Welcome to Your Teenager's Brain

By: Abigail Baird, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Abigail Baird

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.

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.

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.