Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.

As seen in Time, USA TODAY, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and on CBS This Morning, BBC, PBS, CNN, and NPR, iGen is crucial reading to understand how the children, teens, and young adults born in the mid-1990s and later are vastly different from their Millennial predecessors, and from any other generation. With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today’s rising generation of teens and young adults. Born in the mid-1990s up to the mid-2000s, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person—perhaps contributing to their unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. But technology is not the only thing that makes iGen distinct from every generation before them; they are also different in how they spend their time, how they behave, and in their attitudes toward religion, sexuality, and politics. They socialize in completely new ways, reject once sacred social taboos, and want different things from their lives and careers. More than previous generations, they are obsessed with safety, focused on tolerance, and have no patience for inequality. With the first members of iGen just graduating from college, we all need to understand them: friends and family need to look out for them; businesses must figure out how to recruit them and sell to them; colleges and universities must know how to educate and guide them. And members of iGen also need to understand themselves as they communicate with their elders and explain their views to their older peers. Because where iGen goes, so goes our nation—and the world.

"This book explains almost all of the ′headshaking′ frustrations educators express about teens. Educators will enjoy discovering that there is a biological reason for the behaviors and attitudes that teens demonstrate. They will also appreciate the practical and down-to-earth suggestions to help students find school more appealing." —Kathy Tritz-Rhodes, Principal Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn Schools, IA Cutting-edge research meets brain-friendly strategies for teaching adolescents! Teenagers can be mystifying to educators and parents, exhibiting a daunting array of characteristics: emotional, forgetful, and fond of risk-taking. What are they thinking? What′s the best way to reach them? The revised and expanded edition of this hands-on guide helps unlock these secrets by explaining the biological and neurological changes happening in the teenage brain. Educators can use these insights from current research to help students achieve their full academic potential. Organized around specific areas of adolescent development, this resource is packed with fresh instructional strategies that can be modified and adapted to various content areas. In addition to presenting the latest facts and research findings, this guide offers: "Secrets Revealed" sections that present compelling stories and research about the growing adolescent brain Insights into the effects of technology on the brain Strategies for approaching such issues as ADHD, steroid use, and aggression An educator′s book club guide, with discussion questions Enjoy reading and talking with your colleagues about how to understand and tap the secrets of the teenage brain!

What is wrong with young people today? This question has captured the concerns of the older generation about the habits and attitudes of the adolescents in their midst. The assumption is that there is indeed something wrong with young people. Even Plato must have rolled his eyes, as he relates his diatribe about the adolescents of Greece. Is the current generation of adolescents less motivated or less focused than their parents? How will they respond to the challenges facing them as they progress to adulthood? When, in fact, do they become adults? Although every generation draws upon their own unique and varied experiences, the speed of our current societal changes has created a very different adolescent passage for contemporary youth than ever before. The world as we know it has changed significantly and because of it, much of today’s youth is decidedly different from their parents. Adolescence itself has shifted dramatically. Young children are displaying adolescent behaviors well before they are ready to act on or understand their meaning, and older adolescents are staying perpetual children. As one writer put it, “the conveyer belt that transported adolescents into adulthood has broken down”. This book provides an interdisciplinary collection of research on the constants and challenges faced by young people today. Failure to launch? Social media? Economic stagnation? For the generation that is coming of age in a post-terrorist world and in the midst of economic upheaval, the challenges might seem insurmountable. However, in this book, scholars from across the academy, from sociology, psychology, education, philosophy, science, and business, explain how the young people today are responding to the constants of growth and change in adolescence and the unique challenges of life in the 21st century.

Adolescence is one of the most fascinating and complex transitions in the human life span. Its breathtaking pace of growth and change is second only to that of infancy. Over the last two decades, the research base in the field of adolescence has had its own growth spurt. New studies have provided fresh insights while theoretical assumptions have changed and matured. This summary of an important 1998 workshop reviews key findings and addresses the most pressing research challenges.

Normally confident moms and dads grow weak-kneed when their children enter--gasp!--puberty. Barbara and Dennis Rainey, parents of six teenage or older children, map out the unfamiliar, demanding landscape of both pre-adolescence (ages 10-12), as well as the teen years that follow. "Preadolescence is when convictions are shaped; adolescence is when convictions are tested," they advise parents. In Parenting Today's Adolescent the Raineys help children and parents build a satisfying relationship while forging a vision for a productive, God-honoring life-before, during, and after adolescence.