Brainstorm

The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain

By: Daniel J. Siegel M.D.

Narrated by: Daniel J. Siegel M.D.

Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Between the ages of twelve and twenty-four, the brain changes in important and, at times, challenging ways. In Brainstorm, the renowned psychiatrist and bestselling author of Parenting from the Inside Out, The Whole-Brain Child, and Mindsight, Daniel Siegel busts a number of commonly held myths about adolescence — for example, that it is merely a stage of “immaturity” filled with often “crazy” behavior — to reveal how it is in fact a vital time in our lives in terms of charting the course for the adults we ultimately become. According to Siegel, during adolescence we learn important skills, such as how to leave home and enter the larger world, how to connect deeply with others, and how to safely experiment and take risks, thereby creating strategies for dealing with the world’s increasingly complex problems.

Siegel presents listeners with an inside-out approach to focusing on how brain development affects our behavior and relationships. Drawing on important new research in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, he explores exciting ways in which understanding how the brain functions can improve the lives of adolescents, making their relationships more fulfilling and less lonely and distressing on both sides of the generational divide.

In this groundbreaking audiobook, Siegel offers teens and parents a road map for understanding the adolescent mind that will help families not just survive but also thrive through the “teenage years” and beyond.

©2013 Mind Your Brain, Inc.; 2011 David Rock and Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. Recorded by arrangement with Tarcher, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Healthy Mind Platter

Critic reviews

“Dr. Siegel aptly characterizes the teen years as the most powerful life phase for activating courage, purpose, and creativity. With his usual personal and compassionate delivery, he illustrates how we can all become more aware, empathetic, and understanding of teenagers and ourselves. A visionary and a guide, Siegel knows that if we treat teenagers with the respect and understanding they deserve, they are more likely to live up to their greatest capacities.” (Laura S. Kastner, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, University of Washington, and author of Wise-Minded Parenting: 7 Essentials for Raising Successful Tweens + Teens)

Narration for kindergarteners...

This audiobook was primarily designed, apparently, for parents and teenagers to listen to together, so that both could learn about the strengths and challenges of the teenage brain. I admire Daniel Siegel's work tremendously, and the content of the book is excellent, but he sounds to me like he is reading to kindergartners. It's definitely not Mister Rogers ("Want to hear about your brain, boys and girls?") but veering too far in that direction for my tastes. I kept listening, but thought about the adolescents with whom I work, and what their reactions might be. Being talked down to is one of their number one hot-button issues, so I'll have to do some research on reactions from a few of them...

I'll have to get the print edition

While I find the subject fascinating, the reading was tortuous to listen to. Subject material best read in print anyway.

I Really Wanted This Book To Be Good, But...

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No, as with the reviews of many of Daniel Siegel's other books, the actual usable information that was given could have been given in 1 chapter. I picked this book to learn about the teenage brain, not Dr. Siegel's own brand of Mindsight Meditation. Not that I'm against meditation, but his version is very simplistic and can't imagine the teenagers that I'm around giving it much respect as it lacks any substance.

What aspect of Daniel J. Siegel’s performance would you have changed?

Performance wasn't horrible, just repetitive nature of the whole work was unnecessary.

Do you think Brainstorm needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No.

Any additional comments?

There are many things that he says that i agree with, one of the most important is the fact that teenagers (both male & female) needs some sort of rites of passage into adulthood. Which unfortunately, they are not getting in our modern culture.

1 hour of content crammed into 10

Look the book was interesting. Just not 10 hours at 1.5 speed interesting. Very repetitive. Try the abridged version maybe.

Where's the beef?

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

If you have read any of Daniel Siegel's other books then you probably have the gist of this book. I was hoping for a lot more information on the latest research on the teenage brain, instead it was filled with the same information from Mindsight, but with a few new stories.

If you’ve listened to books by Daniel J. Siegel before, how does this one compare?

I really enjoyed Mindsight much more than this book. If I had not read Mindsight, I might have enjoyed this book a little more.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Daniel J. Siegel?

Yes! I don't know why Daniel continues to read his own books. His voice is not at all pleasing to the ears and for an auditory type such as myself, it is distracting.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Laugh!

Fluffy and not very grounded in science

My expectation was that this would be a book that would discuss scientific principles about the teenage brain. Instead a found a fluffy, meandering, book which only directly connected to the adolescent brain about 25% of the time. A lot of the book felt like an advertisement for other books he had written about the brain and psychology, and this was his attempt to sell more books by writing a version of his other books focused on adolescence. There were some snippets of interesting information in the book, but unfortunately the author did not consistently support his claims by describing the studies that validated each particular claim. The mindsight practices seemed the most fluffy and disconnected from science.

The author was also quite disorganized and overly verbose. He would explain the same idea multiple times in multiple ways, leave that idea for a new topic, and circle back to the same topic after a few paragraphs. I found his writing and ideas hard to follow because of this.

I do not recommend this book if you want to learn about the teenage brain. Find a book actually based in science and one that gets to the point and explains ideas clearly and directly.

A Must for Secondary Educators

This book is great for parents and teachers. The topics raised spoke to me on many levels: an educator, a veteran adolescent, and an aunt of nearly adolescents.

Helpful for parents, teachers, scholars

Got this so I could better understand adolescence and adolescent well-being. Found it to be very packed with helpful information and also enlightening – making me think in new ways. Also a note about the narration – I would normally speed up something that's paced the way it was, but because there was so much dense information and because of how soothing, kind, and comforting the author/narrators voice was, I found it quite enjoyable.

Not that useful

Raising our 4th adolescent and always interested in learning ways to help guide them. First 5 chapters were interesting but then went too much into a Psychiatrist mode in general and left the adolescent. Long book, give it a b- and I wouldn’t buy it.

Everyone needs to know this information!

I firmly believe that the world needs to begin mindfulness and Mindsight training in order to save the planet. Understanding the brain, and how childhood impacts adulthood (for better or worse) needs to be taught in schools. We need a new approach and now we have the science to make changes.