A world-first Australian study has shown helping parents to better recognise and respond to emotions in themselves and their children can measurably change how their adolescent children’s brains develop, and improve their mental health.
Led by Orygen and published today in JAMA Paediatrics, the study investigated whether an emotion-focused program delivered to parents could impact brain function in their children (aged 10 to 12), through a randomised clinical trial of 70 girls, who experienced symptoms of anxiety and depression, and their mothers.
Lead author of the study and postdoctoral research fellow at Deakin University, Sylvia Lin, said that the transition from childhood to adolescence is a particularly significant time in brain development.
“The early adolescent brain is very ‘plastic’, which means that it is very sensitive to environmental influences such as parenting,” Lin said.
“At the same time, it is also a time of heightened vulnerability to difficulties with emotion regulation and what we call ‘internalising problems’ such as feelings of anxiety and depression.
“The findings provide the first evidence that emotion-focused parenting can actually impact the functioning of a young person’s prefrontal cortex – and this is, in turn, associated with a decrease in internalising problems.”
As part of the trial, half the mothers took part in a parenting program called Tuning in to Teens, which involves psychoeducation, reflective discussions and role-playing to help parents develop their ability to recognise, accept, validate, and respond supportively to their adolescent’s emotions. The other half did not take part in the program.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was used to analyse the teens’ brains at the start of the trial and again six months later. The teens whose mothers participated in the parenting program showed changes in the lateral prefrontal cortex, the brain’s “control centre” that supports emotion regulation.
“As early adolescence is a period when the neural architecture supporting emotion regulation is undergoing dynamic development, these findings suggest that parents have a vital role to play in helping young people lay the foundations for healthy emotion-related neural function,” Lin said.
“That’s why it’s important we support parents with programs like Tuning in to Teens, which help them to develop their own emotion regulation skills, understand where their beliefs and feelings about emotions come from, and how these beliefs might lead to automatic reactions.
“Young people learn by observing and modelling how their parents express and regulate their emotions, so when parents learn more adaptive ways to regulate emotions, their children benefit too.”
The researchers hope the study will contribute to a broader cultural shift where emotions are understood, valued, and can be openly discussed – to not only support healthy brain development in teens, but to also strengthen family connections.