Raising Good Humans | "Adolescence Isn’t What We Think: The Real Reason Your Teen Isn’t Listening to You, Why They Push Back, and More" Host: Dr. Aliza Pressman | Guest: Matt Richtel (NYT Journalist) | Air date: November 21, 2025
Episode Overview
This episode explores the misunderstood realities of adolescence, drawing insights from New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Matt Richtel’s latest book, How We Grow: Understanding Adolescence. Dr. Aliza Pressman and Richtel challenge traditional thinking about teens, reframing adolescence as a critical period of “information processing and integration” rather than just a tumultuous hormonal phase. They offer practical, compassionate guidance for parents navigating the emotionally charged, rapidly evolving landscape their kids are growing up in—emphasizing empathy, curiosity, and self-regulation over panic or control.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Redefining Adolescence: Not Just “Teen” Years
- Adolescence is broader and longer than typically assumed—starting around age 9 and extending to 28 when it comes to brain development, not just the high school years. (00:10)
- Richtel asserts: “125 years of scholarship about adolescence have been fundamentally wrong.” (03:35)
- His new framework: Adolescence is “the integration of the known and the unknown with a highly sensitized brain.” (03:40)
- The "known": what parents/society teach; the "unknown": what’s actually needed to adapt to a rapidly changing world.
2. The Purpose of Teen Pushback: Integration & Conflict
- Adolescence is a necessary handoff between generations; both internal (self) and external (parent/child) conflicts arise as teens sort out which values and knowledge to hold onto or adapt. (04:19)
- Parental attempts to “just take away the phone” or enforce old rules often miss the wider developmental process at play. Richtel points out: “It doesn’t actually address this underlying question of what adolescence is… and why it’s vital.” (05:27)
3. Information Processing: Survival and Pushback
- Ditching age-based assumptions, Richtel encourages seeing teens as organisms processing information—not just “kids who don’t know better.” (10:40)
- Some rules (“never drink and drive”) remain vital, but many others are in flux.
- Example: Parent panic over Elvis parallels today’s social media fears; history repeats in every new generation. (11:52)
4. Entitlement & Self-Regulation: Why Saying “No” Matters
- Overabundance and instant gratification (e.g., always-available soda versus a weekly treat) fuel entitlement. (15:00)
- Teaching restraint and self-regulation is key: “Just declaring their desire… does not make it so.” (15:59)
- Reading is used as an analogy—parents are certain it’s good because it worked for them, but new forms of learning (like podcasts) may serve similar developmental needs. (17:41)
5. The Experience of Adolescence: Emotional Overload & Self-Regulation Tools
- Richtel offers a relatable exercise: Imagine simultaneous overload at work/home, leading to an outburst at a stranger—“that is a moment of adolescence. Teens feel that way all the time.” (19:00)
- Parental rationalizing or overloading “frozen” teens with more info only worsens matters.
- “It’s like hitting the enter key on the blue screen of your computer.” – Richtel (20:58)
- Real tools: physical “reboots” (cold water, exercise), DBT/CBT skills—not just talk. (22:14)
6. Adolescent Behavior Is Not Personal
- Stanford “puidish” study: Teens biologically shift towards novel (stranger) voices around puberty as a survival adaptation—parents shouldn’t take their kids’ inattentiveness personally. (32:54)
- “There are like 6 billion people more compelling to the adolescent brain than their parent… It is for their survival.” (33:56)
- “Love, lead, and let go”: Safety via unconditional love; clear survival rules; then release attachment to achievement as self-worth. (37:06)
7. Parents Are Also Experiencing ‘Adolescence’
- Our rapidly changing world places everyone—adults included—in a continued state of reconciling known and unknown, often resulting in overload and “adult versions of adolescent road rage.” (27:13)
- Practicing emotional regulation starts with the parent: “It’s not just modeling… it’s understanding what it means to reboot yourself so you can teach your kid to reboot.” (28:00)
8. Competition & Co-Existence Across Generations
- As life expectancy increases, parents/kids are now “in competition” for opportunity, attention, and adaptation to new paradigms (e.g., TikTok as new economics/social order). (38:04)
- Teens’ push to diversify and create “new management” is both genetic and sociological. (39:25)
9. Curiosity: The Most Important Lifelong Skill
- Adolescence is a period of intense learning and plasticity, followed by “pruning” in the brain—what endures is curiosity, which equips for ongoing adaptation. (43:04)
- “Maybe the single most important thing you could teach your kids… is curiosity.” (43:37)
10. Generation Rumination: The Double-Edged Sword of Connection
- Today’s teens, when overloaded and without coping strategies, often “ruminate” or co-ruminate as a means of connection.
