A brain takes 25 years to grow
Don Dansereau teaches a class in the Mini-University offered to parents by TCU. He has summarized his main points for the Thinkerer:
http://thinkerer.org/Parenting/ParNewLight.htm
I will elaborate on one of these points here.
Children’s impulsiveness, lack of planning, and lack of concern with long-term consequences may be largely due to the natural physical development of the brain. Brains don’t fully mature until about age 25 and the frontal lobes of the cortex that are responsible for “looking to the future” are among the last areas to develop.
More of the modular brain story. http://thinkerer.org/Background/BakBrainMods.htm
Different modules develop at different rates. That can be confusing. You see some adult skills emerge in teens and you begin to think of them as adults. Then you begin to expect them to act like adults. (Are you being a bit impulsive with that expectation?)
So you just stop expecting them to act like adults? Only if you lack concern for long term consequences. Brains follow the same developmental principles as muscles, bone and reflexes. They develop with time and exercise. People don’t stop expecting toddlers to walk just because toddlers fall down.
The basis for development is challenge. A challenge takes people near the upper limit of what they can do. Preferably not beyond. But if you want to extend that limit, you have to push on it.
Push on it. I always hate vague metaphors like that. They roll easily off the keyboard. They are great if you just want to sound like you know more that the people you are talking to. But here, now, in this world, we do not do metaphors. We do concrete actions.
We know how to challenge (and guide) teens in football or cooking. But how do you challenge and guide teens in abstract things like planning or long term consequences? You translate those things into concrete events that everybody can see.
Instead of forecasting things in the privacy of your own head, you start forecasting out loud. In front of the teen. You invite the teen to supply additional forecasts. Maybe you lay out a fan of possibilities. Maybe you turn forecasting into a brainstorming session.
You do the same with plans, especially plans that are important to the teen. If plans are too complicated for traditional brainstorming, use semi-structured brainstorming.
You may be surprised by what teens can do with brainstorming. If you want some novel, creative, original ideas, you may get them from teens. That self- discipline and impulse control that takes 25 years to develop can get so effective that it inhibits ideas as well and actions.
So you can think of brainstorming as engineered adolescence. A method of cognitive engineering that helps adults to readjust their impulse control to suspend the control of ideas. Meet teens in brainstorming and they may have a home-field advantage.
http://thinkerer.org/Parenting/ParNewLight.htm
I will elaborate on one of these points here.
Children’s impulsiveness, lack of planning, and lack of concern with long-term consequences may be largely due to the natural physical development of the brain. Brains don’t fully mature until about age 25 and the frontal lobes of the cortex that are responsible for “looking to the future” are among the last areas to develop.
More of the modular brain story. http://thinkerer.org/Background/BakBrainMods.htm
Different modules develop at different rates. That can be confusing. You see some adult skills emerge in teens and you begin to think of them as adults. Then you begin to expect them to act like adults. (Are you being a bit impulsive with that expectation?)
So you just stop expecting them to act like adults? Only if you lack concern for long term consequences. Brains follow the same developmental principles as muscles, bone and reflexes. They develop with time and exercise. People don’t stop expecting toddlers to walk just because toddlers fall down.
The basis for development is challenge. A challenge takes people near the upper limit of what they can do. Preferably not beyond. But if you want to extend that limit, you have to push on it.
Push on it. I always hate vague metaphors like that. They roll easily off the keyboard. They are great if you just want to sound like you know more that the people you are talking to. But here, now, in this world, we do not do metaphors. We do concrete actions.
We know how to challenge (and guide) teens in football or cooking. But how do you challenge and guide teens in abstract things like planning or long term consequences? You translate those things into concrete events that everybody can see.
Instead of forecasting things in the privacy of your own head, you start forecasting out loud. In front of the teen. You invite the teen to supply additional forecasts. Maybe you lay out a fan of possibilities. Maybe you turn forecasting into a brainstorming session.
You do the same with plans, especially plans that are important to the teen. If plans are too complicated for traditional brainstorming, use semi-structured brainstorming.
You may be surprised by what teens can do with brainstorming. If you want some novel, creative, original ideas, you may get them from teens. That self- discipline and impulse control that takes 25 years to develop can get so effective that it inhibits ideas as well and actions.
So you can think of brainstorming as engineered adolescence. A method of cognitive engineering that helps adults to readjust their impulse control to suspend the control of ideas. Meet teens in brainstorming and they may have a home-field advantage.
posted by Selby Evans at 9:39 AM
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