

or lie to them and feel no remorse

because of course

our parents are idiots

when we become 25 this changes again

our parents seem to be back to normal

and most things in life start to make

sense

those teen years are so crazy so

confusing

and so amazing

but why what is the reason

is it pure biology or is there an

evolutionary reason to a wild youth

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my name is lina i was born in 1990

i have two younger brothers and my

parents have been married for

almost 30 years my mom is a teacher

and my dad is a dentist

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home was a safe haven and my parents

have always been very supportive

so i took up handball karate acting

sewing playing the drums singing and

football

i ended up studying journalism which

makes total sense

you are not an expert in one area you're

just really

curious i head tagged from berlin to

paris

hung out with gangsters in miami and

while growing up i've been in love

many times so i guess i'm pretty normal

when i look back i realize i often felt

like a spectator

observing my own life i wonder what that

was all about

when are we grown-ups when is the brain

mature

this has been widely debated by

scientists for generations

experimental studies of children

teenagers and grown-ups have revealed

that the brain

is fully developed by the age of 25

although brain development is subject to

significant individual variation

in contrast to previous generations a

new method called

functional mri allows scientists to look

into the brain

perhaps some of the answers can be found

in the structure and function of the

brain

but who are these scientists and what

have they learned

have they gained knowledge to questions

that have puzzled mankind for

generations

have they figured out why adolescence is

so wild and fantastic

okay

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one of these scientists is dr adriana

