The Science of Neural Pruning

The process of neural (or synaptic) pruning, is one of the most fascinating—and overlooked—parts of child development.

There is an old saying many scientists use:

"Neurons that fire together, wire together."

But there is another phrase that I think is just as important:

"Neurons that don't fire much...eventually lose their place."

Many parents assume that childhood and growth is about learning new skills. But childhood is also about which skills the brain will keep....

And nowhere is this process more important than during the pre-teen years (approximately ages 8–12).

Want to know why? Keep reading...

A quick definition of NEURAL PATHWAYS for you: Neural pathways are connections in the brain that are formed and strengthened through experience. We have neural pathways for everything we do, think, feel, and believe—from speech and movement to problem-solving, emotional responses, habits, and beliefs about ourselves and the world.

The pathways we use most often become the strongest and easiest for the brain to access. In many ways, habits are simply strong neural pathways that have been reinforced through repetition.

The brain doesn't determine whether a pathway is supportive or limiting - it strengthens what gets repeated. Thoughts can become habits - whether they are positive or negative. Emotional reactions can become habits. Even the way we respond to challenges, mistakes, and setbacks can become habitual.

In simple terms: the more we practice something, repeat a thought, engage in a behavior, or experience a particular emotional response, the stronger the neural connections associated with it become. The brain becomes more efficient at doing what it has practiced most.

In the Younger Years, Your Child's Brain Grows Like A Forest

Imagine walking through a forest where there are thousands of tiny trails. Some are used every day. Others haven't been walked in years. Over time, the well-used paths become wider, smoother, and easier to travel.

The unused paths slowly become covered by weeds and shrubs and it becomes harder to walk those paths without obstacles. The paths of least resistance are more desired for a safe and less arduous journey through the forest - right?

Your child's brain works remarkably similarly.

Early childhood is characterized by an enormous number of neural connections being built. Children are incredibly primed to learn languages, movement, relationships, emotions, habits, and ways of thinking.

As children approach adolescence (10+), the brain begins an extended process of synaptic pruning. Visually, I think of this as "pruning hedges." But in reality, it's more like the pathways are still there, just when they are less used, the "weeds and shrubs" over shadow them, making them less accessible to the child.

This pruning process is intended to make the brain more efficient during a time of immense human growth and development, by strengthening frequently used neural pathways while reducing connections that are rarely activated. It's not necessarily about "deleting" information, but more like upgrading our journey from a maze of side roads to a network of well-paved, easy to access highways that seem "safe."

So what does this mean for your developing child?

When children repeatedly practice perseverance, healthy self-talk, emotional regulation, conflict resolution, problem-solving, handling mistakes and failure effectively, and trying again after setbacks, those neural pathways become stronger and easier for the brain to access; they're strengthening the neural pathways that support resilience, confidence, emotional regulation, and a growth mindset. Conversely, when these skills are rarely practiced—or adults consistently step in before children have the opportunity to use them—those pathways receive fewer "repetitions" and become less efficient to access when life inevitably becomes challenging. So as your child enters their teen years, and their brain tries to become more efficient, the lesser used skills become less accessible - especially when they might truly need them...

The Adolescent Brain Is Remodeling

Scientists have found major changes occurring throughout adolescence, including:

• strengthening important neural networks

• pruning inefficient connections

• improving communication between brain regions

• increasing processing efficiency

• refining executive functioning

• reorganizing emotional and social circuits

Importantly, these changes are heavily influenced by the experiences kids have over and over again.

The brain asks one question repeatedly:

"Which pathways should we keep because they're being used?"

That means repeated experiences—not occasional lessons—shape what becomes increasingly automatic over time for the child.

The Skills We Practice Become the Skills That Feel Natural

Neural pruning doesn't choose "good" pathways only. It chooses frequently used pathways:

If a child repeatedly practices:

"I can figure this out," those networks strengthen.

If they repeatedly practice: "I give up." those pathways strengthen instead.

The brain isn't making moral judgments.

It's becoming efficient.

Why Ages 8–12 Are Such an Important Opportunity

Many parents may wait to take action until challenges start surfacing around kids' belief systems, self-talk, confidence, self-esteem and resilience - which makes sense, because now the problem is more palpable and prominent (a.k.a. urgent). There is a challenge though if we are waiting until the teenage years to intentionally teach confidence, resilience, emotional regulation, or growth mindset: By then, they're working with a brain that's already becoming more specialized in what its most familiar with, habitual with, and comfortable doing.

