Attack of the Teenage Brain

Understanding and Supporting the Weird and Wonderful Adolescent Learner

By: John Medina

Narrated by: John Medina

Marvel at the neuroscientific reasons why smart teens make dumb decisions!

Behold the mind-controlling power of executive function!

Thrill to a vision of a better school for the teenage brain!

Whether you're a parent interacting with one adolescent or a teacher interacting with many, you know teens can be hard to parent and even harder to teach. The eye-rolling, the moodiness, the wandering attention, the drama. It's not you, it's them. More specifically, it's their brains.

In accessible language and with periodic references to Star Trek, motorcycle daredevils, and near-classic movies of the '80s, developmental molecular biologist John Medina, author of the New York Times best seller Brain Rules and Brain Rules for Baby, explores the neurological and evolutionary factors that drive teenage behavior and can affect both achievement and engagement. Then he proposes a research-supported counterattack: a bold redesign of educational practices and learning environments to deliberately develop teens' cognitive capacity to manage their emotions, plan, prioritize, and focus.

Attack of the Teenage Brain! is an enlightening and entertaining listen that will change the way you think about teen behavior and prompt you to consider how else parents, educators, and policymakers might collaborate to help our challenging, sometimes infuriating, often weird, and genuinely wonderful kids become more successful learners, in school and beyond.

©2018 John Medina (P)2018 Pear Press

Wish I knew years ago

After listening to the attack of the teenage brain I realized how important this would’ve been for me to know growing up. And for me to know as a parent of three children And numerous teenage foster children. I wish also that our educators would be informed to work with our teenagers in a way that would really help them. Great book give it to all your students teachers. Make sure they read it. Thank you John for this information.

I feel attacked!

I was attacked, but I liked it!!

This Audible selection is my 2nd time to listen to John Medina and I am once again MORE than pleased with my credit purchase.

Medina expertly describes the teenage brain and offers strategies on how to navigate parenting and teaching these teens (using a healthy dose of realism).

I’ve recommended this book to any educational professional that will sit still and sometimes they are FORCED to listen to me bc I am the newest member on my local school board! 😉

I highly recommend this book to any parent who has teens or will have teens or even those that have already raised teens— bc, let’s face it— they are EVERYWHERE and we all need to understand them better… and it can start with their brains. ❤️‍🩹

Good stuff. A little technical…

I’m very happy with the take from this book…good stuff. It was a bit technical for me, but I was able to filter through all of the medical jargon and still get the message.

Brilliant!

My husband and I heard John Medina speak at a parenting seminar when our children were in preschool, they are now teenagers. I’ve thought many, many times about the information that John gave me way back then and we’ve used so much of it, especially his concept of the lark versus the owl, when brains wake up and when brains go to sleep and how it’s different in various people and how schools should accommodate this type of learning. When I saw that John had written a teenage version of his incredible perspective, I jumped on it. And it did not disappoint! I want to recommend this to every parent I know, whether they have an infant or a teenager, of course it will be more potent if their kids are teens, but it helps adults and non-parents alike. Perspective is everything, and I hope what you take from this is not that our schools suck or we’re doing it wrong, but that we as parents are the ones who need to nudge for every environment our children enter, our school, our school district, or just the simple act of parenting and having a good perspective to use while navigating that adventure.

I'm ready to listen to it a second time already!

I thoroughly enjoy this author and his teaching. This book was very helpful and insightful. I wish that just like the author suggested, schools and parents and teachers everywhere of every kind could grasp this so we can save our next generation. I feel like we owe the teenagers an apology, they deserve our best effort to learn and understand them as much as possible.

Not helpful

I got 2/3 through this. Parts around the prefrontal cortex were interesting. The author goes on long tangents (eg., Greek mythology), spends too much time on neurological anatomy to no end, and generally doesn’t reach actionable points—unless they come much later. I didn’t need a graduate level neurology class, and don’t want to fix the US public school system. I want to understand and be able to better live with my teenagers.