galvan

adriana has studied the development that

the brain undergoes from the early teens

and into the 20s

and how this brain development

influences our behavior

according to science i'm a grown-up now

it's really scary yeah and what does

that

like mean uh yeah what does that mean

good question what does that mean i i

think a lot about

what does maturity really mean and

maybe another way to think about

maturity is that it's

another word for competence and so maybe

what we mean is that

at a certain age you will be competent

to make decisions for instance

we'll be competent to uh understand

other people's perspectives

but we we still don't have a precise

definition of

an age of of maturity so adriana when

we're teenagers

people ask us like what is going on in

your head

and you've looked inside the teenage

brain so what is actually going on

in there there's a lot going on in there

um

the major things that are going on is

that the brain is getting

reshaped it's not to say that the brain

isn't already

structurally in place by the time people

are teenagers

but the way the brain is responding to

the environment to interacting with

friends and

having greater conflicts maybe with

parents is

changing so the connections between

regions in the front of the brain

and in the deeper layers of the brain

are constantly being

reshaped we have a lot of conflicts with

our parents

why is that well it's it's

a characteristic of being an adolescent

to want to

find your own independence to really try

to

become autonomous from caregivers or

parents or educators

and one way to do that is through

conflict and to separate

yourself either physically or

emotionally

and we see this not just in humans but

other animals like monkeys or rodents

they also

start to distance themselves from the

primary

caregivers during the period right after

puberty

so what is the function of what is going

on in our brain

during adolescence the brain is designed

to help us

learn to think for ourselves and that

often happens by

making some mistakes and learning

through trial and error

and identifying what will help us

think for ourselves and identifying what

will make us feel confident and

independent from from others so how

does the teenage brain mature the

teenage brain

matures from the back to the front the

back of the brain is

um represents the the function that we

need very early in life like crawling

like walking

like talking breathing and the regions

in the front of the brain

that don't finish developing until about

the mid-20s

are the regions that help us make

decisions think about abstract things

maybe like religion or time

and they don't develop until later in

life

perhaps because we don't need those

skills as infants

during that time our parents serve as

our prefrontal cortex

the pruning process that happens around

the time of adolescence

helps us refine the prefrontal cortex

in the regions that help us make

decisions

and um exert good self-control

pruning could you tell me what that is

pruning is a really important process in

development

and the most pruning happens during

adolescence

it refers to the process of eliminating

connections in the brain that aren't

useful so

up until we reach puberty there's an

increase in something called synapses

and synapses refer to the connections

between neurons

around the time of puberty we start to

prune away the synapses or the

connections

that aren't necessary an example of

pruning is

the process of language development so

early in life we have a lot of

connections

in our language regions that would help

us

learn any language that we're born into

but

after about the first or second year of

life we start to

only listen or hear one language and so

as we get older we become better and

better at our own language

and worse and worse at other languages

and that worsening

is an example of the pruning process

that we're pruning away the connections

that would be necessary for other

learning other types of languages

pruning also goes hand in hand with

strengthening

existing connections that we need so we

strengthen

the connections that represent our own

native language

so now that we know this could could you

say that that teenagers

have a biological excuse for

lacking self-control and judgment

i wouldn't say that teenagers have a

biological excuse

because excuse suggests that we

shouldn't hold them accountable or it

suggests that we shouldn't expect

them to exert good self-control

understanding the adolescent brain

doesn't give them

a biological excuse but it helps us

understand

how we can help adolescents make good

decisions

in situations where it it's better for

them or

more beneficial for them to think about

the consequences of their actions

the things we did makes us who we are

now so um

it would be unfortunate if we rob

teenagers of the

opportunity to be teenagers

when we are young the brain undergoes a

major reconstruction

everything is shuffled around and

rewired and new areas of the brain take

control

the last part of the brain that matures

is the prefrontal cortex

and this part of the brain is important

for assessing risk

thinking ahead self-evaluation setting

goals

and regulating emotions in a way

it teaches the rest of the brain the

rules about how the world works

we have to be fully functional and act

responsibly at the same time as all the

furniture

is being moved around you feel caught up

between being young and adult

it's confusing there must be some kind

of

evolutionary advantage that explains

this craziness

we are at the top of our game during the

teen years and the more we feed our

brain the more it can contain

but again and again we overestimate our

own capabilities

resulting in an endless number of

mistakes

this means that even the smartest

teenagers will do the stupidest things

in the most impulsive way this happens

in particular

when we are with our friends everything

is much easier

much better much clearer with them

friends understand you

with friends we kind of own the world

kings and queens for a day we take crazy

risks that we would never do on our own

why is that do we do it to impress our

friends

professor lawrence steinberg has used

his life to study adolescent risk-taking

