Teen Brain News (sort of)
Written by Jen Tuesday, 02 February 2010 13:21
Blog
Apparently one needs this part of the brain to realize that turning off the ignition while driving is a bad idea.
Parents of 12 year-olds, hunker down. You're in this for the long haul.
While the Experts-Who-State-The-Obvious have bandied about this brain development theory for a few years now, anyone in the throes of raising these little experiments we call teenagers can respond appropriately to the announcement: No Duh.
Ever try to get an explanation for why your kid took a five-mile walk along a curving busy road at dusk in the rain wearing black? Or have you asked Junior how eating an entire extra-large sausage pizza ALONE right before the championship track meet was going to help him run faster? C'mon folks! This is hardly newsflash material.
The best thing about this scientific revelation is the practical power it gives us parents. Why can't we leave our darlings alone for the weekend? Sorry kids, you still don't have that dorsal lateral thingy. Why can't you drive 800 miles to the beach during Spring Break in your buddy Speed's 1990 Kia? You know your brain isn't ready for this yet, honey. I have proof right here in Newsweek.
Incidentally, colleges don't believe their own research results. After dragging our son through no less than seven campus tours, we can attest that these institutions of higher learning have great faith in the judgment of their students, granting our hormonal boys and girls unfettered access to each others' sleeping quarters. They do, however, give them the ability to request lodging in their "substance-free" dorms if they are so inclined. Bravo to them.
I can only surmise that those in academia are siding with the other recent and amazing news bestowed upon us by neuroscientists: Adventurous teens, or those who engage in risky behavior, have more mature brains.
Huh?
Using advanced brain imaging, this group of enlightened experts has shown that the wild-and-crazy teens just might have brains more like adults than their more conservative counterparts. (Incidentally, I'm not sure what this says about us more "mature" adults.)
Due to the apparent conflict in these two discoveries, I've proposed my own simple experiment to my husband. Let's go to Hawaii for a month and leave our three teenage children unlimited access to our wallets, car keys and computer passwords. I hypothesize that when we return to the smoldering ruins of our home, we will conclude that teens do, indeed, lack common sense-whether due to undeveloped brain parts, precociousness, or just bad parenting.
Then again, I may be out of my mind, if one believes another report that our brains stop growing white matter around age 45. Rumor has it that this has something to do with raising teens.
