Adolescent brains taken a closer look in 'Inside Out 2'

There's so much going on in a teenager's brain that Disney's Pixar subsidiary made an entire movie about it.

“Inside Out 2” follows the main character, Riley, as she turns 13 and experiences all the emotional changes that come with puberty: more sensitivity, an awareness of her place in her social circle and a lot of anxiety.

During early adolescence, the brain undergoes remodeling, said Dr. Lisa Damour, an Ohio clinical psychologist who consulted on the new animated film. These renovations come with new, nuanced emotions: embarrassment, envy, boredom, and anxiety.

Adults may often lament the challenges of raising a teenager, but research has shown that if you expect the worst, you'll get it, said Dr. Laurence Steinberg, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the Temple University of Philadelphia. And having more positive expectations can predict a better relationship with your teen.

Damour said she hopes the film can give a visual understanding of what happens during the teenage period and that a better understanding can bring relationships closer together.

Adolescents experience more complex feelings more deeply

Once puberty begins, the characters that make up Riley's emotions discover that pressing any button causes a bigger reaction. And psychologically, it makes sense.

“One of the key features of emotional development in adolescence is this ease of eliciting both positive and negative emotions,” Steinberg said. Their feelings are stronger than those of children or adults.

And by adolescence, the brain has developed more of a capacity for abstract thinking, bringing with it more complex emotions, said Damour, author of “The Emotional Lives of Adolescents: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents.”

They are more anxious because they more easily imagine future problems. They become more embarrassed because they better understand what others think of them. They become envious because they see comparisons between themselves and others better, she added.

And boredom isn't just a fun side effect. Acting like they don't care is often a big escape for teens in a social conundrum, Damour said.

“These are sophisticated emotions that require neurological development to come into play,” she said.

Eye rolls and sarcasm are part of growing up

Looking at the islands in Riley's brain that represent different parts of her personality, the Island of Friends became big and exciting, while the one aimed at family became smaller and took a slight step back.

This moment in the film should be both a comfort and a lesson for families: Teenagers can focus on their friends, which is both natural and helpful.

“The job of teenagers is to become more and more independent,” Damour said. They may not be ready to be physically independent yet, so they train by developing psychological independence, she added.

“In other words, it would be very strange if teenagers continued to be so close to their parents and share everything with their parents, and then all of a sudden, one day, they were like, 'OK, now I'm moving “.,'” Damour said.

When they were toddlers, they learned that they could say they didn't like broccoli. As teenagers, they learn that they have the right to express their opinions — and that the adults in their lives aren't always right, Steinberg said.

“The reason they do that is they say, 'I'm a person who has my own style and my own way of being,'” he added.

But the attempt at independence can fail when parents or guardians take a look or sarcastic comment as rejection, she said.

Instead, Damour recommends trying to avoid making the situation worse with retaliation and anger.

“It's often best for parents to recognize that this is the normal course of events and just try to be neutral and say something like, 'You know what? It’s rude,” she added.

Still, no one will get the answer right every time, Damour said.

Teenagers discover who they are going to be

If you ask kids who they are, they'll tell you concrete things like what sports they play or where they live, said Steinberg, author of “You and Your Adolescent, New and Revised Edition: The Essential Guide for Ages 10-25”. »

If you ask a teenager, you'll get a more complex answer with nuanced personality traits, he adds. This understanding of complexity brings benefits and challenges, he said.

“We want people to think about who they are and where they are going. We want them to have a sophisticated understanding of themselves and others,” Steinberg said.

“It's one of the things that makes adolescents vulnerable to mental health issues, because if you have the ability to reflect on who you are, then you have the ability to understand not only your strengths but also your weaknesses. »

As they develop self-esteem, adolescents begin to assess their worth, Damour said. Often, self-confidence drops in adolescents who do not evaluate themselves well.

“They feel that if they’re not perfect, they’re worthless,” she added.

Social media, academics, and sports provide many opportunities for teens to compare themselves to their peers. Their goal — with the help of the adults around them — should therefore be to learn to recognize their flaws while still seeing themselves as valuable, Damour said.

Teenagers are more prone to anxiety

People can experience anxiety at any age, but teenagers are particularly vulnerable.

Adolescent brains are more sensitive to social situations and willing to prioritize their place in the group, Steinberg said.

“When entering a new social situation, it makes sense that people experience more anxiety during this developmental period than before or after,” he added.

But that feeling of anxiety isn't inherently bad, Damour said.

“Anxiety is valuable to adolescents if it helps them, for example, pass a test that they didn’t study for,” she said. “Anxiety is there to help us correct course, to anticipate problems or threats.”

Things spiral out of control in the film when anxiety steers the ship, and the visual depiction of this unleashed emotion offers an important lesson. for teenagers, Damour said.

“One of the ways we define irrational anxiety is that you overestimate threats and underestimate your ability to deal with them,” she said.

“When we help people clinically manage their anxiety, we're not actually trying to get rid of their anxiety. We are trying to bring it back to the right level.

Your children still need your support

What are you doing to help your teenager through these major psychological transitions?

Don't raise your hand and try to be their best friend when they start pushing for independence, Steinberg said.

“It’s actually important that we hold them to high standards for how they treat people,” Damour said. “But it is significantly different if parents can remember that adolescence is not something that adolescents do to adults, but that it is a complex developmental phase that they go through.”

Maintain warmth and connection with a child while respecting your boundaries, Steinberg said. And swap out the “because I said so” with more conversations, he added.

It's also important to open conversations about feelings — letting your teen know that it's not wrong for them to feel deeply, but that you are caring and willing to help them work through those feelings, Steinberg said. .

“I don't think a parent should ever say something like, 'Well, don't let things bother you,' or 'The amount of anger you're expressing is disproportionate to what happened.'” , did he declare. “You don’t want to be dismissive.”

Caregivers may feel the need to protect children from the painful experiences that come with growing up, but we need to demonstrate that uncomfortable feelings are important and valuable, Damour said.

Feelings are abstract, which can make it difficult to discuss them. Damour said she hopes that entertainment and media that normalize emotions and give them visual representation can provide families with a starting point. Because often, just reaching out to teens and helping them identify their feelings is a good way to resolve problems, she added.

“As soon as you talk about a feeling, it comes down to size,” Damour said. “You don’t have to be able to fix the problem. We need to be able to talk about it. »