if anyone knows why we take so many

risks when we are young

it is professor steinberg

what is it with our brain in that age

that makes us so

risk seeking around the time of puberty

because of the effect of sex hormones on

the brain

um adolescents become um

more pleasure-seeking more

reward-seeking so one of the things that

sex hormones do

is to increase activity of a

neurotransmitter called dopamine

there's more dopamine activity in the

reward center of the brain

during adolescence than any other time

of life now dopamine

plays many roles in the brain but one of

the most important

is our experience of pleasure so

whenever we anticipate something good

happening

or when we actually feel something good

we get a little dopamine squirt and that

dopamine

is what makes us feel the pleasure and

dopamine

plays a role in the feeling of pleasure

no matter what the reason

is so it's important when we eat

when we have sex when we get money when

we get praise

it all activates the brain's reward

center now

during adolescence because there's so

much activity

in the brain's reward center things that

feel good

feel even better okay yeah

so now imagine that you're a teenager

and you have a reward center in your

brain that's very active

and you're going to be on the lookout

for rewards you're going to be

looking for where is the next one coming

from

and this pushes kids to do things

even when there may be risks involved

because they're so

anxious to get the reward while this is

happening

the prefrontal cortex is still

maturing so during adolescence you have

this combination

of the reward center which makes us want

to go after these exciting things

and the prefrontal cortex which isn't

ready yet

for that so what we say is it's like a

car

with the accelerator pressed down to the

floor

but not a good braking system in place

oh

so i hit the speeder really hard but i

don't have the brake yet

oh you have the break but they're not

very good yet okay um

and that's how they can relate to that

yeah yeah okay and that's what

adolescence

is now when we when we mature into

adulthood the brain's reward centers

become less active so

we don't get as much pleasure out of

things as teenagers do

so enough nothing will ever feel this

good again exactly

yeah it's sad yeah so that counts for

love sex food yes

everything oh i'm 25 now

it's all downhill from here

damn laurence

i guess you can say that in the eyes of

nature

group pressure is a good thing there is

an evolutionary

advantage to being a risk taker when

you're an adolescent

we can look at other species and what we

see in other species

is that when the young animal goes to

puberty

it then goes out and ventures away from

its family to become independent

to search for a mate to reproduce

and think about this this is a very

dangerous thing

to do and you're competing with animals

who are bigger

and stronger and smarter than you

but it's necessary so we believe

that the risk-taking behavior that we

see in young people

is hardwired it's part of our

evolutionary history

it served a valuable purpose a long time

ago not so valuable today

but lots of things that we see in human

behavior today

were things that evolved a long time ago

but that are still part of our

genes so if there hadn't been teenagers

in the past

taking all of these risks where do you

think we would be today

well we wouldn't be here today because

teenage risk taking

we think was essential for humans to

to reproduce and to continue to evolve

why is the presence of peers so

influential

one hypothesis is that

the teenagers are taking risks to

impress their friends

and people said well of course everybody

knows that teenagers take risks when

they're with their friends they're

trying to impress their friends

so our research team said

can we find some adolescents who are not

capable

of thinking about what their friends

want

in other words who wouldn't be doing

anything to try to impress their friends

because they're not capable of thinking

that way

so we did this study with mice and the

test was this

if we put them in a cage and we give

them

access to alcohol to drink how much

would they drink

we have the adolescent mice and we have

the adult mice

and within each age group we take half

of them

and we test them by themselves and we

take the other half and we test them

with their peers with the mice

that they grew up with and what we found

was really remarkable

the adolescent mice drink more alcohol

when they're with

other mice than they do when they're by

themselves

the adult mice drink the same amount

when they're with other mice

as when they're by themselves so what

does this tell us

we don't think that the mouse is

drinking alcohol to impress

its friends right so it's something

other than that

so we think that the same thing is going

on in the adolescent mouse brain

which is that when i'm near my friends

it lights up my reward centers

and it makes me seek more rewards

and so this seems to be an aspect of

adolescence

that may have been conserved across

different species that may be

an important part of our evolutionary

history as mammals

so the reason why i did so many stupid

things when i was 18

was really me trying to find a mate

have sex and get the best babies in a

way

yeah i'm sure that that wasn't your

conscious reason for doing the stupid

things

you were taking risks and behaving

recklessly

um because you were satisfying that part

of your brain

that wants you to go out and find a mate

and reproduce so

in a way you can say that you kind of

need to take some chances while you're a

teenager

because it's all part of nature's master

plan

it is normal for teenagers to do things

where they do

screw up it doesn't mean that

something's wrong with them

they're acting the way teenagers are

supposed to act

we are driven by rewards and our reward

center is at its peak when we are young

this is hard to absorb when you have

just turned 25 and found out that those

days

will never come back

what about love family

friendship happiness

good and evil guilt and innocence

ambition power revolution war

the individual against society climate

catastrophes

success and failure american presidents

