For the Record - still not sending my child to college before 16. But, this does provide a child with lots of time to pick and study things in depth for several years before heading off to college. Even if you aren’t sending them to college, the option of taking college courses online/through the local HS (for those in the States) does provide an avenue for accelerated college.
Mandab, my thoughts on your post are these:
If afterschooling, one can go for depth and some acceleration, but if homeschooling, one can achieve both depth and acceleration. Why? If the kid is going to learn a similar thing in school, the parent may decide to only deepen the knowledge, as school may only have imparted surface knowledge.
But if homeschooling, one can easily achieve both depth and acceleration. Why? Because the kid’s time is not being wasted (as being done in school), and the parents can achieve much greater acceleration and depth at the same time. Say a homeschooling parent decides to spend 1 hour on math during a homeschooling day. The kid finishes the 1st lesson in 30 minutes. The parent can easily add in another lesson for the kid to finish during the remaining 30 minutes. But if in school, the kid will have to wait for the other kids to finish, and by the time the other kids finish, the math lesson time is up, and the kid’s valuable learning time is lost. And coupled with the busy work that usually takes place in school, most kids simply waste valuable learning time there.
Like the Harding dad said in the article Korrale posted, the feats his family have accomplished can easily be reproduced if one is homeschooling. I believe him. Here again is the link: http://www.examiner.com/article/can-kids-really-start-college-when-they-are-twelve-years-old.
The first tip the Harding dad gives in the article summary is this: ``If able, Homeschool - not even the most prestigious private schools can give you results like this’'.
I believe him. I’ve studied his articles somewhat closely, and I’ve compared it with the Swann family articles, and yes, I believe that such feats are reproducible, and the kids will get both depth and acceleration. And both families succeeded with 10 kids each, so there must something in what they did.
EDIT: By the way, I know homeschooling is not for everyone, but I know it could be a superior method of teaching (if one does it right). One-on-one teaching (such as we find in homeschooling) has been found to be very effective, and research bears this out. I was listening to a Teaching Company tape titled ‘Art of Teaching’ and the professor mentioned that some of his best students at Emory University were homeschooled. The professor mentioned stuff about the one-on-one teaching (or tutoring) that he does as professor, and how it is more effective than general class teaching. For example, he mentioned that during one-on-one tutoring, he could be more honest with the student about his/her work, he could more tailor the instruction to the student’s level, etc. Considering that that is what the Swann and Harding families did, their success is not very suprising.
Sonya,
Could you please give more details when you’re done with the book? Thanks.
the college level text books was a bit over reaching…lol (of course, my intro college textbooks were at high school level but it served an economically disadvantaged group mostly). I was just throwing something out there. I am just trying to figure out how its done. The other article that someone sited on the Harding family was much more indepth on their method. Thanks for that link. I thought I would throw out some questions on the article that I had.
“5. Do basic math everyday and skip ahead as fast as they can go. Get to pre-Algebra and algebra by age 8 or 9 years old. They can memorize their math facts as they are learning new concepts (Do not hold them back if they get stuck on 7 x 8).”
I often wondered this. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to go to the next concept without first memorizing all math facts. My son gets addition and subtraction, but I realize its going to take lots of practice and repitition before mastery. Should I move on to the next concept anyway? When should I introduce multiplication? Should I start larger two digit and three digit addition? There really isn’t a spine to guide you through math without lots of repitition…right?
I realize sending children to college early is quite controversial whether you believe in acceleration or not. It appears that most of the children did distance learning education. ??? I did see the video of one of the children sitting in a college classroom. I live in a college town with several universities, and I have plans of relocating in eight years to North Carolina where there is a university on every corner (go Tarheels!). For me, I wouldn’t have an issue dropping them off at the university everyday for school. (Going to college early is quite controversial in my own house even with myself as we play a lot of sports and are developing are children for sports. I really don’t know what we will do when we cross that bridge. As far as certain careers not being able to accelerate like music, I don’t think I will have to worry about that one as we are not a very musical family.)
“7. By age 8 or 9 they can be reading high school level books in a great variety of subjects. (NOT boring high school textbooks like most of us were forced to read) Give them REAL quality books. Supplementing with educational videos and TV shows is always great family bonding time.” -quote from article about Harding Family’s methods
What books do you think they used? What books would you use?
“8. Keep track of all their work and activities that are “high school” level so that you can put it on their transcript.”
What would be considered high school level work? Papers? What activities?
Just pondering. Its a lot to wrap your mind a round.
