This article looks at brain development through adolescence as a key to building self-esteem and empowering youth, and offers useful suggestions that can be integrated into program planning to support self-esteem in the young parents with whom we engage.

The article, by Meghan Lynch Forder, draws on recent research findings that show “adolescence is a sweet spot for contributing to others. With massive changes happening in teens’ brains, their newfound physical, cognitive, and emotional capabilities combine to enable them to make contributions that have real benefits to the people around them. What’s more, opportunities to make such meaningful contributions appear to build exactly the skills they need to flourish as adults.”

Meaningful contributions are described as “‘contributions of consequence’ – actions that have substantial benefits to others that help to reach a shared goal. This type of contributing involves not simply taking a single action but playing an important role within a group…”

Forder notes, “Adolescence is a time of massive restructuring in the brain, creating a faster, more efficient system. Neuroimaging studies show that the neural networks that change most significantly during adolescence are the same networks activated by contributing to others”, such as the ‘social brain’ that activates in social interactions, advancing cognitive maturity which “allows them to consider the complex dynamics of other people’s competing perspectives and needs to determine whom and how to help”, and the ‘reward system’, both risk taking but also the drivers for “kind and helpful behaviors, such as contributing”.

The article reports that contributions of consequence lead to increased perceptions of happiness and reduced perceptions of stress. “Studies have shown that students who are helpful, cooperative, and sharing tend to be more popular than those who use fear or intimidation to gain status…contributing provides adolescents the experiences they need to complete the key tasks of this life stage: building autonomy, identity, and intimacy…. When their contributions are recognized, young people come to understand their place and value in the world, developing their sense of identity. Having the opportunity to provide meaningful social support to friends and family builds the intimacy they’ll need to form positive, long-lasting relationships in adulthood.”

Ways of contributing can include involvement in group decision making, providing peer support and creating participation as a social norm within their peer group, along with finding ways to serve the wider community through volunteering commitments within the programs they attend.