读书笔记：The Teenage Brain
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刘昕
Book report: The Teenage brain
The Teenage Brain, a New York Times Bestseller, is authored by Frances E. Jensen. Dr. Jensen is the chair of the Department of Neurology at UPenn and a mother of two boys. As a mother, professor, researcher, and clinician, she offers her scientific expertise on the workings of the teenage brain. She also offers anecdotal advice on parenting teenagers.
My motivation for reading the work was pragmatic: having a teenager and a preteen at home, I hope to better understand and parent them. So before I dive into the details of the book, here are the book’s most pragmatic lessons.
Teens are better learners than adults because their brain cells build neural connections faster. Therefore, on the one hand, the teenage years offer tremendous growth opportunities. During these years, the IQ of ⅓ of kids increases, ⅓ decreases, and ⅓ remains the same.
On the other hand, because of the ease of building neural connections, teen brains are much more susceptible to addictions, like drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, or electronics. In fact, although not stated in the book, I think the younger the brain, the more susceptible it is to addiction.
Multi-tasking is highly destructive. It significantly impedes memory and diminishes efficiency. The brain takes pleasure in multi-tasking, which is why people tend to do it. Multitasking is also addictive, leading to habitually short attention span.
The prefrontal cortex matures the last, in the early twenties. That explains why teens tend to be more emotional, seek more risks, and show less self-control and poor judgement.
Sleep is crucial for brain development. Neural connections strengthen during sleep. In other words, sleep strengthens what we learn during the day. How wonderful!
The ability to assess consequences of actions is weak during the teenage years because the frontal lobe has yet to mature. Therefore, it is important to repeat key lessons, such as the danger of addiction.
In the mid-teen years, girls’ brains are on average two years more mature than those of boys.
A few thoughts after reading the book:
First, it is a mistake to exaggerate the effect of teenage hormonal changes, as some other books do. For example, I remember reading a couple of books with the basic theme that teenagers are crazy and parents should tolerate it. No; being a teenager is not an excuse to be irresponsible. Yet because teenage brains do not have fully developed frontal lobes, teens do need assistance in making decisions. So parents should use positive reinforcement to help kids grow.
Second, according to the book Brainstorm by Daniel Siegel, adolescence is one of the most creative periods of life. Take full advantage of that.
The book starts with an overview of on brain structures. It covers the ones relevant to cognitive and emotional functions, brain development, and the learning process. Brain development during the teenage years involves “pruning,” in which excess neurons are cut back to provide space. It also involves “myelination,” in which neurons are coated with a fatty sheath for faster and stronger connections. Such development starts from the more primitive portions of the brain and works toward the more advanced parts. The frontal lobe is the last to fully develop; hence, it is harder for teens to process emotions, control impulses, and make cognitive decisions.
Contrary to earlier beliefs, teenage brains are plastic—pruning and myelination are signs of plasticity. Therefore, the teenage years are a significant period of brain development. On the one hand, this plasticity enables teens to learn faster than adults. On the other hand, it also means that negative experiences during these years are more likely to be encoded in the brain and lead to life-long emotional and relationship problems.
The next two chapters of the book talk about sleep and taking risks. In particular, the reward centers in teen brains are wired to respond more intensely to potential rewards (such as peer approval) than adult brains are, thus making it more difficult for teens to assess risks.
The following chapters talk about the harmful impact of tobacco, alcohol, pot, hard-core drugs, stress, and mental illness on the brain, and why teens are much more susceptible to their influence than adults.
Chpt. 13 discusses the digital invasion, followed by gender, concussions, and crime. The final chapter discusses the challenges beyond adolescence.
A more detailed reading digest in Chinese by 雷春 can be found at http://www.....com/article/view/bg88u.
