Weird News

[Griff]

That is very likely. I spend my days with a lot of children who have poor impulse control. It can usually be learned, but less likely if a child's life is chaotic. Don't let the frontal lobe argument be a cop-out for poor parenting. Teens will do dumb stuff but they can usually be parented to a point that keeps them from becoming a societal nuisance.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Griff

Teens will do dumb stuff but they can usually be parented to a point that keeps them from becoming a societal nuisance.

Before 16, kids are taught and therefore memorize what is and is not acceptable. The parent trains them similar to how a dog is trained. That process is completely different from another brain function that has decisions (and impulse control) from logical thinking (often referred to as higher brain functions).

Ironically, ScienceNow (on PBS) is replaying reports on how animal and child brains operate. How, for example, a child (who later has lower SAT scores) could not control an impulse to take one piece of candy. Decision was easy. Eat one candy now. Or get many candies in a few minutes. Only children who later demonstrated better formed intelligence were able to wait.