The toughest thing about trying to support teenage children can be just getting them to talk to you.

As Dr. Frances Jensen, author of The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults, underlines: the parts of their brains that experience emotion are well-developed, but the frontal lobe, which involves communication and self-regulation, is not.

That doesn’t mean that teenagers don’t need parents to support them. The starting point: more listening, fewer questions and withholding judgment.

Learn more about the teenage brain at http://childmind.org/blog/teenage-brain-means-parenting/

要幫助年青人,最艱難的事莫過於要他們坦誠對話。

《青春期大腦:神經科學家提供的教養青少年生存指南》的作者 弗朗西絲詹森(Frances Jensen)指出,問題在於年輕人感受情緒的大腦部分已經完成發育,但用作自我監管及溝通的額葉則未完全發育。

這並不代表年輕人不需要家長的支持,要幫助他們的第一步就是要多聆聽,少發問及維持中立。

想了解更多年青人的大腦,請參閱: http://childmind.org/blog/teenage-brain-means-parenting/