The pre-teen years though, provide something unique:

Children are becoming capable of:

• abstract thinking

• self-reflection

• understanding emotions

• perspective taking

• planning ahead

• evaluating consequences

• building identity

And their brains remain highly influenceable.

This combination makes ages 8–12 an especially powerful period for practicing lifelong emotional and growth mindset skills.

Skills Worth Practicing Before the Teen Years

1. Resilience

Every manageable challenge teaches the brain: "I've survived hard things before."

Children don't build resilience by avoiding discomfort. They don't build resilience by having parents step in and do things for them, or by being rescued during developmentally aligned challenges.

They build resilience by experiencing support while moving through discomfort. This means kids need to actively build frustration tolerance, disappointment tolerance, tolerance for hearing a "No" or "Not yet,", managing and coping through rules, limits or boundaries set in empowered family systems, etc.

They also build resilience skills through explicit coaching and guidance out-of-the-moment (away from distressing moments). For example social skills and communication skills: Are kids learning how to express emotions or needs instead of making judgments? Are they learning to repair after conflict? Are they learning to differentiate between a fact and opinion when someone makes a negative comment about them? Can they decipher which thoughts and beliefs they have that are limiting or supporting them, and build new beliefs? Etc.

Recent systematic research continue to show that resilience-building interventions during the pre-teen years can improve emotional well-being and coping, although effects vary depending on consistency.

2. Experiencing the Magic of Mistakes

Children who are given space to make age-appropriate mistakes learn: Mistakes are information. Not identity.

That shift creates a healthier relationship with effort, persistence, and growth. If parents, teachers and caregivers are admonishing or correcting each mistake or misstep a child has, or in environments where criticism is high, the child learns that mistakes are not safe... This creates anxiety...

In my coaching programs for kids, I teach kids the 5-Step System for handling mistakes 🙂 We use it almost daily in my own family.

I've created some versions of this for younger kids too...

3. Celebrating Progress

Many children naturally focus on what went wrong. All humans have something called the Negativity Bias - I have a couple of kid-modules on this too - I call it "Getting Caught in the Sticky Slime of Negative Thoughts." (Yes, you can guess that we make slime in session - one of the fun sensory activities we get to do!)

To help them reduce focusing on the negative, we want to do the following:

• focus on effort and process more, less on the outcome.

• focus on what took courage and vocalize that to them (E.g. "I think it took courage to say "Hi" to the new kid in class. Way to go!"), and have them track their "courage" moments (Yes, I have Kids Modules on Courage too!)

• notice improvement

• notice persistence

• track successes & wins DAILY (yes DAILY) (Yes, I have kids modules on that too!)

All of these strengthens attention toward competence rather than deficiency.

Over time, this contributes to a more balanced internal narrative.

Understanding how natural psychological cognitive biases work help kids understand it's not that something's wrong with them, but that their brain is evolutionary wired a certain way, and through expert coaching and guidance, we can help them understand these biases and build plans to combat their effects...

4. Positive Self-Talk

Children develop an internal voice long before adulthood. That voice often sounds remarkably similar to the messages they repeatedly hear and practice.

When children learn to replace:

"I'm terrible at this."

with

"I'm still learning."

they aren't pretending.

They're building more adaptive thinking patterns that become easier to access with repetition. But this is much more accessible to do under the age of 12. If you wait until the teen years, when pruning is underway it can be harder (not impossible) to reach through to your teenager....

5. Expanding the Comfort Zone

Confidence rarely comes first. Action usually does.

When my daughter was gearing up for her first "Grad Level 1" Swim class (full lengths of pool), she was nervous. I remained as neutral as I could, normalizing that it's swim class as usual. I didn't ask her to be less nervous, nor even use a calming tool (remember, being nervous is survivable... and she naturally would squeeze my hand and breathe anyways). I gave her love, care, hugs and touch. But not sympathy. Nor did I use many words (sometimes too many words just jumble up our feelings...). And after class, she herself said, "Huh, mom. That wasn't as hard as I was thinking it would be." I just repeated what she said, "Yeah! It wasn't as hard as you thought. Way to go!"

Every time children try something slightly uncomfortable, the brain updates its prediction:

"That wasn't as dangerous as I expected."

Finding our "brave" through conscious action is what helps; not waiting until we feel certainty and assurance. This is a great thing to build into nervous system health; we can train ourselves to take healthy risks that support our lives. Developing coping skills helps with this for varying contexts.

