March 17, 2010
As parents, we’ve all had moments where our kids pull a stunt that we simply can’t believe. Anywhere from a playground “incident” that ends up with a kid having sand somewhere they shouldn’t and you profusely apologizing to some angry parent to the time you find yourself standing at your front door talking to a police officer about your teenager (not that my parents would know anything about the latter). While you’re knee-deep in the cleanup of the aftermath, you’re thinking, or perhaps even saying to them, “didn’t you think about that before you went ahead and did it???”
Before today, I always thought that babies, kids and teenagers are mostly products of their experience and education, so hopefully by the time they’re out of the house they’ll have some sense. Of course their bodies, including their brain, are developing along the way, but that is more for learning stuff, right? Turns out, some of the silliness and bad judgment might not be totally their fault.
While at the doctors office today, the doctor and I got off on quite a tangent and she mentioned how our brains are still developing into our twenties, yes I said twenties. She alluded to how some of the stunts our kids pull is just because they haven’t developed the ability to fully reason yet. I was surprised and of course immediately thought about how I could have used that as an excuse all through high school. I had to know more.
After some research, it turns out (not surprisingly) the doctor was right. I’m not an MD but the basic idea is that as we develop from children all the way to our early 20s, the brain continues to develop in significant ways. The latest one to the party is the frontal lobe which is the part of the brain that, among other things, controls reasoning, including evaluating the consequences of actions. So basically as our frontal lobe develops, so does our ability to make thoughtful and logical decisions. Before that, the amygdala is more actively involved in decision making resulting in more gut reactions.
Think about this and imagine a world where it was reversed and our frontal lobe fully developed first. Then came all the other stuff, including puberty. Our jobs as parents would be so much easier! But then again, high school would have been so boring without all those gut reactions. Either way, next time you find yourself looking at your child of any age wondering, “what were you thinking” just remember when they look at you with a sheepish look on their face and say “I don’t know”, they’re probably telling you the truth.
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