In one group, you have those who accelerated a child by having them spend two to three hours of math a day. In another group, you have those who accelerated a child by having them do way less hours. Sure you can accelerate a child through Saxon, but its still going to take the same amount of hours if you do every problem. It seems that this family didn’t do that at all. Maybe I am reading it wrong.
Somehow I missed Wolfwind’s post yesterday. I would love to meet you too!
Yes, your learning phases are pretty much what I was thinking. I was tentatively thinking I would do two grades a calender year minimum. They might go faster in the subjects they love, but on the subjects they don’t love so much, well, they will have to keep that pace. I like the idea of year-round school, but I think I would have to take a break now and again. I give myself 6 weeks off after I have a baby (I NEED that!) and I LOVE taking the whole month of December to delve into Christmas stuff, making gifts, yummy treats, reading Christmas literature, service projects, and other activities that are not as academic. I did this last year, and it was a great family bonding time. On the other hand, I like doing school in the summer, because frankly, I don’t like being outside in the hot sun.
As far as what books I want to use for the upper grades, I am planning on doing Saxon for math, Apologia science (Christian based, some of my friends have given me raving reviews), and A Beka for higher reading. My mom had one of their textbooks when I was in high school, but it was above my head, and my mom had a hard time mentoring me, so we just read a lot of classic books that I did reports on instead. My husband had an amazing AP English class in high school, and the stuff he learned was similar to what was in that A Beka book, so I wished I would have stuck with it. Having said that, I was well prepared for college with what I did. For history, I’m not sure what I’ll do for world history, but I do know that I will require my children to study “To Preserve The Nation” by Scott Bradley for American history (I’m American). http://topreservethenation.com/. Scott Bradley is local for me, and I have heard him speak many times. The man is a genius, and his moral character is exceptionally high. I can’t recommend his materials enough, although they are pricey. I personally have only purchased the book itself, and may or may not buy the CDs, etc, when my kids are old enough for them.
My thoughts on math- not every child will be math oriented, and Algebra 2 is all that is required in PS for college when you look at it. I’m not going to require Calculus of my kids, although my husband could certainly help them if they feel inclined. Rather, I am going to require up to Algebra 2, and one higher math-ish course of their choosing. For example, I have a fantastic music theory book from my college days that requires a lot of math in a round-about way, and that would be an option for my kids. If they are interested in art, we could find an art-related math course, etc.
I am also going to require all of my kids to finish John Thompson’s 4th grade piano book minimum, and encourage grade 5. One book per calender year is my goal (naturally, they may go faster if they feel inclined :)). I like John Thompson a lot more than any other piano method because he progresses faster (it’s a great method for kids who actually practice!!!). He also uses primary sources a lot in his books. I cringe when I see Alfred, which I don’t recommend for a lot of reasons. A lot of the theory in Alfred is wrong, but on top of that, they take something like Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata, take an excerpt, and transpose it to A minor (relative to C major, no sharps or flats). It’s exactly the same, only in C. Sorry, most classical music is not in C. John Thompson doesn’t shy from incorporating real, original music in his books, and if he arranged it, it is clearly marked as such. His arrangements are really good. His course also involves reading from 3 staves, which serves as a natural bridge to learning organ, should the child go that route.
Other than that, I don’t have any particular books in mind for high school, but I look forward to seeing what others come up with. When the student is ready, the books will be there. We’re just not ready for that yet. Lucky for me, when I’m ready, all of you will be here. :yes:
Below is their schedule from their book,. These guys are pretty loosey goosey about curriculum. They did do Saxon, but they also had problems with it and math in general so they kept it the first subject of the day. They kept the kids motivation because they didn’t do all the problems. They skipped a lot of repetitive work in all subjects. I recently looked up Saxon on What Works Clearninghouse. - read the report and make up your own mind. Thye combined as many subjects as they could and this really depended on the child.
The book is not worth ordering unless you are looking for VERY preachy inspirational read motivating you that your children too can achieve their dreams. These guys are fundamentalist Christians. I don’t mind that, I am a Christian, but I found the writing hard to take - it is really pushy. The books they used were anything they had on hand. She basically says that after the equivalent of 3rd grade they homeschooled with a library card. The kids worked at their own pace and educated themselves. What they did do that I thought was great and why I like the idea of finishing math and sciences early is that they encouraged their children to pursue their interests wherever that led them. this kept them motivated through the rough parts of math. They held out early college as a carrot to keep them on track. When you finish HS then you can go to college and do whatever you want. So the motivation to get finished quickly was strong especially when you watch your siblings doing it. The kids read ALOT! They had requirement and then they were free to read on their own.
