Hello ,

"It's like I'm talking to a brick wall, Mike." 

My dad used to use this phrase on me when I was in the early part of my teen years. I'm now grateful to have recently stumbled across some research that helps me understand WHY that was happening...and it WAS happening.

Well, a new study suggests there may be some science to it, after finding that teenagers' brains start tuning out their mothers' voices around the age of 13. Researchers said that this is because they no longer find it “uniquely rewarding,” and instead tune into unfamiliar voices more.

The study by the Stanford School of Medicine used MRI brain scans to give the first detailed neurobiological explanation for how teenagers begin to separate from their parents. It suggests that when your teenagers don't seem to hear you, it's not simply that they don't want to clean their room or finish their homework—their brains aren't registering your voice the way they did in pre-teenage years.

Lead study author Daniel Abrams said, “Just as an infant knows to tune into her mother's voice, an adolescent knows to tune into novel voices. As a teen, you don't know you're doing this. You're just being you: You've got your friends and new companions and you want to spend time with them. Your mind is increasingly sensitive to and attracted to these unfamiliar voices.”

Researchers said, “The brain's shift toward new voices is an aspect of healthy maturation. A child becomes independent at some point, and that has to be precipitated by an underlying biological signal. This signal helps teens engage with the world and form connections which allow them to be socially adept outside their families.”

A study published in 2016 showed that children can identify their mother's voice with extremely high accuracy. Even fetuses in utero can recognize their mother's voice before they're born. Yet with adolescents their brains are tuning away from their mother’s voice in favor of voices they've never even heard.

Brain responses to voices increased with teenagers' age. In fact, the relationship was so strong researchers could use the information in adolescents' brain scans to predict how old they were. When teens appear to be rebelling by not listening to their parents, it is because they are wired to pay more attention to voices outside their home.*

"For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust."  

Psalm 103:14

Let me be clear, there is NO excuse for sin. The last thing I want anyone to leave this devotional with, is the idea that I think that sin is okay (as long as we have an "excuse"). 

No!  

A thousand times NO!

I am grateful however, that I have a Creator Who knows all about me, yet STILL continues to be long-suffering, patient, and merciful to me. 

We parents are merciful to our own children; why would we consider that God is not merciful to His?

Our Heavenly Father knows that this is a journey that we are on. He understands that we humans have "issues," but He continues to hang in there with us for the long haul...just like any good parent would do. 

Let's be grateful that He loves us, even when we fail to listen.

Have a great day and God bless!

Pastor Mike / The Open Word