Why kids are embarrassed when parent hits dance floor?
The anecdote-
“before they reached puberty, if they were messing around in a shop, parent would get them to stop by promising to sing their favourite song. After puberty, he’d get them to stop by threatening to sing their favourite song!”
Isn’t that surprising? Your kid wants your complete involvement before puberty and wants to be recognized on his/her own, without you, after the puberty. They feel embarrassed after they’re in their teens or so. Why?
A 15 year old boy or girl Very often finds cringing with embarrassment when his/her father dons that floral shirt or gets up to shake-a-leg with teen pals at and htis the dance floor birthday party. And now scientists have proposed an explanation to such behaviour amongst teenagers - “why embarrassment ?” Let’s get to the boring part, which you’ll either not like or will not understand!
The scientists allege that the adolescent brain process the emotions of embarrassment and guilt differently from those of adults.
In the first of its brain-scan study for observing adolescent behaviour, researchers at University College London identified clear differences in brain activity when teenagers and adults were asked to think about social emotions. Led by Stephanie Burnett and Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, the study found that both teens and adults use the same parts of the brain when processing emotions such as disgust and fear, which do not involve the opinions of other people.
But their scans displayed clear contrasts when they think about embarrassment or guilt.
Thus, researchers explained by saying that while adolescents make use of a particular part of the brain, called the medial prefrontal cortex, when considering these feelings, adults do not.
The findings have long-term implications, as they can even elucidate conditions such as eating disorders and anxiety, which gets pronounced after puberty and are affected by people’’s self-image.
“It is well-known anecdotally that teenagers are particularly susceptible to embarrassment caused by family and parents, and they”re much more embarrassed in front of friends than strangers,” Times Online quoted Blakemore, as saying.
He claimed that the phenomenon could be explained by the differences in activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which is involved in processing social emotions and planning.
“If teenagers have more activity in this part of the brain when they are thinking about being embarrassed, it might explain why they are more susceptible to embarrassment,” said Blakemore.
However, she claimed that it’s still not clear if the brain activity was a cause or an effect of heightened sensitivity to embarrassment.
The study results could lead to further knowledge about anorexia and bulimia, anxiety, depression and eating disorders all increase hugely in prevalence after puberty.
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