Brainstorm Book Review: Understanding the Adolescent Brain
Adolescence is often portrayed as a turbulent time for teens and their parents. But what if, instead of bracing for impact, we approached these years with curiosity, compassion, and a deeper understanding of what’s actually happening in the teenage brain?
That’s the invitation Dr. Daniel Siegel offers in Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. In this Brainstorm book review and parenting reflection, we explore Siegel’s insights into how adolescence is not a phase to fear, but a vital period of transformation, creativity, and growth.
Based on his conversation with Tracey Gillett of the Raised Good parenting blog, Dr. Siegel explains that adolescence is not simply an extension of childhood. It’s a profound neurological and emotional remodeling process.
Why Adolescence Is Not Just an Extension of Childhood
When parents understand the science behind this change, it becomes easier to support teens through their risk-taking, mood swings, anxiety, and push for independence with more patience and purpose. Here’s what I learned from Siegel’s work and how it’s helped me parent through the teen years with more confidence and connection.
Brainstorm is meant to be readable for adolescents and their parents, and used as a resource for both. It helps parents understand the process of what is going on with their adolescents from the inside out so they can apply it to their own children.
Having a true understanding of the brain’s function and purpose during adolescence is the best way to be present with what they are going through, instead of just checking a box of what you “should do” as a parent.
This interview with Daniel Siegel was absolutely eye opening and incredibly helpful, I gleaned so much information to help me understand my own children who are now ages 9, 17, and 21. Parenting shifts, but doesn’t end during adolescence. It takes trust in your previous parenting, letting go, regrouping time and time again, consistency with boundaries, open communication, and love.
Siegel illustrates the process of adolescence and helpful parenting tools in a factual yet interesting way, with humor and understanding. These are the highlights of his interview with Tracey Gillett from the Raised Good parenting blog.
Adolescent Brain Changes: What is Going On?
It’s true that our sweet babies suddenly seem to turn into angsty, independent, broody, risk-taking, eye-rolling teenagers. The days are long but the years are short when raising kids. One minute you’re kissing their toddler cheeks and the next they are learning to drive.
If you’re like many parents of adolescents, you might be wondering what happened to that sweet baby and what on earth is going on!
As your teen is out in the world and making their own decisions, many of us parents are on the sidelines crossing our fingers and gritting our teeth in hopes that all the parenting we have done up until adolescents continues to work its magic.
Phase One: Pruning the Brain’s Neural Pathways
During the first part of adolescence, a removal of connections and neurons that have been established in the first 12 or so of life begins taking place. This process that Siegel describes as “pruning” is essentially a remodeling of the brain where it gets rid of what isn’t being used.
This phase is a use-it-or-lose it time for the brain’s connections. The purpose for pruning existing connections is so the brain has energy to strengthen the reserved connections.
Parents, now is a good time to encourage your teen to try activities that strengthen the reserved connections in their brain. Sports teams, marching band, clubs, and dance are all wonderful examples. They will teach kids to be on time, learn how to build connections with peers, how to plan their day, and how to be reliable.
If your teen isn’t into group activities, keep them busy with their friends no matter the weather. Teens might need some ideas and help planning for the cold months of winter and too much free-time during the summer.
Too much screen time is not going to help their brains develop the skills they need during this time of intense brain growth, and it’s been shown that teens who spend too much time on social media may be at higher risk for mental health problems. There is no replacement for getting teens to interact face to face in person.
When adolescents repeatedly make unhealthy choices, those neural pathways are the ones that get reinforced. This can potentially lead to more permanent, unhelpful coping mechanisms. That’s why it’s essential to support your teen in making healthy decisions, processing emotions constructively, and setting clear boundaries for safety.
Phase Two: Strengthening and Wiring for Life
“Your mind, by changing energy flow through the focus of attention, like learning to dance, playing a sport, or communicating with a friend face to face, is developing rich networks in the brain because it’s what you are paying attention to and putting energy there.” – Daniel Siegel
The second phase of adolescence is strengthening the connections that have survived the pruning process. These skills are like specialties that older adolescents work on and pave permanent pathways for, allowing them to work more quickly and effectively.
As these skills strengthen and become more robust, new connections called myelin are laid down which connects the bigger pathways together. The differentiated areas of strength are connected, which creates a more integrated brain.
Within the second phase of brain growth for adolescents, they gain an internal compass as they build and connect their strengths. This process helps them function in a more resilient way.
It’s important to know that what they pay attention to gets their neurons to communicate with each other with more robustness, which allows proteins to produce and change the literal structure of the brain. So, just as in the first phase, the best thing you can do as a parent is support healthy choices, keep lines of communication open, and set boundaries for health and safety.
