The neurological development of pre-teens and early adolescents, approximately from ages 10 to 15, is a critical period marked by significant changes that influence their socialization, capacity to build interpersonal relationships, and emotional development. These years are characterized by a heightened sensitivity to dopamine, a neurotransmitter crucial for reward, motivation, and pleasure, which profoundly affects teen behavior and interactions. The foundation for these developments, however, is laid much earlier through optimal bonding in infancy and early childhood. The quality of early bonding experiences can significantly shape how pre-teens and adolescents respond to the immediate, high-intensity stimulation experienced in tech, social media, and pornography.
Optimal bonding involves caregivers consistently meeting the infant's physical and emotional needs, providing a secure base from which the child can explore the world. Key components of optimal bonding include a reliable and predictable caring presence. Caregivers who are self-aware and responsive to their own emotional states are best able to perceive and attune to a child’s emotional state and can model for the child how to regulate their own emotions.
Regular physical contact and affection promote healthy attachment and brain development. Consistent, low intensity touch such as stroking, massages, quiet holding of body parts, synchronized breathing, eye contact and gazing, warm water, warm lotion, soothing contact lets the child know that the body is a pleasurable habitat for being. The child can experience a variety of stimulation intensities and return to a steady state of ease.
Verbal interaction including talking, singing, and reading to and with the child stimulates cognitive and language development as well as inner exploration of sensations, visual and auditory imagination stimulated by the communication.
These bonding experiences all provide a baseline foundation of organic human interaction and exchanges which center the sensory, somatic and emotional development of the child. The stimulus of bonding prepares the nervous system for self-recognition, self-regulation and resilience.
Optimal bonding influences the development of critical brain areas. Attention to early bonding contributes to the healthy development of the Pre-Frontal Cortex (PFC), enhancing decision-making, impulse control, and emotional regulation during the challenging early teens. Intentional focus on early bonding experiences, really from age 0 - 9, promotes the healthy functioning of the limbic system, the amygdala and hippocampus, which are involved in emotion and memory processing and the regulation of oxytocin and dopamine, essential for feelings of love, trust, and reward.
A lack of optimal bonding, often referred to as insecure attachment, can arise from inconsistent, neglectful, or abusive caregiving. This can lead to various neurological and psychological issues that show up as impaired emotional regulation. Parents may see their children struggling to meet the "mean girl" or "bullying" challenges of elementary and middle-school; inability to ground when faced with rejection or not belonging in social groups creates emotional stress . . . and unregulated emotions can feel extremely overwhelming without the rational, reasoning balance of frontal lobes. This developmental limitation leads to anxiety, depression, or aggression, often directed at the parents or caregivers.
Children may develop either heightened sensitivity to stress (hyperarousal) or emotional numbness (hypoarousal), also impacting their ability to cope with challenges. In lieu of choice and the capacity for self-recognition, self-regulation and resilience in relationship to others, the nervous system reacts to external stimulous from the limbic structures of the brain, essentially going into fight, flight or freeze, with no perspective or sense of self-security.
Poorly bonded, insecurely attached children often grow up to have trouble forming healthy relationships, as they may lack the self-awareness, self-trust and sensory experience of safety when everyday human challenges arise. Difficulties with intimacy and empathy are secondarily about the other person. Such difficulties are primarily about the lacking sense of internal order and connection to self that was not cultivated and grown through the early primal processes of bonding.
In the next post: The relationship between early bonding experiences and the neurological development of pre-teens and adolescents continues. Facebook, food and porn . . . stay tuned.
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