Comments on: teenage brain research hits the streets

By: Scott Major

Scott Major — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 07:12:34 +0000

As a psych major in youth ministry, I have been interested in this subject for a while. I did a term paper for my physiological psychology class a couple years ago about adolescent brain debelopment and I didn’t find a whole lot. I did find several studies about the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus in brain development. It makes me wonder how many teens are diagnosed with things like ADHD when it really has to do with brain development. There are also a lot of differences with males and females. I would love to research and learn more about this stuff…

By: eric

eric — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:07:13 +0000

As I read the article and comments all I could think of was how important it is for students to have loving adults in their lives. With loving adults in their lives, so what if their brain isn’t fully formed yet. It’s okay, that’s one reason the loving adults are there. Without loving adults it’s a big loss with potentially big consequences during that time period before their brains are fully formed. God help us be those loving adults – some of us who also wonder if our brain’s are fully formed.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:55:48 +0000

I fear that where these ads are going is further restriction of the rights of adolescents.

We expect our adolescents to grow, but we refuse to treat them as individuals (instead relying on age) and increasingly try to insulate them from the results of their decisions.

I’ve read that housecats are really nothing more than oversized kittens, because the dependency on humans has frozen their development at the kitten stage. I wonder how well that applies to today’s adolescent. We prevent them from drinking, driving, voting, and yet we still want them to be “mature” and responsible members of society.

Gangs provide well-defined roles, responsibilities, and growth paths. They also are organized for very negative purposes. How can we mirror that structure but bend it for good purposes while giving our youth a way to grow?

By: Arthur Brown

Arthur Brown — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 05:51:18 +0000

Whilst I agree it is dangerous and irresponsible to imply that young people’s participation in risk taking behaviour [including driving dangerously] is not their fault, I think there is another important point for us youth workers to consider. Too much consideration about young people’s participation in RTB comes from a purely adult focused perspective. As adults we tend to focus on the potential negative consequences of ‘risk’ behaviour. Young people instead often tend to consider the potential for positive benefits to their participation in ‘risky’ activities. These may include peer acceptance, image, the ‘escape’ from a hopeless and miserable existance. Maybe their choices, rather than purely illogical and ‘stupid’ are in some ways rational. At least as youth workers we need to consider this, and look beyond the behaviour, to the underlying potential social and motivational causes, as well as biological factors, to why young people do ‘stupid’ things.

By: Evan M

Evan M — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 04:17:25 +0000

And I’m supposed to be the leader of leaders… and i’m under 25… i wonder what part of my brain i’m still missing…

By: Lars Rood

Lars Rood — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 01:16:54 +0000

do you ever feel like you spend just as much time putting together your blog as you do the books you write? Maybe you’ve figured out a way to make $ of your blog so it’s worth it. I sure haven’t. I write about watching my boys play WII. You write about things I want to read. Here’s a praise: You write GOOD.

By: The Adolescent Brain « Random Bloggings

The Adolescent Brain « Random Bloggings — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:19:34 +0000

[...] Adolescent Brain June 13, 2007 Posted by Calvin in Youth Ministry. trackback Mark Oestreicher has a very interesting post regarding the adolescent brain. I haven’t had achance to work through some of the links he gives, but I found the basic AllState ad to be interesting, as well as Mark’s responses. I agree with him 100% that just because a portion of the brain is not fully developed it does not follow that teens have no culpability for their actions. What would be truly fascinating is to find out if teens have always been like this – or if it is a result of the extended adolescence that we embrace in the western world. I doubt this is possible since we most likely lack brain scans of adolescents in the 1700s. [...]

By: markeades

markeades — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:55:31 +0000

Great minds think a like – as soon as I read “it’s not really their fault” I had the same reaction and said “no it is their fault and they need to deal with the consequences of their actions.” I’ve said this once on another comment that the book series, “Raising teens with love and logic” is an excellent resources for anyone walking through life with teens.