First, here’s what I mean by “smart.” One long-accepted understanding of “smart” involves acquiring knowledge: learning facts and basic principles. This is the primary business of middle school and high…
Here’s the overview: Over a dozen basic foundation thinking skills need to be wired during adolescence. Lots of repetitions are needed to establish skill circuits in the brain. This happens…
About the teen brain, I have some good news and some bad news. First, the good news. Nearly every adult I talk to these days has heard about the teen brain. Fifteen…
It was the summer of 1960, and I was 15. Elvis’ active duty service in the Army was behind him, and John Kennedy was running for President. My father, a…
I have a 15-year-old nephew. The last time I saw him he was doing what most kids his age are doing: sitting on a couch browsing his smartphone. At the…
In his classic parenting book, The Wonder of Boys, psychologist Michael Gurian claims that “three families – not one” are needed to raise a healthy child to be a happy,…
During the first few months of life, parents show lots of colorful, noise-making objects to their infant. Slowly, the baby learns to pay attention. The child is doing the work to program the neural…
Adults care a great deal about the youth in their communities. They want fewer kids to be at risk. They want more kids growing up to be strong, happy, successful…
If you’ve never gone to war or if you’ve never had to stay behind when your spouse is deployed, you can never fully appreciate the worry, loneliness and hardship of…
The thing I appreciate most about Michael Gurian’s parenting books is their focus on brain science. I’ve studied the human brain for 25 years, and I can tell you that…
Two decades ago, Michael Gurian’s best-selling book, The Wonder of Boys, created a stir. The push for women’s rights assumed the developmental needs of both genders were the same. Going against this assumption, he…
For many young people, low self-esteem comes with the territory. They don’t want to be thought of as children anymore, but they know they’re not adults. They lack the knowledge,…
For quite a while now, I’ve been involved in an anecdotal research project in which I interview adults about their experiences as teenagers. This effort has taught me a lot…
I’m just guessing, but it may be true that no teenager in the long history of planet Earth has ever been given “the brain talk,” even though it’s probably some…
The human brain has a unique way of developing itself. A child’s brain develops in phases. During each phase, the basic foundation for a particular brain function – such as visual perception,…