Awkward Parts

For parents of teenagers, an expert offers an unsqueamish investigation into the hidden science of adolescence

Science writer Jena Pincott turns her curiosity on the strangest subject of all: teenagers. Do teen brains naturally stop registering their parent’s voice? Why do half of adolescent boys grow breasts? Do microbes control their moods? Why, like, do they literally talk like that? And that tone—did they mean it?

Who is this kid?

In pursuit of answers, driven by her own bewildered parenting, Pincott pores over the latest science on everything from sebaceous glands, circadian clocks, and cognitive offloading, to the gut bacteria that recycle hormones—and finds that most of what’s frustrating and worrisome is either development running its course, or biology at odds with the modern world.

Drawing on neuroscience, endocrinology, microbiology, evolutionary psychology, and sociolinguistics, Awkward Parts undertakes investigations into:

• Why teens need to zone out
• The consequences of breakfast-skipping, over-caffeinating, and midnight snacking
• Where eating disorders come from
• Why they’re capable of profound empathy, yet still misread you completely
• How the foods they eat—and the gut microbiota eating it with them—affects their brain
• Why they actually need stress, and how to tell it’s the right kind
• Why their voices don’t always carry what they feel
• Why the “ick” is real
• How the window of plasticity stays open longer than anyone thought

Parents will come away tolerating more, worrying less . . . and taking it all less personally.