PTN Intellectual Health — The Inspired Teen

Parent Teen Night: Intellectual Health

This area covers topics like homework, school, careers, choosing our thoughts, planning for the future, thought distortions, are more!

Questions Every Teenager Needs to Be Asked

This Ted Talk by Laurence Lewars is absolutely fantastic! He talks about dreams and how teens need to revive theirs and choose their futures.

230 Talents PDF

This list is amazing! Print out a few copies and each of you can circle the talents you feel like you already have and ones you would like to develop. Discuss how you can support your teen in these areas.

Tales of a Teenage Photographer

In this Ted Talk teenager Zachary Maxwell talks about how he has made a difference through the lens of a camera.

Hi, I’m Scott

In this Ted Talk Scott Mescudi, aka Kid Cudi, returns to his high school to talk about growing up and his career path in the music industry.

Goal Worksheet PDF

Learning to set and reach goals can bring so much happiness to our lives, as well as give your teen direction. Print this out and talk about a single goal each of you can set and why you want to set it.

Goal Tracking Worksheet PDF

You can print this as well so you and your teen can track the goal you set.

2 Things You Need to Understand to Stop Being Lazy

This 5-minute video by Roy Baumeister describes willpower in a simple way. After watching it discuss procrastination and come up with a few ways to preserve willpower and get more done.

Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator

In this 15-minute Ted Talk Tim Urban talks about his battle with procrastination (in a humorous way) and urges us to think about what we are procrastinating and why.

The Secret to Becoming Mentally Strong

In this 15-minute talk Amy Morin, a licensed therapist, discusses the three basic factors of mental strength: regulating our thoughts, managing our emotions, and behaving productively despite our circumstances.

15 Thought Distortions PDF

Print this out, discuss what thought distortions are, and read through them. After reading each example see if you can think of some more examples.

How to Know Your Life’s Purpose in Five Minutes

In this ten-minute Ted Talk, Adam Leipzig asks five questions that will help you figure out your life’s purpose: who are you, what do you do, who do you do it for, what do they want/need, and how do they change as a result of what you give them. This can spark a great discussion with your teen!

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

This 7-minute animated video summarizes this fantastic book by Stephen MR Covey. It would be great to watch it then discuss the habits and how you could implement them in your lives.

The Entire History of the World (Clean)

This 19-minute video goes through the entire history of the world. It’s entertaining and it could spark a good discussion about history, humankind, and more. There is another one about Japan that we really enjoyed, too!

The Super Mario Effect: Tricking Your Brain Into Learning More

In this fun 15-minute Ted Talk, NASA engineer and YouTuber Mark Rober discusses the Super Mario Effect: Focusing on the Princess and Not the Pits to Stick with a Task and Learn More. One of our favorite Rober videos is this one where he engineers a glitter bomb trap for porch pirates. It’s so funny!

Cognitive Dissonance Theory: A crash course

Teaching our teens how to handle cognitive dissonance is so important because they will come across it everywhere, particularly online. This short video talks about what it is and you can then discuss real-life scenarios where your teen might experience it.

Cognitive Dissonance: Concepts Unwrapped

This 6-minute video describes it a bit differently (with more examples and interview of real people) and can be easily combined with the one above since both are short.

The Adolescent Brain

This short video by Daniel Siegel teaches about the teenage brain with some illustrations.

How to Stay motivated: the locus rule

This 5-minute video explains the locus rule and explains that we are more motivated when we feel like we are in control. Watch this and discuss the amount of control your teen feels they have in their life.

The Science of Motivation

This 4-minute video talks more about motivation and can be paired with the above one during the same parent teen night. Talk about what motivation is and what specific things motivate your teenager. Here are some questions to consider with them:

Am I motivated by rewards?
Do I prefer to work alone or in a group?
Do I like to have a lot of outside structure or come up with ideas as I go along?
Do deadlines help me be more productive or do they stress me out?
How do I feel about to-do lists?
Do I like praise and aknowledgement or does it make me feel awkward and embarrassed?

Documentaries

Here are a few interesting documentaries you could watch with your teen.

Social Dilemma
Childhood 2.0
United 93
Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower
The Girl Who Wore Freedom
Blackfish
Ladies First
Living on One Dollar
From One Second to the Next
Bully
He Named Me Malala
Minimalism
The Bad Kids
A Life On Our Planet
I am Bolt!
A Place at the Table
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
They Shall Not Grow Old
The Dream is Now
The Mask You Live In
Science Fair
Refuge

Movies

There have been a lot of amazing movies made that are based off of true stories and watching these with your teen can expose them to new ideas and give them persepctive. Here are some ideas:

Race
Schindler’s List
Hacksaw Ridge
Hotel Rwanda
Just Mercy
Hidden Figures
A Beautiful Mind
Rain Man
Brian Banks
Band of Brothers (series)
Amazing Grace
The Courier

How Boredom Can Lead to Your Most Brilliant Ideas

In this 16-minute Ted Talk Manoush Zomorodi discusses our brains “default network” and the importance of boredom.

The mind, Explained

This Netflix series has some really interesting videos about the teen brain, dreams, personality, creativity, and other cool topics. My teens love watching these!

10 Signs Your Mental Health is Getting Worse

This 9 minute Psych2Go clip talks about 10 warning signs of poor mental health.

Try something new for thirty days

This quick video by Matt Cutts is great for anyone who wants to make a change in their life. Each small things we do adds up and we can do anything for 30 days, right? After watching the video, discuss goals and choose something each of you can do.

The Power of believing that you can improve

Carol Dweck talks about growth mindset and reminds us that our potential lies completely and fully within our own hands.

How to get 1% Better by James Clear

There is an 8-minute video, and a 24-minute one. Both are fantastic and can help you bring up the topics of goals, habits, and routines. You could also watch this animated video that teaches some of the concepts from his fantastic book, Atomic Habits.

How to read a 400 page book in two hours

This is a fun quick four-video series (each is only a few minutes long) about how to get quicker at reading and comprehending books.

Forget big change, start with a tiny habit

In this talk, BJ Fogg shows us that the key to lasting change does not lie in planning big, monumental changes, but in thinking really, really small.

Insight into the Teenage Brain

Adriana Galvan gives a scientific explanation of how the brain develops during the teen years. This is really helpful to watch and discuss together!

After Watching this your brain won’t be the same

This video talks about why learning is easier for some of us and talks about the differences between growth and fixed mindsets.