This is doable by anyone with nearly any teaching style. None of these kids were EL. For the USA, in most staes school are required to provide your child with the education he requires. That means that if your child has run out of HS courses they must provide them with college courses and they must pay for them. The problem with that lies only in that if you are going to apply for the National Merit Scholarship program, you are only allowed so many credits before you are no longer considered a HS student.
As far as skipping stuff, that may have prevented them from having a knockdown dragout over Saxon, but some of their children would have done better to wait a year to take their SATs If the point is scholarships and money - one of the reasons they cite for doing college at 12, then if their children scored higher in the math section they would be in a better position to get funding.
The lesson to take away from this again is that it doesn’t take all the long to educate a child. Not really. You just have to keep at it, move quicker than the curriculum suggests. Keep track of HS work. You don’t have to keep it all, but your child should have a portfolio of past work to show admissions. There is info online on how to make a portfolio and what to put in it.
Organized Chaos
People always comment, “So you must have a strict schedule
to get it all done.†I am usually very tongue-tied trying to
explain that we really don’t have a schedule. It is more like a
“to-do†list for each child. We get up as early as we can,
(depending on what we were doing as a family the night before)
and then work to reach some simple goals:
- Clean rooms, get dressed
- Eat breakfast
- Comb hair, brush teeth
- Chores (dishes, trash, pick up stuff around house, feed
and water dog, clean table, etc.)
Each kid does the same chores every day. Changes are made
as they get older. - Start school with Bible reading because we know that
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We are
teaching our kids that their character development is the
most important part of their education. - Mathematics-We do this second every day because it is
incremental and shouldn’t be skipped if the day gets
“crazy.†- They need to write everyday-a letter, an essay, a journal
entry, a page of dictation, etc… - Lots of reading-biographies, historical fiction, science
books. Then they can read fiction for fun. (ie. quality
literature like Chronicles of Narnia or The Boxcar
Children during the early years. - P.E. everyday includes: jumping on the trampoline,
family walks, hikes, and victory sports league (our local
Christian homeschool sports organization).
I only read the first post, but just want to say
This summer, the book “No regrets” was free for download for the Kindle on the Amazon website .
I don’t have the Kindle but have the app on my Ipad.
Thanks Hypatia-
I just had a look and it is still free if you have Amazon Prime, or $2.99 without…
Only free for prime IF you have a kindle and not an app. 
But 2.99 is better than $20.
I managed to get it for free with Kindle App and Amazon Prime…we will see if it is worth a read…
Sonya_Post is dead on regarding the Fundamentalist Christian Nature of the other book…I could barely get through it as it wasn’t so much a help in methods as it was a forceful push of beliefs…
The most important thing I would say regarding acceleration:
I ended up graduating at 15 from American HS, a few months shy of my 16th birthday. And Not because I was just so particularly brilliant, but because of a specific home situation. After watching two step-sisters drop out, I discovered that a better path would be accelerating as much as possible to complete the HS requirements and move on to college.
This is exactly what I did, and the amount of work it entailed was actually ridiculously small, thinking back!!!
The problem came at university: barely 16 years old, living in a dorm, the life of a much older ‘adult’. Without the support of a family, it was just way too much!
Luckily, I was able to recognize this and the need for structure: I joined the army and had four more years to mature, as well as ensuring that college was paid fo.
My most important message would be, if you strike out on this path, your child will indeed be prepared academically (I took all AP classes in HS and never had an issue with material in college.), BUT they will need a good, strong support system at home to successfully meet all their needs and achieve their potential!
This has been one of the major criteria for our family in choice on job and location…by working at the Uni, all classes for my daughter will be paid for, regardless of age, audit, or taking for credit…
So I am just going to throw the cat among the pigeons and ask “What is wrong in just being a kid” I have no problem with children being academically ahead and advancing themselves but there is a lot to childhood and 12 is so young for uni when there is a lot of ‘adult’ things Drinking and partying and I do not know of how many 18year olds want to hang out with a 12 year old. I know there is online uni courses now but do you think it is important that children progess naturally to maturity rather than accelerate them putting them in an adult world before they are emotionally and physically (going through puberty when all the others are finished) ready?
Yes Kimba, I wouldn’t send one of my kids off to colege early. I love them too much to let them leave home earlier! :biggrin: however for a child who is accelerated an online university ( college) degree is a wonderful solution to otherwise potentially wasted years. If you do accelerate them then they will need some stimulus. They will want to learn. At least this way you can choose the pace ( full time part time) and they can delve into a subject they have a passion for instead of wasting years in school learning nothing. It is possible to aim for acceleration first and then add in depth as a teenager once the basics of education are completed.
