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    The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults
    The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults
    The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults
    Ebook416 pages6 hours

    The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults

    By Frances E. Jensen and Amy Ellis Nutt

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A New York Times Bestseller

    Renowned neurologist Dr. Frances E. Jensen offers a revolutionary look at the brains of teenagers, dispelling myths and offering practical advice for teens, parents and teachers.

    Dr. Frances E. Jensen is chair of the department of neurology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. As a mother, teacher, researcher, clinician, and frequent lecturer to parents and teens, she is in a unique position to explain to readers the workings of the teen brain. In The Teenage Brain, Dr. Jensen brings to readers the astonishing findings that previously remained buried in academic journals.

    The root myth scientists believed for years was that the adolescent brain was essentially an adult one, only with fewer miles on it. Over the last decade, however, the scientific community has learned that the teen years encompass vitally important stages of brain development.  Samples of some of the most recent findings include:

    • Teens are better learners than adults because their brain cells more readily "build" memories. But this heightened adaptability can be hijacked by addiction, and the adolescent brain can become addicted more strongly and for a longer duration than the adult brain.
    • Studies show that girls' brains are a full two years more mature than boys' brains in the mid-teens, possibly explaining differences seen in the classroom and in social behavior.
    • Adolescents may not be as resilient to the effects of drugs as we thought. Recent experimental and human studies show that the occasional use of marijuana, for instance, can cause lingering memory problems even days after smoking, and that long-term use of pot impacts later adulthood IQ.
    • Multi-tasking causes divided attention and has been shown to reduce learning ability in the teenage brain. Multi-tasking also has some addictive qualities, which may result in habitual short attention in teenagers.
    • Emotionally stressful situations may impact the adolescent more than it would affect the adult: stress can have permanent effects on mental health and can to lead to higher risk of developing neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression.

    Dr. Jensen gathers what we’ve discovered about adolescent brain function, wiring, and capacity and explains the science in the contexts of everyday learning and multitasking, stress and memory, sleep, addiction, and decision-making.  In this groundbreaking yet accessible book, these findings also yield practical suggestions that will help adults and teenagers negotiate the mysterious world of adolescent development.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 6, 2015
    ISBN9780062067869
    Author

    Frances E. Jensen

    Frances E. Jensen, MD, is a professor of neurology and the chair of the neurology department at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. She was formerly a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, the director of translational neuroscience and the director of epilepsy research at Boston Children's Hospital, and a senior neurologist at Boston Children's Hospital and the Brigham and Women's Hospital. She is also an advocate for awareness of brain research and has delivered many public lectures and media contributions, including a TEDMED talk; many of these are related to adolescent brain development, its unique strengths and vulnerabilities, and their effects on medical, social, and educational issues unique to teenagers and young adults.

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    • 5/5
      If you educate, coach, manage, or live with a teenager or young adult, you need to read this book. The reason for much of young people’s behavior that has mystified you will become understandable. Teens and young adults should read this book to better understand and manage themselves. Frances Jensen is a neuroscientist who provides clear and science-backed explanations of teen behavior. She explains how much of that behavior is a result of the brain’s development process during the teenage years. Jensen covers a long list of important topics as they relate to teen development—learning, sleep, risk-taking, smoking, alcohol, drugs, stress, mental illness, use of digital devices, gender differences, sports, crime, and more. Throughout the book, Jensen provides recommendations for interacting with teens more effectively and ways to help them to develop into functional adults. The writing is clear and many examples are provided to illustrate points made. A valuable contribution to the literature on adolescent development written for the lay reader.
    • 5/5
      As a teacher, brother to a teenager, this book was unmeasurably enlightening. It's a very detailed and scientific exploration of the teenage psyche from the point of view of neuroscience, that provides facts and actionable advice on how to deal with teenagers.
    • 3/5
      neuroscience (teen brains). I think I wanted more of a direct: This is what you should know, this is how you should approach this. I think that info is probably in here somewhere, but the writing style is more of a conversational, this is why I decided I would write this book, etc. and this is the basic crash course in neuroscience, etc. and I didn't have patience to get to the rest.
    • 3/5
      I wish I could have liked it a bit more, and the beginning was good, but some chapters just didn't apply to me and my children, such as drug usage, concussion, etc. There are parts of the books that I wanted to skip forward, but I wasn't sure if I may miss something important among the long stories to make her point. Not bad, but could have been better.
    • 4/5
      This should be required reading for anyone who parents or teaches a teenager – and for teenagers themselves to better understand the “science” behind their decision making processes. I like that author is both a neuroscientist who understands brain development, and a parent who has experienced the sometimes perplexing behaviours of teenagers.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    The Teenage Brain - Frances E. Jensen

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