- “You’re putting a name to emotional explosions that is not correct and then reinforcing that name over and over.” (54:32)
- This generation absorbs parental panic—parents as “the original form of social media,” amplifying anxiety at home. (57:00)
11. Living With Ambiguity & Emphasizing “You’ll Be Okay”
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Top skills for adolescence (and adulthood):
- Curiosity
- Living with ambiguity
- Coping mechanisms
- The sense that “things will be okay” (58:40)
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“If I was going to have young people walk away with two things, it’d be curiosity and the sense that everything will be okay.” (56:55)
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- “Adolescence is the integration of the known and the unknown with a highly sensitized brain.” – Matt Richtel (03:35)
- “What you know better is how the world has worked to this point… But for your kid, survival depends on learning what works now.” – Richtel (11:10)
- “If you’re hitting the enter key—if you’re trying to rationalize with them when they’re overloaded—it’s like entering ones and zeros into this thing that is just exploding.” – Richtel (21:10)
- “Unconditional love is how you create safety; lead is how you let them know what’s vital; and let go—it ain’t about you.” – Richtel (37:12)
- “Parent panic is a version of road rage—a struggle to reconcile the known and unknown in a fast-changing world… we deal with it by declaring things.” – Richtel (57:56)
- “Things are going to be okay, and it’s hard to believe that with all the voices out there.” – Pressman (62:45)
- “Maybe someday we’ll learn that screens all day is fine, but in the meantime, we know that sleep, exercise, and in-person connection are crucial.” – Richtel (61:04)
Timestamps for Key Segments
- 00:10 — Redefining adolescence (ages 9–28), why it lasts longer than parents think
- 03:35 — Richtel’s “integration of known and unknown” framework for adolescence
- 15:00 — Entitlement, instant gratification, and what it teaches teens
- 19:00 — Emotional overload exercise; why adolescence feels so overwhelming
- 20:58 — How parental rationalizing “freezes” emotionally overloaded teens
- 32:54 — The “puidish” study: Why teens tune out parents
- 37:12 — “Love, lead, and let go”: Roadmap for parenting teens
- 43:04 — Brain “pruning” and why curiosity is crucial
- 54:32 — Rumination and co-rumination among teens today
- 56:55/58:40 — Top takeaways needed to thrive: curiosity, ambiguity, coping, hope
- 61:04 — Healthy habits in a digital world: sleep, exercise, in-person time
Summary Takeaways
- Adolescence is a vital, purpose-driven stage—teens aren’t difficult just to be oppositional, but because their brains are wired to test, learn, and adapt.
- Much of what parents fear (phones, disinterest, rebellion) is actually adaptive, not pathological—provided kids get firm guidance on true “survival” rules and opportunities to build emotional coping skills.
- Instead of over-pathologizing or micromanaging, focus on modeling reboot strategies, teaching curiosity, and letting go of control.
- Living with ambiguity and maintaining optimism (“things will be okay”) are essential—both for kids and for ourselves.
This episode is a must-listen for any parent (or teacher, or mentor) who feels overwhelmed, confused, or anxious about the adolescent years and wants to approach them with more wisdom, empathy, and hope.