I think the reality of most homeschooling parents is somewhat different to the experiences of these families. You would need to be very organized and quite strong to continually complete 2 years per grade or more. In my house with my children we would get side tracked with depth studies far too often! That is what we enjoy! :yes:
Hello everyone,
Its been quite a long time since I have written to the forum. However, this topic seemed pretty interesting as I was having this discussion with my hubby the other day.
Anyway, getting to the point…we have thought a lot about whether to homeschool our little girl or not. My husband brought about a great point in regards to this (He is the director of a well known company and has 2 masters in Engineering and MBA from UCLA)…he said " At the end of the day the most important thing is to know how to deal with people…these days people skills are above anything else. Well, we do need a good academic foundation and that can be obtained by home schooling. However, to attain PR skills, leadership quality and to know how to work as a team you will need to put her in a school." He feels that she will miss out on a lot things like making lifelong friends, teamwork, group activities which are all important especially once you get into workforce. Academic smartness is one thing but to be able to succeed in your chosen field you do need people skills and that can be gained only through experience. Don’t get me wrong, I still think homeschooling is such a wonderful thing but if we could have a little bit of both that will be even better.
So we have decided that she will go to a school …but we will still do afterhour school at home. If the Swann family took only 2 hours of the day to do school work then we can easily do 2 hours after school.
Well, I am just putting forward our thoughts out there so please feel free to point out if I am missing out on some points or if I have got it completely wrong. Would love to hear from all the moms out there on how they feel about sending their kids to school or are planning to homeschool their little ones.
Thanks
Here’s my thoughts on social experiences: My husband had an “aha” moment he shared with me. Homeschoolers are not socially backward, he never thought they were. But there was something about them that he couldn’t put his finger on. Now that he has joined the ranks for a few years, he knows what it is. Homeschoolers come from a different culture. We have the same accent, we are familiar with a lot of the same media, and we wear the same clothes, live in the same community, etc, so it’s hard to see that for what it is. The culture of the homeschooling family is different than the family who sends their children to public schools. A foreign exchange student has a different outlook on the world than the natives, but that doesn’t make them weird or socially backward, just different. That’s all. As a homeschool graduate that never went to public school, I can attest that I had a lot of experiences to socialize with other people. If that’s important to you, it’s not hard to find those opportunities. Church, community music productions, gymnastics, boy scouts, and 4-H are examples of what has worked for my family.
My husband and I have been talking a lot about this as I have told him of my plans for our kids. I do want to say that the reason I’m going for acceleration is not because I want to push my kids into college as soon as possible, as much as I see a need for our family to raise the academic bar. Up to now I have required very little “deliberate practice”, and I think that this is a skill my kids need to have.
My husband is concerned about the specific timeline I have come up with though. He said I should focus our learning time not on grade level, as much as learning the next step, and progressing a little every day. I agree. I have been looking in to what other gifted or accelerated homeschools are doing, and very few go through a specific workbook. Little kids are not ready for all of the busy work, and while children do need repetition, much of it is designed to help the PARENTS feel like their children are progressing, as opposed to the kids. So, I’m planning on using curriculums and textbooks to help me teach, but have a principle based education as much as possible.
To illustrate what I mean, I have purchased "Comprehensive Curriculum of basic skills from Sam’s Club.
(http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Curriculum-Basic-Skills-Grade/dp/1609963296/ref=pd_sim_b_4).
I’m also looking through “What your 1st Grader Needs to Know” (http://www.amazon.com/What-Your-First-Grader-Needs/dp/0385319878/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351718721&sr=1-1&keywords=what+your+first+grader+needs+to+know).
I haven’t really studied what my kids should learn in each grade until now, so I was surprised at how basic this stuff is. Yes, my 5 year old knows his colors and his ABCs, thank you. But oops! I haven’t taught him how to tell time or count with money yet. He has been memorizing his times tables lately, but here is a basic hole that I would have missed if I wasn’t watching what he should know in each grade. Why should I wait until next fall to spend a whole semester on 1st grade material if all I need to do is cover some simple facts and call it good? I didn’t realize where my son was academically, but we could easily be ready for 2nd grade stuff by January, and 3rd grade stuff shortly after. I just have a few books for reference as a “check-list”.
