I saw a fascinating episode of Frontline on our local PBS affiliate last night. It was entitled, “Inside the Teenage Brain.” In typical PBS fashion, you can find a tremendous amount of related information at their site including a viewable version of the entire episode!

One insight that I learned from this broadcast was that the average teenager gets only 7.5 hours sleep and they need 9.25 hours. This “sleep debt” makes focusing and studying even more difficult. Another observation that came out of research referenced in this program was teenagers’ misinterpretation of facial expressions. It appears that the adolescent brain interprets visual displays of emotion in different areas than the adult brain. Because of this, it processes the visual stimuli differently and reaches conclusions which are inconsistent with what adult brains understand.

There is some wonderful information in this program and one of the final messages that they share with the viewer is that in spite of teenagers’ erratic emotions and potentially abrasive behavior, they really want contact with their parents. Sometimes they don’t know how to say this and their desire for independence makes it difficult for them to express it.