"The Myth of the Teen Brain"

By the way, I didn't say there was no such thing as changes in the brain when you are growing up - I said it was an oversimplification to assume that young prefrontal cortex => badly behaved brat.

 

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Well it is very clear that teenagers suffer from a lack of experience. There is still a little brain development left in them but this is not the cause of much of the teenage misbehavior. This has been true for every generation as far back as history tells the stories. Maturity is wisdom, wisdom comes with experience, and experience is a natural process of aging.

I have yet to meet a mature teenager (behaviorally). It has nothing to do with culture, but what would you expect from a Christian site. Our religious peers always hate the culture thats not instep with their beliefs.

Im the same person as I was at 17, I just know a lot more..

 

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Yes, there's no doubt that most of it is lack of experience and knowledge. But there is still a bit of brain development involved - and to small degree that also delays their development of judgment.

Something that also gets overlooked at times is that this is the stage where their hormones first start to rage - and it takes some time for them to get that under control as well.

 

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Uhh...did you actually read the article? He was saying that parents should back off and give their teens more freedom and less supervision. If anything, the web site and the guy who was interviewing him seemed to want to distances themselves from him somewhat.

 

It's interesting how lots of people in this thread complained about teens being immature idiots, but then immediately turn around and criticize the idea that teens shouldn't socialize with their peers much because they end up being bad at fitting in with all the other immature idiots.

Perhaps they seemed weird to you because they were a lot more mature and responsible than all the other idiot teens at the school? I wonder if, say, a group of 30-year-olds at a dinner party would have thought they seemed weird, or just unusually mature for their age?

 

I'm not sure who might have said that. But for my part, I said that attempting to fit in with the group may well retard their mental development because fitting in generally requires the more mature to lower themselves to the lowest common denominator. Which would be a LOWER maturity level.

 

Oh I know quite a few teens who are sensible most of the time.

They are mostly also the alternative ones who don't subscribe to the 'get drunk, start fights, puke in the gutter' culture.

 

sounds 'like lord of the flies'.

Adults are USUALLY scrutinized more than children.

 

All of teens at my school were more responsible than the average teen. They may have been idiots at times, but they were all good students. The homeschooled kids weren't any more or less mature than the rest of us, they still laughed at stupid dirty jokes and made some bad judgement calls. It was just conversational skills that they lacked. Saying strange things at strange time had a hard time grasping the atsmosphere of a situation. They were weird, and even now when I deal with people who are going to an actual school for the first time here at college. They still have poor social skills. They're a bit odd.

 

My hormones still flow and with many years experience i satisfy them well. If only I knew then what I know now.....

Oh yes i have...Och och...It's mostly Christian propaganda, painfully inept

I was a do gooder normal teenager in my time. Just knew how to keep the status quo.. Nothing more.

When I turned 25 I thought I had learn it all... God im 42 now still don't know shit..

Teenagers have to battle their way to adulthood. Some may find important social lessons early some latter and some never.

That final wiring is important but we must not let cultural dogma cloud us into the methodologies of manipulation. The article is bias and has an engender that is completely out of subject.. Culture has nothing to do with teenage angst...

 

Was it the homeschooling that caused the low social skills or the low social skills that necessitated home schooling, I wonder?

Did they seem ASD-like at all? Sensitive to light or sound, or talk only about one subject??

 

Simply because there may be a difference in the wiring does not support your point of contention that the teen brain is inherently 'less sensible' than the adult brain.

 

It can be either/or. If they are TOO cut off from people their age, their social skills may be a bit behind - but not necessarily if they have a reasonable amount of adult interaction.

On the other side of the coin, people with mild forms of autism -Asperger's Syndrome being a common one - generally have little to no social skills at all and constantly stay in trouble with other kids and the teachers.

(Our very own Dwayne Rabon is in that latter group. Which explains why he had to be home-schooled, has an obsession with numbers and has the audacity to label himself a genius. Kim Peak - who was the basis for the movie Rain Man - was another.)

 

You know what I always found fascinating about that story? The children were wishing that adults were present to stop the fighting. But wait, where were the adults? Why, they were fighting in the World War! Seems like the mature adults with their supposed well developed brains can't get along with each other much better than children can!

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Patently false. Children are scrutinized, criticised, scolded and punished over how they sit, eat, clean, speak, dress, walk, and even breath. Things it would be considered impolite for scolding an adult for are fair game with a teenager.

But that's what being a kid is all about. Receiving unending criticism and punishments. Oh, and always having people assume the worst about you and your intentions whenever shit happens.

 

An adult woman's hormones 'rage' every month. Is she more immature during that time?

 

Of course not. But quite a few exhibit an almost child-like behavior - overly-sensitive, picky, argumentative, restless, easily agitated, etc. But of course it's *perfectly* understandable. Many men would have the exact same reaction if they had to go through such a severe change in hormone levels - in fact, a few would probably run around blowing heads off.

 

Yes, but why does that happen? I dont agree with that completely either. Children are not necessarily scolded for those things but they are corrected.

Hopefully a teenager would learn and grow into a responsible adult but if an adult has not learned those things then chances are they are not going to learn them.

 

REPLY: I think teenagers need realistic guidance. Especially when it comes to sex. Some simple advice as to the use of condoms and such would help a lot. And there is the whole macho thing. They are pumped up with hormones we older people have less of. It can lead to all sorts of problems. Unwanted pregnancies, pointless fights, things like that.
I think PRIMAL THERAPY and the realistic acceptance of such feelings can help a lot. We are the animals we are. I got in a lot of stupid fights, ended up joining the USMC so got to fight a whole lot and was exposed to a lot of prostitutes. I do not have a good answer for Americans. If I was a European father I would see to that any son of mine got laid by some good prostitutes now and then. I never had a son. I used rubbers. ...traveler

 

fellowtraveler,

we are all individuals with individual requirements. i think that is the most important thing to learn.

 

No they didn't have any nervous disorders, one girl had juvenile arthritis, but that should hardly make you socially inept. They got better at socializing as the years progressed. I think some social interactions require practice, and those with limited practice often respond inappropriately until they learn socially appropriate responses. Like when someone says "I just broke up with my boyfriend" with tears in their eyes; laughing at them and giving blunt responses about how they're being over emotional is not how a friend shows support. Tact is a precious discipline that the kids at my school who had never been to school before did not possess in copious amounts. Nothing against homeschooled kids or anything but when they do have to eventually have to associate with their peers (which is inevitable) they're a little weird.