Again in this phase, if teens pay attention to negative or unhealthy coping mechanisms and life choices, then those are the systems that will become more robust. This outlines just how imperative it is that adolescents are supported with healthy ways to manage whatever it is they have going on.
My band teacher used to always say, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.” Essentially meaning that if you practice something wrong, it will be hard to correct it once it’s ingrained in your brain and a habit is formed. This rings so true now learning about how the adolescent brain works!
Parents cannot control this process, as much as we might like to. According to Siegel, the best thing a parent can do is to stay connected and linked to their teens in a way that supports rather than controls them.
Risk-Taking: A Necessary (and Nerve-Wracking) Part of Growing Up
Risk taking is a natural and important part of adolescence. While it keeps us parents on the edge of our seats and sometimes keeps us awake at night, it’s a necessary part of development for teens. It’s seen across all species during adolescence, even in lobsters!
Learning how to make their own decisions is skill-building for teens, and part of feeling out their place in the world is taking some risks. There is a greater dopamine reward in adolescence for risk-taking and novelty-seeking, so their brains are literally wired to want to try new and different things.
Adolescents have hyper-rational thinking when making decisions, so they can underestimate the potential danger, and sometimes the dopamine reward is great enough that they just don’t seem to care. Since their ability to think about the future and understand how their decisions now might effect them later, the short term solutions and impulsivity often win the race in a teen brain.
All mammals take risks to gain independence, and a parent’s job is to help them survive and to impose caution in the form of boundaries and limits for safety. Drugs and alcohol will inhibit adolescents from listening to their gut or making decisions with their hearts, so be aware of the signs of substance use.
Since we know that some risks are essential in growing a brain, as a parent you must find a middle ground between being overprotective and being too lenient. Learn how to communicate effectively and have difficult conversations with your teen, even if it feels uncomfortable. Do your best to keep the lines of communication intact as adolescents naturally push you away.
Siegel says that it’s a destructive myth that it’s normal for teens to totally push adults in their lives away.
If your teen completely shuts you out, it could be caused from a deeper issue like anxiety or depression, so it is important to screen for the signs of a more serious issue if your teen isn’t acting like their normal self. You can help them manage it with mindfulness activities, but don’t hesitate to seek help if needed.
Walking them through these processes when anxiety or depression arises is part of them learning how to take care of themselves as they grow up. Give them all of the tools available whenever you can.
The ESSENCE of Adolescence
Siegel made an acronym about adolescents to help adults remember what is going on, and why they should hold on to some of these things in their own lives. Being able to be present with your teen is essential for connection, and there’s no better way to connect than to have an empathetic perspective in which you remember what it is like to be that age.
Based on this acronym of ESSENCE, Siegel urges you to continue your own pursuit of spark and independence as an adult, as a way to remain empathetic and understanding of your teen.
ES: Emotional Spark means the enhanced emotions that are represented during adolescence whether it’s moodiness or a passion for living with fullness. Do what you are passionate about, just like teens do!
SE: Social Engagement is a major developmental part of adolescence as teens lean into their peers, learn from their peers, and find the connections with their peers of utmost importance. Relationships are key for happiness, physical, and mental health for teens and adults!
N: Novelty-seeking is represented with risk taking behavior. The upside of this behavior is that it gives adolescents the courage to try new things and leave the nest, and the downside is risky behavior and injury. Novelty-seeking with limits is a good and necessary balance for everyone!
CE: Creative Exploration is when teens push certain limits, and try to change the status quo by imagining and exploring other ways of being. It’s passion and discovery, and many innovations in technology, art, and science have come from adolescent minds.
Reconnect with Your Own Spark to Support Theirs
Committing some time to reigniting some of the essence of adolescents as adults can remind us what it was like being a teen, and will also enrich our lives. Stay connected with your friends, take that dance class, or go to a social justice event (and bring your teen!).
There’s so much we can do to remember the feeling of freedom and change when we were adolescents ourselves and the world felt new! It will make us more connected to our teens, and will also set a regulated and safe example for them to look up to.
As you can see from this review of Brainstorm, Siegel doesn’t just explain teenage behavior, he helps parents approach it with empathy, science, and confidence.
As our teens are growing, changing, and innovating the world, we have the opportunity to grow alongside them. Gone are the days of sticky hands and toddler cheeks pressed against ours – and yes, there’s grief in that.
But there’s also beauty in what’s ahead. These big kids will challenge you, surprise you, and teach you. Raising adolescents into adulthood is a new phase of connection, resilience, and transformation – for them and for us.