murder suicide sex

drugs death and god

should all this matter less when we get

older

is 25 the peak and everything is

downhill

from there do we really become less sad

or less happy

as we grow old and gray

life goes up and down and i guess it

will always be like this

like waves on the ocean sometimes you

are surfing the crest of a wave

other times you feel like you were

drowning

we fight to keep our head above water

looking for that next kick

that next experience that feeling of joy

basically we just want to feel good feel

happy

but what is it that makes us happy and

what is happiness

professor daniel nettle had difficulty

feeling happy when he was young

and because of that he has dedicated his

life to study

happiness i'm danish and we are

supposedly

the happiest people in the world but

what is happiness

when we talk about happiness and

psychology we don't mean you know

i'm so happy i'm smiling all the time

and i'm singing and i'm dancing around

we mean that if you reflect on your life

you're pretty satisfied

with you know with how it with how it's

going yes there are some bad times

but they're balanced by the good times

and overall you kind of take the view

that

your life is satisfactory it's

progressing in a way you feel content

with

and that's really what we talk about

when we talk about happiness is it the

same things that make us happy

throughout life

or does it change if something makes me

happy and you try and do it on the view

that oh that will make me happy as well

it probably won't right because we're

just very different people

so you have to recognize that everyone

is different but also you're different

at different times in your life

when you're young you're working out a

whole lot of businesses to do with

status and love and sex and you know

social relationships and stuff or maybe

when you're older those priorities

change a little bit

i can be very self-critical and

i it's hard for me to let go of my

mistakes

yeah so do you think i can change that

well um it will probably

it will probably become easier to deal

with at times

for start you'll have more mistakes

right so you can you can't remember them

all

and and time will go time will go by and

you know you can reflect on things and

there's more to reflect on

um i mean relative to other people of

the same age

the more anxious person when they're 25

will probably be the more anxious person

when they're 50

but both of them will probably in

absolute terms and become less anxious

if you see what i mean does our

teenage years shape our personality or

are we born with a certain personality

well i think

personality is something that kind of

sticks to you as time goes by

um i think a lot of it's with you at the

beginning and

a lot of it happens in early childhood

so you can think of it as kind of

gradually

attaching to you or or solidifying as

you go on

but certainly the teenage years are an

important time can you predict

by looking at a teenager whether he or

she will

become a happy adult well on average you

can

right so um i mean all teenagers go

through periods of being unhappy

right so really the right comparison is

compared to other people of that age

where were they and if they were very

troubled and unhappy

that's not going to go away right it

might be the case that everyone becomes

a bit less troubled as they move into

adulthood you know of the teenagers the

one who was the most troubled will

probably be the most troubled adult

but that's on average right these are

all statistical predictions so you

shouldn't kind of

go around with it thinking oh well you

know this personality research says this

that means i'm doomed or something you

know

that's not the case what is personality

i think all of us understand that people

are enormously different from each other

just think of two of your friends

and think let's say you know i have a

big disaster

you just know that one of your friends

is going to be incredibly angry about

this

and the other one would say oh whatever

and that in a nutshell is what

personality is

we can't look into someone's brain and

say ah you know

here's the bit that determines how they

respond to bad news

so what we try and do is we just come up

with with measures

questionnaires we can complete tasks we

can complete that we think predict

how a person's going to be in different

situations is there a link between

personality and happiness oh for sure

personality is one of the biggest

determinants of happiness right

and people often think that happiness is

uh you know having a big car or

something but generally

once you've got a big car you just want

a bigger car so it's not really gonna

make a lot of difference

right okay so but i think you know how

we are how we think about life

huge determinant of how happy we are and

how we think about life

a big part of it comes from our

personality so yeah why are some of us

able to feel spectacularly

happy and others are just like whatever

any biological system there's going to

be some variation right

we can't all be identical because we've

got slightly different genes and

slightly different

development you know all of us would

feel anxious

if a man with a gun was running down the

road but some of us it will be a bit

slightly bigger response than others

that's all it is

why has nature designed it that way that

some of us get really scared by the man

with the gun another

other stay and fight maybe well nature

doesn't really design things

you know generally there's a lot of

sources of variation right genes mutate

so we all roughly speaking of the same

genes but i have some slightly different

variants than you do

and then as these systems get set up

through our lives

it's a chance process it's not like

making a car on a production line

it's much more like making a cake right

when you make a cake you know sometimes

the flour's a bit different sometimes

the eggs are a bit different

sometimes the oven's a bit different

your cakes are never quite the same it's

the same basic idea but

it's always going to be variable so i

don't think of nature as designing so

much as

eliminating the extremes what do we know

well nature has made nobody that

has no capacity for anxiety i don't

