How to Protect Teens’ Mental Health for Life
Key brain circuits are developing in adolescence; parenting makes a difference.
Updated April 27, 2026 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano
By Eric Levine, Ed.D with Becky Shipkosky
You are the parent of a teen, and you're wondering whether or not they'll become a well-adjusted adult. The short answer is: most likely! You're not alone, and they're probably more okay than you think. As for a longer answer, the research paints a fascinating picture about what is happening in the brain during these years and how parents can guide healthy development.
Of course, parenting isn’t the whole picture; its role is often indirect. But the teen years represent an important neurodevelopmental window for long-term mental health, and parents will impact such development, whether intentionally or not. And we only get one chance. No pressure!
What can parents influence, and how do we do it?
Reward and Motivation
The brain’s reward system determines what feels rewarding and how motivation is sustained. During adolescence , the system is calibrating, notably in the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area (VTA) (Murty et al., 2018). Research suggests that stress and substance use are among the most significant disruptors of development in these brain regions (Zhu & Grace, 2022; Reynolds et al., 2023; Smith et al., 2015; Tottenham & Galván, 2016).
One of the most practical ways parents can help teens develop healthy reward and motivation systems is to provide a structured rhythm of daily life. When everyday routines are predictable, life feels more manageable and less stressful . Teens also learn that effort leads to reward, a deterrent to gravitating to immediate, high-intensity rewards from substances or behaviors such as gambling.
To turn such information into practice, parents can implement a daily rhythm that reinforces the effort-reward connection by making transitions between work and relaxation feel like a natural part of the day. A balanced afternoon might look like:
Some families may find they can also add longer-term rewards linked to wins over a week or a semester. Other teens, including those with attention or executive function differences, might benefit instead from shorter work-reward cycles or milestone-linked work blocks.
A healthy adult stress response involves activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis followed by regulation through circuitry involving the amygdala, hippocampus, and medial prefrontal cortex.
The response is different in teens for two important reasons:
The result is a system that is more easily activated and less consistently regulated.
What can parents do to facilitate healthy stress regulation development? Research points to four key behaviors: responsiveness, warmth, inductive discipline, and positive regard (Kuhlman et al., 2013; Brown et al., 2020; Gunnar et al., 1998). Good parenting practice might look like:
Note: Research regarding parental influence on HPA axis development after age 10 is insufficient, but existing studies almost unanimously agree that some influence continues well into adolescence.
As adolescents begin to define themselves as individuals separate from the family unit, several key capacities develop:
Stress and substance use are the leading threats to the social brain regions still maturing during adolescence (Tottenham & Galván, 2016; Salmanzadeh et al., 2020), as well as exposure to family or community violence and social isolation (Bradshaw & Garbarino, 2004; Li et al., 2021). As adults, adolescents who experience one or a combination of such adversities are at increased risk for depression , anxiety, aggression , social withdrawal, and substance use disorders (González-Acosta et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2022; Li et al., 2022; Sahani et al., 2021).
Parenting strategies that support healthy social development can be distilled into two core qualities: high warmth and high autonomy. Teens need both parental attention and independence. They may be hostile, but they still deeply need the presence and approval of their parents. Some specific ways to support this stage of growth are:
Most conscientious parents worry that they’re getting something wrong. (We are all getting something wrong!) But here is the reassuring news: We don’t have to get it exactly right. Consider these very encouraging facts:
Murty, V. P., Shah, H., Montez, D., Foran, W., Calabro, F., & Luna, B. (2018). Age-Related Trajectories of Functional Coupling between the VTA and Nucleus Accumbens Depend on Motivational State. Journal of Neuroscience , 38(34), 7420–7427. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.3508-17.2018
Zhu, X., & Grace, A. A. (2022). Sex- and exposure age-dependent effects of adolescent stress on ventral tegmental area dopamine system and its afferent regulators. Molecular Psychiatry , 28(2), 611–624. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-022-01820-3
Reynolds, L., Gulmez, A., Fayad, S.L., Campos, R.C., Rigoni, D., Nguyen, C., Borgne, T.L., Topilko, T., Rajot, D., Franco, C., Marti, F., Heck, N., Mourot, A., Renier, N., Barik, J., & Faure, P. (2023). Nicotine in adolescence freezes dopamine circuits in an immature state. bioRxiv . https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.28.564518
Smith, R. F., McDonald, C. G., Bergstrom, H. C., Ehlinger, D. G., & Brielmaier, J. M. (2015). Adolescent nicotine induces persisting changes in development of neural connectivity. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews , 55, 432–443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.05.019
Tottenham, N., & Galván, A. (2016). Stress and the adolescent brain. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews , 70, 217–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.07.030
Stroud, L. R., Foster, E., Papandonatos, G. D., Handwerger, K., Granger, D. A., Kivlighan, K. T., & Niaura, R. (2009). Stress response and the adolescent transition: Performance versus peer rejection stressors. Development and Psychopathology , 21(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579409000042
Gunnar, M. R., & Quevedo, K. M. (2007). Early care experiences and HPA axis regulation in children: a mechanism for later trauma vulnerability. Progress in Brain Research , 167, 137–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0079-6123(07)67010-1
Kuhlman, K. R., Olson, S. L., & Lopez‐Duran, N. L. (2013). Predicting developmental changes in internalizing symptoms: Examining the interplay between parenting and neuroendocrine stress reactivity. Developmental Psychobiology , 56(5), 908–923. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.21166
Brown, S. M., Schlueter, L. J., Hurwich-Reiss, E., Dmitrieva, J., Miles, E., & Watamura, S. E. (2020). Parental buffering in the context of poverty: positive parenting behaviors differentiate young children’s stress reactivity profiles. Development and Psychopathology , 32(5), 1778–1787. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579420001224
Gunnar, M. R. (1998). Quality of early care and buffering of neuroendocrine stress reactions: Potential effects on the developing human brain. Preventive Medicine , 27(2), 208–211. https://doi.org/10.1006/pmed.1998.0276
Salmanzadeh, H., Ahmadi-Soleimani, S. M., Pachenari, N., Azadi, M., Halliwell, R. F., Rubino, T., & Azizi, H. (2020). Adolescent drug exposure: A review of evidence for the development of persistent changes in brain function. Brain Research Bulletin , 156, 105–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainresbull.2020.01.007
Bradshaw, C. P., & Garbarino, J. (2004). Social cognition as a mediator of the influence of family and community violence on adolescent development: Implications for intervention. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences , 1036(1), 85–105. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1330.005
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