What Changes During Adolescence?

Find a therapist to support kids and teens

Brain regions developing during teen years influence lifelong mental health.

Structure, such as predictable effort-reward sequencing, may protect against addiction, now and in adulthood.

Stress during the highly reactive, low-regulation teen years affects development across brain regions.

Social development is a key process that parents can support with a balance of autonomy and coaching.

By Eric Levine, Ed.D with Becky Shipkosky

You are the parent of a teen, and you're wondering whether or not they'll become a well-adjusted adult. The short answer is: most likely! You're not alone, and they're probably more okay than you think. As for a longer answer, the research paints a fascinating picture about what is happening in the brain during these years and how parents can guide healthy development.

Of course, parenting isn’t the whole picture; its role is often indirect. But the teen years represent an important neurodevelopmental window for long-term mental health, and parents will impact such development, whether intentionally or not. And we only get one chance. No pressure!

What can parents influence, and how do we do it?

Reward and Motivation

The brain’s reward system determines what feels rewarding and how motivation is sustained. During adolescence, the system is calibrating, notably in the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area (VTA) (Murty et al., 2018). Research suggests that stress and substance use are among the most significant disruptors of development in these brain regions (Zhu & Grace, 2022; Reynolds et al., 2023; Smith et al., 2015; Tottenham & Galván, 2016).

One of the most practical ways parents can help teens develop healthy reward and motivation systems is to provide a structured rhythm of daily life. When everyday routines are predictable, life feels more manageable and less stressful. Teens also learn that effort leads to reward, a deterrent to gravitating to immediate, high-intensity rewards from substances or behaviors such as gambling.

To turn such information into practice, parents can implement a daily rhythm that reinforces the effort-reward connection by making transitions between work and relaxation feel like a natural part of the day. A balanced afternoon might look like:

30 to 60 minutes of decompression time after school (snack, preferred activity)

Defined work block (homework, practice)

Immediate reward (back to preferred activity)

Dinner together (social connection)

Light responsibilities

Wind down (read, journal, meditate, art).

Some families may find they can also add longer-term rewards linked to wins over a week or a semester. Other teens, including those with attention or........

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