The biological reason teens don't listen to mums, says a study (and what you can do about it)

A new study has revealed that teenagers may not be completely to blame for the way they ignore their mums - it might actually be caused by a deeper, biological reason. 

All parents of teens have shouted it at least once, twice, a hundred times in their kids' teenagehood; "Are you even listening to me?." We know that the answer is probably, "No," and that only makes it all the more frustrating. But it might not actually be their fault that they're tuning you out. 

According to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, research suggests that the part of the brain that responds to a mother’s voice may physically change when a child reaches their teenage years, making kids less interested in what mum has to say. 

Researchers found this out after scanning the brains of a selection of seven to 16-year-olds, getting them to listen to both their mums and unfamiliar women speak complete gibberish to them. 

What they found was that younger kids listened more to their mum's voice and older kids tuned more into the unfamiliar voices. And this didn't entirely shock the researchers because it's long been thought that when kids hit puberty and begin to expand their social connections beyond just family members, unfamiliar voices become more worthy of attention as their interest in the wider world grows. 

So while your teen isn't listening or talking to you, they're not being entirely unsociable, they're just tuning into different voices than yours. Plus, with the rise of technology, it's not just when your teens are physically hearing the voices of others that they'll likely be tuning you out. As Sarah Ockwell-Smith, a tween and teen expert and the author of How to Raise a Teen, told us when we spoke with her for our article on why teens don't listen to their family members, "Teens today are being sociable when they’re shut away in their rooms, they’re just being sociable with their friends, rather than us."

She also shares the scientific reason why teens don't respond well to parents' asking them to listen. "The area of their brain responsible for emotion regulation is still under development and won’t be finished for another ten years or so. Until this happens, when parents ask, 'when are you going to come and spend some time with us?' instead of answering rationally, they’re more likely to be met with huffs, eye rolls, swearing, door slamming or very often: silence," she said. "These behaviours are all normal for teens, they are not being deliberately rude or disrespectful, they’re just being a teen with a teen brain."

So what can parents do? Honestly, not much. "As a parent I’ve learned to not take my teens’ behaviour so personally," Ockwell-Smith says. "The best thing parents can do is just leave them to it."

If you're struggling to get your teen talking, we've got you covered with 25 conversation starters and the one question you should ask your teenager to improve your relationship immediately. Plus, this is what to expect when your teenager starts dating and how to get them to talk to you about it.