6. Setting Goals and Trying Again

Persistence is a skill.

Children who repeatedly set goals, encounter setbacks, adjust, and continue are strengthening executive functioning systems involved in planning, flexibility, and self-monitoring. I call it "turning our frustration into determination" and have even written a children's story about this topic.

So far, most pre-teens I've coached don't necessarily have goals set. Yet, we all have things we strive for, we just don't get clarity on them...

Starting the process early - like age 4 - teaches kids things around effort, persistence, patience, determination and focus. Start with 2 things: A wish list (stuff they might like/want), and a Goals List (stuff they want do do, experience or practice).

For example, on my kids wish lists they write toys, books or puzzles they'd like. This makes shopping with them easier: they ask for a Lego set? Respond with "Oh you like that huh? Write it on your wish list when you get home! Birthday/Christmas is coming - right?" For Goals, they've written stuff like "Go to the Fun Farm" and "Visit a Beach."

In addition to that, starting a save-spend-share piggy bank goes a long way into tactile processing around the value of money, patience, planning and saving for things they'd like. Over-indulging our kids on material goods has other impacts on their mental well-being as well... . Check out this kids save-spend-share tool out on amazon.

7. Developing an Inner Compass

I remember working with a 10 year old girl who was falling in with the "mean girl group" at school. They were her best friends but were engaging in teasing/bullying behavior (and yes, I don't like using the term "mean-girl group" - kids form these kinds of "groups" unconsciously because of what's happening in their internal world and unmet needs...). We worked extensively on developing her values-systems, redefining friendships, and how to "Choose Me" instead of being influenced to fit-in.

As peer influence increases during adolescence, children benefit from having already practiced asking:

• What matters to me?

• What kind of person do I want to become?

• What aligns with my values?

This internal guidance system becomes increasingly important as external influences grow stronger.

Being able to discuss family values explicitly, define personal standards for relationships and so on can be a game-changer as the teen years approach.

A parent in a recent session literally said to me, "Ashley, there's got to be a way we make some kind of checklist of what to look for in relationships!" And yes, there are many versions of this already on the internet.

8. Emotional Literacy

One of the toughest lived experiences that I can speak from is that not having emotional vocabulary caused me to simply question myself and my truths. As a teen struggling with self-image, instead of being able to say "I feel confused and hurt by what (xyz person) said," I simply went to "What's wrong with me, why am I like this?" No one had educated me that what I feel is separate from who I am. If I felt "wrong" or "bad" inside then it must've been because I was "bad" or something was "wrong" with me. Without the explicit guidance and awareness on this, I just grappled with all my complicated emotions as a teenager - on my own!

This is why I cannot emphasize enough the importance of Emotional Literacy and Coping Skills.

Children who can identify emotions are better positioned to regulate them. Naming emotions activates brain networks involved in reflection and regulation rather than simply reacting impulsively.

Developing emotional awareness before adolescence gives children a larger emotional vocabulary during years when feelings naturally become more complex.

Having worked with married couples from around the world, one of the most contentious issues my parent-clients face is around emotional mis-attunement and the barriers it erects in intimate relationships. But the problem is that most of us who are married and parenting today, didn't get an adequate emotional education when we were children... This causes us problems in adulthood....

We can shift the narrative for our children though, if we take action today.

When Parent Over-correct for Their Own Childhoods...

Many loving parents accidentally over-function.

We solve.

We rescue.

We prevent frustration.

We smooth the road for our kids.

Most over-functioning is a result of our childhood conditioning and what we experienced in our youth.Our subconscious mind and our nervous system is always taking notes about life and our experiences. It ingrains those "notes" deep inside and when situations arise today, that resemble, even in the slightest, something from our past, it can activate reactions in response to those subconscious memories.

For example if you were emotionally neglected as a child, today, when you see your child emotionally struggling during a tough situation (which is essentially still safe), you may feel a strong automatic urge to step in. This is not your fault, and this makes complete sense. Yet are we stepping in before the child can build competence and self-efficacy? (Context matters of course...) Do you want to know if you have over-functioning tendencies or how strong they are? Please consider taking my Quiz which will provide you a Personalized Pattern Profile.

Unfortunately, the brain doesn't strengthen pathways for skills it never gets to practice.

You haven't missed your chance...

