One unwanted side effect of parenting teenagers has persistently bothered me over the years, this being how it distorts one’s own perhaps halcyon view of being “teenage”. It seems that one moment you’re looking fondly back at teen times, musing misty-eyed and rosy-spectacled: “What a magical, exciting vivid stage – human fireworks exploding, personality buds blooming, life full of possibilities like never before and, indeed, never will be again.” Next thing you know, you’re the battle-scarred parent of a teen, glaring sourly at a bunch of other teenagers in the street, thinking: “I’ve got your number, you slouchy jeaned, midriff-exposing, social media-obsessed reprobates. Right now, you’re out of the house, worrying your parents sick. Then you’ll go home, and be surly and cheeky, or both, and curdle their souls all over again, because this is what ‘teenage’ is like, experienced secondhand as a modern parent – a nightmarish continuum of heartbreak, terror and mobile phone tariffs and without so much as a shred of consideration or gratitude!”
Yes, I’m being facetious, but there have definitely been times when I would have welcomed The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults. Co-written with Amy Ellis Nutt, Dr Frances Jensen is the American author and neuroscientist of the title (“Kid’s brains are my business”). Just as importantly, Jensen steered two sons through their teenage years (not least as a single parent). Employing rigorous use of scientific data, Jensen’s central argument is that the teen brain isn’t, as she herself presumed, “an adult brain with less [sic] miles on it”. The teenage years encompass “vitally important states of brain development… full of unique vulnerabilities and exceptional strengths”.
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