Teenagers & Adolescence

Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide have risen in recent years. NY Times reporter Matt Richtel says we lack the therapists and treatment centers to care for teens who are suffering.

Steven Spielberg's new film "The Fabelmans" is a semi-autobiographical film based on his childhood and teenage years, and tells the story, in a fictionalized way, of how he fell in love with movies, and became a filmmaker.

When Nicole Lynn Lewis got pregnant in high school, she thought it might end her dream of going to college and having a career. She felt ashamed, in part because of how people regarded her as a pregnant Black teenager. Lewis, who is now in her 40s, was named a CNN Hero in 2014. Last year, she was named one of the inaugural awardees of the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund in recognition of her work addressing structural and systemic racism in America. Her new memoir is called Pregnant Girl: A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families.

"There's not a lot of heroic acts in middle school," Maya Erskine said in this 2019 interview. She and Anna Konkle play 13-year-old versions of themselves in the comedy series PEN15, now in season 2.

Schlesinger, who died April 1 of COVID-19, won three Emmy Awards for his songs for the TV series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. He spoke to Fresh Air with bandmate Chris Collingwood in 1999.

It has been nearly a decade since actor Claire Danes first appeared as CIA agent Carrie Mathison on the Showtime series Homeland. Now that the show is in its eighth and final season, Danes is feeling reflective about its run.

After writing about the lives of girls for decades, Peggy Orenstein, turns her attention to boys in the #Metoo era. Her new book is 'Boys and Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the new Masculinity.'

Twins, singer-songwriters, and LGBTQ icons Tegan and Sara talk about their tumultuous high school years. It's the subject of their new memoir and a new recording.

Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine the creators and stars of Hulu comedy series Pen15 talk about their show which captures the inescapable awkwardness and extreme emotions that come with puberty and being in middle school.

The former YouTube star says he wanted his film, Eighth Grade, to take an "emotional inventory" of what today's adolescents are experiencing. Originally broadcast July 18, 2018.

Sara Saedi was two when her parents fled Iran to California. Her new memoir describes her 18-year-long path to citizenship, and the lingering anxiety of being undocumented.

As someone who lives with obsessive-compulsive disorder, novelist John Green sometimes feels like his mind is spiraling uncontrollably.

Danielle Allen's memoir centers on her cousin Michael, who was sentenced to a long prison term for carjacking when he was 15. Three years after his release, he was found shot to death in a parked car.

Mike Mills' latest film, 20th Century Women, is inspired by the yearning to understand his mother who raised him. Set in Santa Barbara in 1979, it stars Annette Bening as Dorothea, a 55-year-old woman who grew up during the Depression and is struggling to raise her teenage son, Jamie, on her own.

Andrea Arnold's new movie about a teenage girl who takes up with an unusual group of salespeople won a the Jury Prize at Cannes this year. Critic David Edelstein calls it a "wonderful" film.

Arnold's latest film, which won the Jury Prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of a group of abandoned teenagers who travel together selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door.

The multi-talented Mike Mills has long worked on cool, edgy projects that mix art and commerce, from the Beastie Boys to the Gap.

Ryan Speedo Green grew up in a trailer park and did time in juvenile detention before discovering he had a unique singing voice. He now performs at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

The National Book Award winner's new novel is based in part on her memories of growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. Woodson describes the teen years as an "amazing and urgent moment" in life.