Some parents might hear about neural pruning and worry:

"Have I missed my chance?"

Absolutely not.

The brain remains capable of learning throughout life.

Neuroplasticity remains accessible.

However, many researchers describe adolescence as a particularly sensitive developmental period in which experiences can have an outsized influence on the organization and efficiency of brain networks. That means these years are an opportunity...

The Takeaway

The pre-teen years are far more than a bridge between childhood and adolescence.

They are a remarkable period when the brain is deciding:

• Which habits become automatic.

• Which coping strategies become familiar.

• Which beliefs become deeply practiced.

• Which emotional responses become increasingly efficient.

Every healthy conversation.

Every challenge attempted.

Every repaired mistake.

Every encouraging word.

Opportunities to try again after a fumble (without being rescued).

These experiences become repeated "reps" for the developing brain.

As parents, we aren't trying to raise children who never struggle. Nor are we saying stand back and remove the support they need. In stead, we're saying let's help them build the neural pathways they'll rely on when they do eventually struggle in life...

And that may be one of the greatest gifts we can offer before the teenage years begin.

If this article has given you a new appreciation for just how important the pre-teen years are, don't let that awareness become pressure—it can become purpose.

The goal isn't to create a perfect child before the teenage years. It's to intentionally strengthen the life skills that support confidence, resilience, emotional well-being, healthy relationships, and independent decision-making while the brain is especially receptive to learning through experience.

Imagine your child entering their teen years with a stronger inner voice than their inner critic. With the confidence to try again after setbacks. With the emotional skills to navigate disappointment, friendships, and growing independence. With an inner compass that helps them make choices aligned with their values instead of simply following the crowd.

Those skills don't develop overnight.

That's exactly why I created my Self-Esteem & Confidence Coaching Programs for children ages 7–12. Rather than waiting until challenges become deeply ingrained, we intentionally build the emotional, cognitive, and confidence skills that help children thrive as they move into adolescence. Parents are coached alongside their child so these skills continue to grow long after our sessions together.

If you'd like to learn more about the program, visit my Coaching for Kids page.

And if you're wondering whether this proactive approach is the right fit for your family, I'd love to meet you. Book a complimentary Child Coaching Consultation, and we'll talk about your child's stage of development, your family's goals, and whether coaching can help lay a strong foundation for the years ahead.

The pre-teen years are a remarkable opportunity. Let's make the most of them—together.

-Ashley Anjlien Kumar

WHO IS THE CONFIDENCE COACH FOR KIDS & PARENTS?

As a Self-Esteem and Self-Confidence Coach for Kids and Certified Master Parenting Coach, I help families create cohesive, connected and expressive teams where the focus is to help kids gain sensational self-confidence and soaring self-esteem, while helping parents overcome hurdles that prevent them from achieving the supportive and peaceful family system they desire.

For kids, I use a 6 step system rooted in story-telling and multisensory learning to go from disempowered, disengaged and unmotivated to self-empowered, self-connected and self-motivated.

With parents, I have a unique and very comprehensive 14 step approach that allows us to explore parenting patterns that play a role in the challenges kids and families experience - which impact overall well-being in addition to academics and school performance.

The goal is to provide information, awareness, strategies, and develop skills so that parents can grow into conscious, confident and empowered family leaders. All the information presented in the programs are evidence-based, researched and involve the application of modern neuroscience, nervous-system science, positive psychology, and other studies around child-brain development and human sciences. Often materials lean on experts in the fields such as Dr. Dan Siegal, Dr. Gabor Mate, and many others.

I hold your efforts towards Conscious Empowered Parenting in very high regard. I'm here to support your journey for the most important job in the world!

Ashley Anjlien Kumar, The Confidence Coach for Kids & Parents

References

1. Fuhrmann, D., Knoll, L. J., & Blakemore, S. J. (2015). Adolescence as a Sensitive Period of Brain Development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. (UCL Discovery)

2. Larsen, B., & Luna, B. (2021). Stress and adolescence: vulnerability and opportunity during a sensitive window of development. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. (ScienceDirect)

3. Zhang, Y., et al. (2023). Neurobiological correlates of resilience during childhood and adolescence: A systematic review. Clinical Psychology Review. (ScienceDirect)

4. Effects of Resilience Interventions for Adolescents and Young Adults Without Psychiatric Diagnoses: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis (2025/2026). (Springer)

5. Neurobiology of Resilience to Early Life Stress (2025). (Nature)