The brains of adolescents are still maturing and lack decision-making abilities, thought processing and the ability to understand the consequences of their actions.…
In the newsletter “Startling Finds on Teenage Brains,” Paul Thompson who is a writer for the Sacramento Bee, argues that teenagers are not yet fully grown adults, and that the legal system should not treat them like one. Thompson begins by telling the story of Fourteen-year-old Nathaniel Brazill and how he was treated like an adult for the crime he had committed. As for his punishment Nathaniel Brazill was charged as an adult and was convicted of shooting and killing middle school teacher Barry Grunow and was later found guilty of second-degree murder. It was later revealed that if convicted of first-degree murder Brazill would have faced life in prison without the chance of parole. Thompson then continues that for Brazill to commit such crime…
In “The Teen Brain: Still Under Construction,” by the National Institute of Mental Health, it is inferred that the author believes the teen brain is unique from adults; therefore, adolescent brains think and act differently. Moreover, the passage conveys, “… adolescence brings with it brain-based changes in the regulation of sleep that may contribute to teens’ tendency to stay up late at night” (National Institute of Mental Health). The article also explains, “… inadequate sleep is a powerful contributor to irritability and depression” (National Institute of Mental Health). The inference presumed is that the author believes a lack of sleep from the brain-based changes in adolescence can cause mental health issues. This can be concluded because…
The article Inside The Teens Brain by marty wolner, states why teenagers do dumb decisions all the time. Even though teens brains are almost fully grown the part of the brain where you make decisions is still growing and changing a lot. When this part of the brain that makes decisions is being developed you have to think about how mature the teenager is and how easily he or she gets upset because all that affects their what decisions they do in real life. Teenagers need good communication with their parents and other people that are around them. Who ever teenagers meet will affect the prefrontal cortex the part of the brain that makes decisions so it is smart if you know the people your child is friends with.…
Main Body Recent scientific research through functional magnetic resonance imaging has shown significant changes in adolescent brains which last well into adulthood. For example, there is an increase in white matter in the prefrontal cortex in adolescence which can last well into adulthood.(Steinberg) This development is the last to mature and is important for high order cognitive function like planning head, weighing risks, and making complicated decisions.(Steinberg) This shows that adolescence as well as young…
teenage brains are not yet fully developed, affecting the way a juvenile acts, thinks, and feels. It can have an affect on the actions a juvenile males, it can make them more likely to take risks than adults. During their teenage years, some people have not yet developed their morals. It is a time when they may start to. A child has not had enough time to develop their morals and fully distinguish right from wrong.…
It is widely known that adolescents are often prone to making poor decisions, a fact that is frequently evidenced by news stories on a wide variety of topics, such as unnecessary injuries or illegal activity. Frances Jensen, in her book "The Teenage Brain: a Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults," argues that the poor judgment of teenagers is due in part to their still-growing brains. Elizabeth Kolbert, in her review of the book, references a study that revealed adolescent mice consumed more alcohol than their elders when studied in the same conditions. As a young adult myself, I can vouch for the fact that my mind as well as the people of my age group have not completely finished developing.…
audience of this speech are teenagers, parents, or anyone who interacts with adolescents. The purpose for this speech was to inform people of how the brain works of all ages. The frustrating behaviors that teens exhibit are due to their still developing brains, which are actually an opportunity for creativity and growth. Sarah wants her audience to understand that adolescents brains work differently, there prefrontal cortex is still developing. They take more risks and have trouble controlling their impulses.…
Minority disagrees and for good reason. Teenagers and younger are influenced by many factors: friends, media, peer pressure. All these things cause kids to act irrationally and quickly without thinking of the consequences of these actions. Many want to blame these actions on their lack of brain development. Paul Thompson writes in his article that youths have a “diminished capacity for controlling erratic behavior [due to] massive loss of brain tissue [which causes inability to] control impulses and self-control” (Startling).…
In The National Institute of Mental Health’s, “The Teen Brain: Still Under Construction” it is explained that the teen brain is still growing physically, intellectually, and hormonally. First, the teenage brain is still growing physically. It is getting larger and becoming more connected to its parts. This is evident when the author writes, “As the brain develops, the fibers connecting nerve cells are wrapped in a protein that greatly increases the speed” (1). The brain grows physically just like the rest of the body.…
Careless Actions and Great Satisfaction: Figurative Language in “The Terrible Teens” “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon”. This quote by E.L. Doctorow demonstrates the effect of enhancements in writing through the use of a metaphor. Throughout Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Terrible Teens”, methods of development and rhetorical devices are prominently used as a way to successfully support the main idea of the essay. The use of statistics and metaphors play a major role in supporting the philosophy behind adolescent decision-making.…
Children when they reach a certain age which is the teenage age they start going through puberty. While they are going through puberty their brain stop developing because their brain starts losing tissue. Since your brain is not developing it's unimproving which means you're not getting smarter, since you're not getting smarter you going to make really bad decisions. This is what's happening with teenagers they commit first or second degree murder because their brain is not fully developed. In “ Startling finds on teenage brains” By Paul Thompson he States “Brain cells and connections are only being lost in the areas controlling impulses, risk-taking, and self-control these frontal lobes which inhabit our violent passions, rash actions, and regulate our emotions are vastly immature throughout the teenage years”.…
Conger explained there are strong reasons to think that families, and their economic circumstances in particular, influence both parents and children’s emotions and behaviors. Crime, smoking, drug use, stealing, alcoholism , reckless driving and many other dangerous and reckless, unhealthy behaviors plan out over a lifetime often debut during adolescence. I honestly feel like changing unhealthy behaviors in adolescence would have a broad impact on society, reducing the burdens of disease, injury, human suffering, and associated economic costs. Behaviors that promote positive physical and mental health outcomes in modern society can be at odds with those selected for by evolution (e.g., early procreation).A key question is whether adolescents are developmentally competent to make decisions about risks. In principle, barring temptations with high rewards and individual differences that reduce self-control (i.e., under ideal conditions), adolescents are capable of rational decision making to achieve their goals.(Frank Farley states)…
Age doesn't define whether or not you've become an adult it's the maturity that defines whether you have reached the certain point in your life where you are capable of knowing the difference between right and wrong. Sooner or later, but some happen to do so quicker. When a person turns eighteen you have the opportunity to do certain things, such as no longer having a curfew, being able to purchase alcohol ,and also voting rights, meaning that you are completely responsible for the actions you take. Looking at different cases where adolescents have committed a crime they knew that they weren't going to get punished like adults, even though they knew what they were doing was wrong. Adolescents commit crimes as if they were adults, and aren't…
The prefrontal cortex is the region that adults rely on and is involved in high level cognitive functions, such as, decision making (Blakemore, 2011). In teens, decision-making and other cognitive skills is heavily relied on another region, known as the limbic system (Bessant, 2010). As a result to relying on their limbic system, teens are susceptible to being highly emotional and impulsive. This explains why they engage in high risk behavior, such as unprotected sex (Blakemore, 2011), for example, Juno engaged in unprotected sex and as a result became pregnant. Initially, she went to the clinic to terminate the pregnancy; this decision is another example of how teens usually have the urge to make life changing decisions without considering the possible outcomes.…