The bottom line is that the brain is highly responsive to the environment (meaning people places and things) during all sensitive periods of reorganization.

It’s when most rapid and most fundamental changes occur. One famous psychologist, Laurence Steinberg, used the example of remodeling and redecorating to illustrate this phenomenon. During sensitive periods, the brain is getting an overhaul, in other words, it’s being remodeled. At other periods of development, brain changes are not so extensive and are more like redecorating an already established structure.

Changes in the brain made during sensitive periods tend to persist. That is why fostering healthy coping responses to stress and emotional balance in adolescence can be so important for young people as they move into adulthood.

As Steinberg warns us; The brain’s malleability doesn’t only permit change for the better; But it also permits change for the worse.