Welcome to Your Teenager's Brain

By: Abigail Baird

Narrated by: Abigail Baird

Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Teenagers are a breed of their own. They speak their own language, they abide by their own rules, and they seem to exist to drive adults crazy. But adolescence is a typical stage of human development that is the essential preparation for success in the adult world. The more you understand about your teen’s brain, the better prepared you will be to handle this turbulent time in your child’s life.

Professor Abigail Baird has devoted the majority of her career to studying adolescence, and in this Audible Original, she shares the latest perspectives on this amazing time of cognitive and behavioral growth. The 10 lectures in this series will reveal that adolescent behavior is much easier to understand than most people think. Rather than seeing the teen years as a crucible to be endured by parents and young people alike, this series offers a practical perspective for adults who hope to help teens truly thrive in their personal journeys to adulthood - not merely to survive their adolescence.

Whether you are a parent, someone who works with teens, or even a teen yourself, this course will shed new light on a period of human development that is all too often incorrectly described as a time where psychological peril is inevitable.

©2021 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2021 Audible Originals, LLC.

I'm listening to it again

I just hit the play button to start this lecture series again. It is extremely helpful and gives a lot of great information to parents. I have a 14 year old son, a 2 year old son, and a 12 year old step-daughter. When I was younger and I was hanging out with my son, just him and I playing minecraft together while listening to books on tape, I thought to myself, "I don't have to worry about what's going to happen when he hits puberty and becomes a teenager, cause I was a teen and I understand how he will feel and why he will act the way he will, and NOTHING is going to sideline me.
Yes....I can hear my own misguided thoughts now. Wish I did back then.
I can't believe how much I forgot being a teen now that I am in my mid 30's. And even though I knew certain changes were going to happen with my son's mentality I feel like I was completely lost when it actually did.
Listening to these lectures have really helped put things in such a clearer perspective for me. I am understanding more and more about what my kids are dealing with growing up in an age of facebook and instagram and discord. Things that I never could have dreamed of when I was their age. They have computers in their pockets while I grew up with a family desktop in my father's study that I only ever used for 'Paint" and cd-rom games about dinosaurs.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

This is a must listen for parents. I look forward to the author's future works.

Every parent of teens should definitely listen

Important and helpful information I wish I had with my first born child. My only complaint is there should be more; I would love more in-depth information about social media and all technology these days and how it affects the modern teen. Worth the time and definitely recommend to all parents.

I'm so glad I took the time to listen to this

The whole time I was listening to this, I kept thinking "that makes perfect sense".

I found hope!

First book about teenagers that isn't fluff or has oversimplified suggestions. Highly recommended to all parents who survived the first ten years as a parent.

Useful & Validating

I LOVED this and will probably revisit. The author narrates very well and the content - based on neuroscience - is an incredibly refreshing perspective. I feel vindicated! Adolescents are not slaves to their hormones after all; they’re just starting to practice being adults… and will make stupid mistakes because don’t we all when we start something new? Sure, there are developmental factors to be aware of, but adolescents absolutely deserve to be treated as the highly functional humans that they are.

Must listen for parents of teens

I loved this great course. I will be listening to it again. It is not a parenting guide or advice podcast. It is a scientific look at adolescence and to paraphrase the author - we study child growth and development as a society extensively. However those studies tend to focus exclusively on the early and school age years. Adolescence is an essential phase of human growth and development and we should understand it better. I really appreciated so many lectures but 4 and 9 particularly stood out to me.

Exceeded expectations

I learned so much I didn’t know about the teenage period. Not overly American, though she does seem to think everyone listening is from the US, and that we all have similar experiences of “dating” culture. Still very very informative and well done, with a fair dollop of humanism. I would’ve loved a longer version of this. Preferably one which would have tackled special need kids as well.

Excellent!

A very helpful and insightful guide. Practical and relevant to our times, whilst also being scientifically underscored.

Interesting

This was a very interesting take on how the teenage brain develops and why teens do what they do. It completely makes sense, especially after being a teacher for sometime now and watching teens interact with each other and develop. I find them fascinating and I especially liked the chat about the helicopter and cool parents. Very well done!

My respect for my kids' thinking has been raised!

This should be on every parent's bookshelf. My respect for my kids' thinking has been raised... and I swear that is not as bad as that sounds 😁. Offered a new perspective on common situations in a new manner. I was not disappointed, talked down to or frustrated as I listened. Made me consider how I interpreted actions or statements from my kids vs. what might actually be happening. Each chapter tackled a different topic and should I so choose, I could easily hop in and out of the text. This was put together with the reader in consideration and is well worth a parent's time to sit through