If you’ve raised an adolescent (or been one), you already know it’s a life stage that can feel like an emotional rollercoaster—full of drama, defiance, and slammed doors. But what if all that chaos wasn’t a bug but a feature? Today we’re hearing from Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist Matt Richtel, who says adolescence is a brilliant, necessary phase of human development. In his new book ⁠How We Grow Up⁠, Matt explains how teenage brains are wired to question, rebel, and innovate—and how that friction might just be the thing that helps our species survive.

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