Adolescence covers an age range of approximately 11 to 18 years. The first change early in adolescence is that teenage brains undertake a major period of growth and restructuring. Lots of new connections are made between the cells in the brain. This means there is lots of potential for new learning – this is why it’s easier to learn new knowledge and skills when you are a teenager than when you are an adult. Later on, those connections which are not being used regularly get ‘pruned’. This means that the connections that are not used die away while the ones which are used regularly remain and get stronger. So, if we don’t continue to practise skills, we can lose them. Nicola Morgan is an international speaker and award-winning author for and about teenagers. She has written nearly 100 books, including novels such as Fleshmarket (currently being adapted for the London stage) and Mondays are Red, but in the last twelve years she has become increasingly well known for her passionate factual work on adolescence, with Blame My Brain - The Amazing Teenage Brain Revealed and The Teenage Guide to Stress being seminal titles for teenagers and the adults who work with and care about them. A former teacher and dyslexia specialist, Nicola now writes and speaks around the world on a range of subjects relating to adolescence and wellbeing, as well as the reading brain, reading for pleasure and the effects of life online. Her positive, respectful and empathetic attitude towards young people naturally led her to write Positively Teenage.

Blame My Brain was the first book in the world to show teenagers what’s going on in their heads. It changed the way adults think about adolescence. It speaks directly to teenagers but parents and teachers usually grab it and devour it eagerly. What scientists have discovered about the teenage brain will amaze, empower and reassure you, whether you’re a teenage or an adult who cares about teenagers.Find another adult for support if you feel you’re getting nowhere despite positive interactions. It can help to have another adult to talk to and connect with Writing Blame My Brain (full title – Blame My Brain – The Amazing Teenage Brain Revealed) changed my life. I’d been perfectly happy with my career as a teenage novelist, winning awards and engaging with young readers, and then, seemingly out of the blue – except not, as I’d been studying the human brain for ten years already by that stage! – I wrote the first book in the world to explore and explain the teenage brain for young people. The teenage brain differences had only very recently been discovered, notably by Jay Giedd at the NIMH in the US, and I became aware of them early on through reading that new research. And I realised this was of huge interest, reassurance and practical relevance to adolescents themselves.

An excellent read. So much so that I have now bought myself a physical copy to have in my office at work. Teenagers and their parents will find much to fascinate them in this updated edition of Nicola Morgan’s skilful, non-scientists explanation of the complex and specific science that makes teenagehood such a specific period of growing up. I was really keen to read this book as soon as I read the blurb. My long term plan post finishing my degree is to work in a library where I get to work with teenagers, I thought this would be a really useful addition to my personal library. Author of over 100 books; many awards including the School Library Association’s Outstanding Contribution to Information Books Very informative book! I recommend it to any parent, teen or person who interacts with teenagers on a regular basis. This book really helps understand what is going on inside the heads of teenagers.The motivating intuition is this: to hold someone responsible for her actions, she must have acted with free will. How do we behave independently of cause and effect?' said Jesse Bengson, a postdoctoral researcher at the center and first author on the paper. 'This shows how arbitrary states in the brain can influence apparently voluntary decisions.'" The revised edition of this classic book contains important new research, including information about the discovery of mirror neurons and their effect on the teenage brain. Dan Siegel. (2014). Brainstorm: The power and purpose of the teenage brain. Scribe Publications. London. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (2019). Inventing ourselves. The secret life of the teenage brain. Penguin Random House. London.

So what was it about a mechanistic explanation of human decisions that influenced people's moral judgments? Was it the appeal to deterministic causal processes, as the motivation for the study seemed to suggest? Remember the limbic system is more “in charge” during teenage years. This area gives us rewarding feelings from doing fun things, and this will often include risk taking behaviours. As this brain area is more impulsive and not linked to more careful and logical ways of thinking, there is more likelihood of riskier decisions being made. This helps explain that when you ask a teenager why they have done something risky or unsafe they may reply “because I felt like it”. How can we best support teenagers with risk taking? I only wish that this book had been around when dealing with my own teenager's antisocial behaviour. TESGetting enough sleep is important for everyone but especially important for teenagers. This is because sleep supports brain maturation during teenage years. Due to brain development and function, and melatonin (the hormone produced by our brains that induces sleep) being released approximately 3 hours later in the evening for teenagers than it is for adults, most teenagers have different sleep patterns compared with younger children and adults. As a result, most teenagers are not ready to sleep until late evening and may find getting up early really quite difficult. A further factor impacting on teenage sleep comes from research studies about teenagers’ use of computers, games consoles, smartphones, and social media etc. These studies have found that IT activities conducted near bedtimes can often have a stimulating effect on the brain, thereby acting as a barrier to the brain chemicals which induce sleep, and therefore preventing good sleep patterns.

Nicola Morgan (2013). Blame my brain. The amazing teenage brain revealed. Walker Books Ltd. London. Thank you to readers, parents, teachers and librarians everywhere. I am beyond grateful for the success of Blame My Brain and proud to play my part in helping adolescents and their adults understand that, difficult as adolescence can often be, it is also truly fascinating, powerful and, in the words of the title, amazing. It might be hard to believe, but the square marked A and the square marked B here are exactly the same shade of grey. We don't "see" it this way, she explains, because "when it comes to determining the colour of objects around us, our visual system can't afford to be too literal". Instead, our understanding of colour is relative, contextual; we automatically adjust for cast shadows, mentally lightening the objects they fall on.

Nicola Morgan Press Reviews

Do not try to reason with your teen when they are upset or angry. They need to be in a calm state, and feel connected to you before you can reason with them Scarrow entered an enraged state while fighting with Mahew ... When Scarrow was finally subdued by his own friends, Mahew lay bloody and unconscious. He was rushed to hospital, but never regained consciousness, and finally died two days later from massive head trauma." New research has revealed even more about the workings of the brain and it appears that teenagers are wired somewhat differently. That’s especially true when it comes to sleep – as all parents of teens know well! It is also true in regard to the taking of risks and to the taking of stimulants. The book covers six key areas; Emotions, Sleep, Risk-taking, Gender differences, Mental health issues and Brain development in older teens. Each section includes a case study, a description of what’s going on in the teenage brain, some theories of why the teenage brain might work the way it does, some useful facts and hints to help teenagers and parents survive this stage, and a quiz or activity to do. I really liked this structure, I’m sure different readers will particularly like different sections but by presenting the information in a range of ways there will definitely be something for everybody.