Synopses & Reviews
The first book to provide a scientific explanation of the mysterious, infuriating, and downright weird behavior of teenagers.A mother paces the living room waiting for her sixteen-year-old son to come home hours past his curfew. When he finally saunters in, he answers every question with a blank stare, dashes to his room, and slams the door. The mother, stunned and angry, thinks “It’s just hormones, right?”
Wrong. While raging hormones and an inclination toward rebellion are major players in the teenage drama, an area north of the gonads is directing the show: the brain. In The Primal Teen, Barbara Strauch examines the cutting-edge scientific discoveries that are providing vital new information about what makes teens tick.
Until recently, scientists believed the brain had largely finished its development by the teenage years. But breakthrough research by leading neuroscientists now shows that the adolescent brain is an intensely busy work-in-progress, transforming some sections, radically pruning the synaptic connections, while strengthening those connections that remain. This immense “rewiring” project provides new clues to explain the swift mood changes, out-of-character responses and reactions, and even the acts of sheer stupidity that have puzzled parents throughout history. Strauch not only sheds new light on these breakthrough findings, she shows how understanding the basis of teenage behavior can lead the way to a saner and smoother relationship between parents and their kids. Through interviews with scientists, teenagers, parents, and teachers, she explores common challenges — why teens can be so articulate and mature one day and so morose the next, why they engage in risky behavior, and why some kids struggle while others bloom — and offers practical strategies to help parents and kids manage these often difficult years.
The Primal Teen is a major step forward in deciphering and responding to the moody metamorphosis all teenagers go through.
Synopsis
While raging hormones and an inclination toward rebellion are major players in the teenage drama, the brain is actually running the show. Strauch looks at the cutting-edge science that provides vital new information about what makes teens tick and shows that understanding these findings can lead the way to a saner and smoother relationship between parent and child.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-230)and index.
About the Author
BARBARA STRAUCH is the medical science and health editor of the New York Times. She previously covered science and medical issues in Boston and Houston and directed Pulitzer Prize-winning news at Newsday. She is the mother of two teenagers and lives in Westchester County, New York.
Table of Contents
Crazy by design: the new science of the teenage brain -- The passion within: peering into the living brain in search of normal -- The age of impulse: refashioning the frontal lobes -- Altered states: how experience changes the very structure of the brain -- Making connections: growing and pruning toward maturity -- The adolescent animal: from chimps to Chekhov -- Risky business: why they do the things they do -- Corny jokes and cognition: the adolescent brain starts to get it -- Swept away: a surge of hormones swirling through the brain -- The neurons of love: how the brain gives the heart away -- Wake up! it's noon: how biology shuts off the alarm -- Falling off the tracks: new dangers from old devils -- Into another world: when things go wrong -- Coming of age: on the path to maturity.
Reading Group Guide
The first book to provide a scientific explanation of the mysterious, infuriating, and downright weird behavior of teenagers.
A mother paces the living room waiting for her sixteen-year-old son to come home hours past his curfew. When he finally saunters in, he answers every question with a blank stare, dashes to his room, and slams the door. The mother, stunned and angry, thinks “It’s just hormones, right?”
Wrong. While raging hormones and an inclination toward rebellion are major players in the teenage drama, an area north of the gonads is directing the show: the brain. In
The Primal Teen, Barbara Strauch examines the cutting-edge scientific discoveries that are providing vital new information about what makes teens tick.
Until recently, scientists believed the brain had largely finished its development by the teenage years. But breakthrough research by leading neuroscientists now shows that the adolescent brain is an intensely busy work-in-progress, transforming some sections, radically pruning the synaptic connections, while strengthening those connections that remain. This immense “rewiring” project provides new clues to explain the swift mood changes, out-of-character responses and reactions, and even the acts of sheer stupidity that have puzzled parents throughout history. Strauch not only sheds new light on these breakthrough findings, she shows how understanding the basis of teenage behavior can lead the way to a saner and smoother relationship between parents and their kids. Through interviews with scientists, teenagers, parents, and teachers, she explores common challenges — why teens can be so articulate and mature one day and so morose the next, why they engage in risky behavior, and why some kids struggle while others bloom — and offers practical strategies to help parents and kids manage these often difficult years.
The Primal Teen is a major step forward in deciphering and responding to the moody metamorphosis all teenagers go through.
1. For many years, most people thought the adolescent brain was finished, cooked, just sitting there waiting for all that Chaucer, all that calculus, all that parental caution to pour in. Now, as Strauch writes, we are finding that’s not the case. In fact, the teenage brain is still a work in progress, first bursting with new growth and then pruning back brain cells and brain branches, a process that continues well into a person’s twenties. Does this surprise you?
2. The main explanation for a lot of teenage behavior has been the rampaging hormones of adolescence that bring on moods and misbehavior. Is it also possible that teens misbehave and ignore parental authority and advice because their brains are not fully grown? What influence do you think hormones have on behavior?
3. One of the places that is still under construction in the teenage brain, according to the research outlined in The Primal Teen, is the prefrontal cortex, the area that helps us see consequences of our actions and enables us to plan ahead. Could this be one reason that teenagers often do not seem to see the full consequences of their actions? Is this just another excuse for teenage behavior or does it help us to understand why they act the way they do?
4. As Strauch reports, a number of scientists have suggested that teenagers may not see the world as we see it and may respond with different areas of their brain. In particular, in stressful situations, they may respond more quickly with their more primal, emotional part of their brain because the frontal cortex, the more rational part, is not yet fully wired. If this is so, are there ways, as parents or teachers, that we can adjust our responses to teenagers?
5. Does the lack of a fully functioning prefrontal cortex contribute to a teenager’s attraction to and assessment of risk?
6. Because the brain is still changing so dramatically in young people, new research shows that heavy drinking and drug taking may damage memory functions in the brain. And, in addition, negative experiences such as bullying or abuse can permanently reshape the pathways of the brain. What can be done in schools and at home to combat this?
7. Why don’t teenagers seem to listen? Is it true that teenagers have a difficult time holding onto several instructions at once? One neuroscientist has found that it helps, when dealing with her teenagers, to ask them to do one thing at a time, rather than tell them to brush their hair, clean up their rooms, and empty the dishwasher–and being met with the stare of inaction.
8. If we are dealing with a developing brain–one that is not the same as an adult’s–at what point can we assume that the brain is mature enough to be held responsible in the same way adults are held responsible? Do you think that this new brain science will just be used as another excuse to go easy on teenagers?
9. Are there some aspects of adolescence–the teen sense of humor, the increasing ability of teenagers to understand abstract concepts–that we should focus more on and, instead of despairing, actually celebrate?
10. Is the news that a teenager’s brain is still developing a basically hopeful message? Why?