think i don't think those kind of people

are going to survive very long

and i don't think nature has made anyone

who has no capacity for joy

right because again you know that

presumably was disadvantageous but in

the middle

there's a whole load of different ones

of us who have slightly different cakes

and you know you've got to sort of make

the best of the cake you have i think

if you could give your teenage self and

advice

on how to live a happy life yes what

would that be

i think the main thing i would say is

there's much more time than you realize

lighten up right enjoy that phase of

your life the other phases will come

and you'll solve those problems when you

get there so

you know enjoy what's good about being

young would you say that

years are a happy time of our life or

there's a time of your life when you're

doing lots of things for the first time

you're learning at a rate you're never

going to learn

again in in future and you're having all

these vivid experiences that are going

to stay with you for the rest of your

life and you'll look back on and

and really enjoy and and value so it's

not all

it's not all a negative period by any

means

nettle says there is plenty of time for

mistakes and fuck-ups

time for growing into a milder and

rounder version of yourself

when you were 25 it feels like your cake

is still in the oven

like you haven't even started to eat yet

laurence said you had eaten most of it

and only the crumbs are left

nettle gives the feeling that the cake

is still in the oven

the scent is filling the room and there

is lots of time for eating

does the adolescent brain work

differently to an adult brain

experiments conducted in professor sarah

jane blakemore's laboratory in england

show that adolescents have difficulty

seeing things from an adult's

perspective

so when they throw their shoes on the

floor and leave a mess in the kitchen

it is not to provoke the parents they

simply do not think about the emotion

their behavior causes in their parents

minds

their brain is focused on themselves

and with the adolescent boiler realm of

rewards and emotions

it is easy to understand that it can be

hard to also take into account

the emotions of others

we get better controlling our feelings

and our sense of happiness when we are

older

but when we are young it seems hard to

control these emotions

everything just feels so intense why is

this

dr jennifer silvers looks inside the

brain whilst we are feeling emotions to

try to understand

how these evolve during adolescence

our emotions when we're teenagers are

really intense

um why do you think that is basically

everything changes the rug kind of gets

pulled out from under you

so your social world changes suddenly

you've got

all of these new challenges with having

to direct yourself in the world in a way

that you didn't used to when you could

rely on your parents

hormones change your brain changes

you're literally

looking different each day that you look

in the mirror and i think all this comes

together

at the same time that you've got this

increased self-awareness and the ability

to really think about what the world

around you means

and that's kind of a perfect combination

for feeling intense emotions

what's the reason why it feels so

intense like the physical reaction why

is it

that strong adolescents don't

necessarily have

parents who are there to kind of

regulate and manage every emotional

experience they have

in the same way that children are and

they're also just facing more emotional

challenges i think than children are on

a daily basis

um and there's some really interesting

research that supports that idea that

adolescents are

simply facing more in their everyday

lives yeah so it's kind of a

bump being dropped on you and you're

just standing there like

no why is this all happening at the same

time

i think sometimes it feels like that but

it's also really exhilarating i mean

i don't know i i remember as an

adolescent also feeling like

those were some of my highest highs and

so it's not all bad

i think that it's intense but it's not

all negative

one of the things i sometimes think

about is almost that adolescence is one

of the last time to build roads

and it's a good metaphor for the brain i

think that

if you think of all of development is

this time when you're laying down

the connections between different parts

of your brain different parts of your

experience

eventually they're going to become these

concrete super highways where you only

connect from

x to y you only are interested in these

two topics and you kind of develop a

thing and you get really expert at it

in childhood you've got dirt roads all

over the place

nothing is is as highly functional but

you're kind of laying the groundwork

when the rain comes in it gets a little

muddy

but at the same time that means there's

also this great opportunity

to reconstruct the roads it's kind of

your last

moment when you can be i think really

easily sculpted by your environment

and also start to dictate your destiny a

bit about what it is that you want to do

do we get better at controlling our

emotions when we grow up

yes yes yes 100

that's your answer yes okay yeah we do

we get a lot better

i mean i think that's one of the most

fundamental changes that happens across

the lifespan

to be able to say i want to do something

and to not have our emotions

totally derail us from achieving those

goals and i think adolescence is one of

the most critical places where for you

to develop

really good tools for your regulation

toolbox

but how do we get better at controlling

our emotions

when you're very young your parents

almost serve as your prefrontal cortex

they walk around helping you to manage

your emotions

helping to control your environment and

so on and through that

they kind of model for you what they do

to regulate their emotions and they

help to give you supports a little bit

of cheat sheets almost along the way

that teach you

how to do it and eventually particularly

i think during

during adolescence as we start to see an

increased ability to control ourselves

in general partially because of

maturational changes in the brain

people start to get better and better at

using different kinds of strategies for

