Common Sense and Brain Development: A Parent's Dilemma

As we read the reports from Aruba referring to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, I began to think about the difficulties of parenting not-quite-adult offspring and the changes that have occured over the last 30 years or so about the "legal age" and Biblical "age of accountability".

In US society, and likely most of the Western European cultures, adolescents have been considered "adults" at younger ages than in the past. But, recently, there have been studies on brain development (see: http://www.earthsky.com/shows/profiles/giedd.php and http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/teenbrain.cfm ) would indicate that the human brain is not "finished cooking" until very late adolescence or even the early twenties. Anyone who has parented through the late teens and early twenties can testify to the enormous change in attitude, motivation, and generaly maturity that occurs in the 4-5 years following high school graduation.

So, it begs the question, were we, as a society, correct in lowering the legal age from 21 to 18? Should we be sending adolescents into battle? Should we trust them as voters? Even the Bible would indicate that the age of accountability occurs after the age of 20. (Book of Numbers, Chapter 1. All those under the age of 20 were considered "minor children", were not sent to war, were not held accountable)

And, most importantly, is it safe for them to go out into a crazy world with only 7 chaperones for 124 high school seniors for a senior trip? When I heard the ratio of chaperones to students on that fateful trip, I was appalled. Not that I expect high school seniors to need watching like toddlers, but it's difficult enough to keep track of 3 or 4 teenagers on your own turf......but 18 teenagers per chaperone on an exotic island with all sorts of temptations???.....it just seems like poor common sense.

As parents, we really need to think about the situations we allow, pay for, and condone. We will never be able to completely protect our children, nor can we prohibit legal adults (even if they are not mentally and emotionally mature) from doing what they wish to do. But, we can advise against and refuse to finance that which we believe to be against our moral standards, our safety standards, and our own good common sense.

The next argument, of course, is that we don't want to "alienate" our children, that if they want something, we should provide it. But, if we are jellyfish with our children, we do worse than alienate them. We put them at risk. We may not be putting their lives at risk, but their futures, their happiness, their mental and emotional health. Is it worth that cost?



The very fact that the lead suspect in Miss Holloway's disappearance is also an adolescent, plays to the assumption of adolescent impulsiveness and reckless behavior.

I in no way blame Ms. Holloway's parents for this horrifying situation, nor do I blame the parents of the young suspects. We have all bought in to the idea that our adolescents are adults and give them more freedoms than they are able to handle. We as a society need to change our thinking.

It is time for us to be on our knees daily, beseeching the Lord to draw our children to Him and His best for our children. And, we need be praying for our children's safety in a patently unsafe world.

It is time for parents to become PARENTS again, taking a stand, putting steel in our spines, and thinking with our good sense and not our emotional desire to avoid conflict with our adolescent and adult children.