It has been established that, around the age of 12 years, adolescents decrease their reliance on concrete thinking and begin to show the capacity for abstract thinking, visualization of potential outcomes, and a logical understanding of cause and effect.23 Teens begin looking at situations and deciding whether they are safe, risky, or dangerous. These aspects of development correlate with the maturation of the frontal lobe, and is marked by a shift from the development of additional neural connections to synaptic pruning, as well as by an increase in the release of hormones, all of which drive an adolescent’s mood and impulsive behavior.