different emotional situations

what is reappraisal so reappraisal is

a broad class of strategies that in

general

is thought to mean changing the way you

think about an emotional event

so as to change the way you feel so this

is rooted in the idea

that our emotions aren't perfect

readouts of what's happening

in the environment so shakespeare said

this once by saying

nothing is good or bad but thinking

makes it so and that's really the

premise of reappraisal the idea is that

the way we interpret events is what

leads us to have different emotional

experiences there's two particularly

common types of reappraisal

so one involves reinterpretation for

example if you be watching

a movie and you saw somebody covered in

blood you might tell yourself that's not

blood

it's fake blood they're acting that's

why it looks that way

so you're literally changing the meaning

of what you're seeing by interpreting it

as

being something fundamentally different

now another way that individuals

reappraise known as distancing

you don't actually see somebody covered

in blood as not being covered in blood

but you think of it as if you were a

surgeon about to perform an operation

you see it from more of an objective

perspective what is it that's

interesting when it comes to adolescence

and reappraisal first thing that we did

to try to address that question was just

looking

at how people said they were feeling we

didn't see that many age-related

differences it's all reported feeling

bad when they saw something upsetting

when they try to reappraise to turn down

those

negative feelings that's where we see

the really big age effects

so children and to a lesser degree

adolescents

didn't show nearly uh as big of a drop

in their negative experience as adults

did

so whereas the adults when they turn on

their their prefrontal cortex when they

start trying to reappraise something we

see this big drop in how bad they're

feeling

we're only seeing a very small drop at

younger ages so if i'm a teenager

and i just got dumped by a guy yeah i

can use

reappraisal to look at it in a different

way that would be one way of sort of

basically thinking about it differently

as if you were telling your friend what

to do

that can be a helpful way of thinking

about it so it's not you

dealing with it but what would you tell

your friend how would you look at it if

it happened to somebody else then it

doesn't feel quite as personal

do you think it's more difficult for a

teenager

to put themselves in other people's

shoes

i think that one of the things that

probably parents notice a lot is

particularly that their

teenagers are more likely to get caught

up in themselves sometimes

or to also think more about what their

friends are feeling than perhaps what

their parents are feeling

so why do you think our friends are so

important when we're

teens this is an evolutionary thing at

some level that

if we didn't eventually have a little

bit of a reason to leave the nest

we wouldn't grow up you have to get a

little bit disillusioned with your

parents

or else you'll live with them for the

rest of your lives and similarly you

have to start to care more about what

your friends think in order to be able

to

form mature social relationships peer

pressure gets a bad rap and it can

certainly lead to

bad outcomes but it also is really

important for guiding our behavior

so we learn a lot from our peers by

caring about

what they think of us and wanting to

connect to them that teaches us a lot

that's sometimes uh

what leads you to want to do better in

school it's also the thing that might

lead you to disobey your parents and

sneak out at night

if we didn't care about them at all we

probably wouldn't be very good at being

social agents you know

you're starting to figure out what it

means to have independence

and that's fundamentally part of what

leads to your identity too

why do you think that is i mean why why

has nature made it that way

if teenagers didn't have a little more

push

a little more drive i don't know that

they would take some of the risks that

they kind of need to take

in order to become the people they

become we try all kinds of things

and i think that those emotions uh

whether they're

intense desire or intense fear

whatever they are they drive us to

experience a variety of things in life

and that those experiences are really

important for shaping who we become

traffic is busier than usual today as a

result of a naked woman

walking down the center of the freeway

you're in a rush

it is a hard time but also a time of

great feelings and joy

of experimenting how to fit into the

world of making all the right

or wrong choices no wonder then

it can feel so overwhelming to be a

teenager

there are so many changes going on at

the same time

our bodies change our perception of self

changes

you stress about what your life will be

like and what is to become of you

somehow your abilities do not match your

ambitions

all the ambitions of others who am i

how does the world see me will i become

famous

do i want to be famous can i become a

youtube star or have thousands of

followers on instagram

today it seems that it is normal to be

special

if you want to be like everyone else you

have to stand out

as all these questions go round and

round in your head

life expectations just get bigger and

bigger

expectations at school for looking good

for being

in for being smart and having lots of

friends

for getting high grades so that you have

a future

all the expectations of becoming someone

taking the right path the right

education

will there be a job for me will i find

my true love

is there a knight in shining armor for

me

and how do i find him how do i make the

right choices

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terry muffet is a professor and clinical

psychologist

and her research has changed our

understanding of factors that influence

how our life is

and how our behavior during adolescence

has a profound influence

on how our life turns out

you've spent your whole career studying

people's lives

so what makes the teenage years so

special what what science

shows us is that um

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the older a person gets the more their

natural personality

uh fits with their environment

so as you move through life you choose

work

that fits your personality you choose

a lover that fits your personality you

choose

activities hobbies leisure activities

that fit your personality

the trick to adolescence is moving

through and making those choices

in a way that really fits you so there

isn't any special recipe

to get a successful life

i think the recipe is when you're in

adolescence you should experience

everything

you should try new things you should

meet new people you should go to new

places

really open yourself to the world it's a

sort of a process of learning to know

yourself

but also learning to know the

possibilities so

it's very exciting time but do you

really mean try everything

for every species of of animal

always the teenage years or the teenage

months if you're a rhett

or a time when you leave from your

parents

and begin to explore in order to do this

you don't know at the beginning when you

try something if it's dangerous or

not so you should try as many things as

you can

the trick to negotiating the teenage

years successfully

is not to get trapped so you can get

trapped

if you have an unplanned pregnancy if

you leave school

if you try too much weed and too much

alcohol and you become addicted the idea

is to be careful

and to explore everything so that you

have all the choices

how important are the teenage years for

our success later in life

one of the things we know from our

research we have followed 1 000

young people born in new zealand all the

young people born in one city in one

year

and we have followed them right through

interviewing them

every year until they're in their late

30s so now we can look

back to see what are the things that

they did as teenagers that influence

whether their lives turned out good or

bad

and one of the important things uh that

they had as teenagers was if they had

self-control

and that seems to be the real key to uh

negotiating teenage life

in a successful way historians tell

us that self-control is more important

for teenagers now

today than ever before in human history

we can get fast food

very easily so we must use our

self-control

not to gain too much weight we can get

addictive substances very easily so we

must use our self-control so we don't

become

an addict social media moves very fast

we must use our self-control so we don't

respond

too quickly and put something on social

media that hurts

another person so it's a it's a good

idea that

that self-control is something that

every teenager can

use uh every teenager can practice it

uh just by making themselves smarter

and making active choices um and their

lives will turn out much better as a

result

am i born with a certain level of

self-control

or can i gain self-control during my

life the whole population

gets more self-control as we age the

self-control is lowest

in two-year-olds it becomes a bit better

in primary school it's kind of difficult

for teenagers

in your 20s everyone gets more of it in

your 30s everyone gets a lot more of it

in your 40s

you have so much self-control that

you're actually quite conservative

so the thing is to just um think a

little bit older

that's why it's so boring getting an

older that's

who wants to be 40 and full of

self-control you have no fun

it has such a negative ring to it the

word control

yes but it's for yourself so

no one else is controlling you and

you're not controlling someone else

it's you making decisions for yourself

it's a form of independence

so self-control is the biggest

predictor to whether we get success in

life or not

this is something that influences how

life goes

in the long run whether you're rich or

poor whether you're

bright or dull self-control is really

important if you don't

if you're not born with it you should

get it but how

how you just have to think i think uh

you know if someone goes through life in

a

thoughtless way always just reacting to

others

they're always caught off guard they're

always a little bit late

making decisions they're always waiting

for input from others

the simple aspect of self-control is

just thinking ahead

so anticipate what might happen and

think what will i do

teenagers face a lot of biological

changes

and it almost seems like our genetics

are being overruled in that period of

life

is there some sort of battle going on

between those two

you think one thing that's important to

keep in mind is genetics controls the

timing

of the biological changes so when we

follow twins who are growing up

we see that when they're six years old

they all

lose their tooth on the same day twin

girls

start their first minstrel period at the

same time

and so twin boys their voice breaks in

the same week

it's it's quite amazing really this

timing

when you get older twin brothers go bald

at the same time they lose their hair

yeah

so genetics controls the timing

of these biological changes that

teenagers

experience that means

is some teenagers are going through

these biological changes

uh much older and some much

younger yeah so there's some kind of

maturity gap

especially if a girl is getting her

figure

much younger than the other girls in her

class

she's still thinking like a child but

she looks like a woman

and that can be a very difficult time if

you were sitting in front of a teenager

right now

and you could give one advice on how to

live the good life

what would you say i think the best way

to live

the good life is to be open to

everything be open to experience

try everything you can

but just be careful on this

journey i've learned so much about

myself and i feel like i'm almost

bursting with knowledge about the

teenage life

and brain but what am i supposed to do

with all of this knowledge

i mean does it change anything the

scientific knowledge helps us to

understand

the brain is changing in a way that

pushes teenagers out to try new things

they think really fast very efficiently

their brain

works much better than in adults so we

should just trust them

it's a natural stage of development

they're supposed to

try new things they're supposed to make

mistakes that's great

uh it would be terrible if they didn't

so

they're at a stage of life that is

the most able to cope with with

everything that happens to them so we

should just trust that they will be able

to do it

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there are so many possibilities so many

dreams to fulfill

so many adventures to be lived we'll

make mistakes

but that's what we call experience

we make more mistakes when we are young

perhaps thinking a bit ahead is not such

a bad idea

i guess we all end up finding our place

in the world

finding our direction you decide

life is here life is now

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do

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do

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you