I’m also gathering that it is a lot easier to accelerate the early grades then it is the high school material. The Hardings try to get into Algebra by 8 or 9, and are college ready at 12. Robert Levy’s son David did 4 early Saxon books in one year, but slowed down for Algebra as well. My take-away lesson is that perhaps it’s better to “accelerate” elementary and middle school, and then do the “depth” for high school material. This is my new approach.
By the way, here are a few resources I found along the way (each links to a favorite page I found, but there’s a lot more on each):
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/asynchrony.htm
http://www.happychild.org.uk/acc/tpr/mne/0011gram.htm (this one has a lot of fun tricks for teaching different rules and such).
We are also doing the games and flash cards ($.99!) from http://www.multiplication.com/. My son is highly motivated to memorize them, because when he passes them off, we’re going to get “Times Attack”, which he REALLY wants. I played through the free version, and I think it has a good balance between fun computer game and drill. It forces fast recall, which I like. 
http://www.bigbrainz.com
Once again, I feel I am learning so much on this forum!
Thank you to those of you who posted regarding accelerating through afterschooling, it is encouraging to hear success stories.
Just to clarify - My interest in acceleration though afterschooling is not to rush my kids through their childhood and get into the world of work before their time - far from it, I feel such bittersweet emotions when I see them growing up! I simply want to foster their natural desire to learn about the world and for them to feel enthusiasm for their studies.
Earlier this week, I met with a friend who is very disappointed with her son’s education. While they did not do EL, he has been assessed as gifted. He is now 7 years old, completely bored in school and it is a constant worry to his parents. Having met my children, her exact words were “Good luck with school - you’re in for a tough time!”, said with exasperation.
While I loved my early school years and was quite successful academically, I underachieved in a major way once I moved to secondary school (high school). I have been thinking about this a lot since I read ‘Mindset’ - I feel I had a fixed mindset approach to my education and, after years of everything coming easily, I opted out of anything I found challenging.
So, for these reasons, I am trying to make a general plan of how to ensure I keep the burning desire to discover the world alive in my kids. I want them to think and learn about things that challenge them on a daily basis. Given the potential they have shown so far, I feel I will need to afterschool meet this goal. And I see the possibility of correspondence undergraduate study as an extension of this.
Right now, we school everyday, focusing primarily on reading and maths. I hope to continue to do at least one hour of afterschooling everyday. However, I’m not sure how this will work out when I go back to work next year following my maternity leave.
My reason for accelerating certain things is not to send them off to the job market either. Nor do I want them in early college. I think 16 is a fine age to start attending college. Partly because most home schooled kids are ready (not all) , but also because I am not a fan of youth culture. We encourage children to remain children entirely too long. Teenage rebellion is something that we have created not something that is necessary. I don’t wish to abnormally prolong childhood as much as I don’t wish to shorten it.
Why would I accelerate? Well we did with my 1st because he needed it. There was no way to go at the same pace as the rest of his peers - even those homeschooling. He would have lost his mind and gotten lazy. What acceleration provided him was a chance to develop skills and explore his interests. Because we’d finished HS Math and Science he was free one semester to take 4 art classes. He was bent on attending an art school and go into graphic design. After one semester he realized he didn’t want to be stuck in an office working with people on projects. He likes art but doesn’t want to have to make a living at it. That saved us a lot of time and money. It was because he was taking 4 classes at once that he realized he hated it. If he had been taking only one - he wouldn’t have figured out he didn’t want to do it all day until he was enrolled in Art School.
But the thing I’ve been really thinking about is the Imafidon children and the scholarships to attend good universities in GB and the US. If you accelerate and finish your core material by 11- 12 you have 4 -6 years to develop your interests or figure out what you are interested in doing. Do you like math? Now is the time to really indulge your passion. There are competitions, side tracks, all sorts of avenues you can take this all the while developing a reason for a college to give you a scholarship. The scholarship isn’t going to a 12 year old with a 17 on the ACT. But if that child waited a few more years that child would have made it to MIT. And a little more maturity would have meant that the child could attend without parents. Is your passion music? Conservatories are HARD to get into. What if you took that 4 - 6 years and spent it all on music? Your child is never going to have another time in his/her life to indulge their passions without having to worry about other duties and responsibilities. And it is this time that they can work hard so that the great schools are going to take them and offer them a free ride. We kind of did this but it wasn’t planned. The result will be a whole lot different when we add parental planning to the mix.
I don’t really forsee myself sending my kids to college early. It’s possible though, I guess, if the road naturally takes them there? I think I would rather lean toward finding a very high caliber gifted and talented high school or even groom them for an ivy league prep boarding school on the east coast or overseas, if that was their desire. If they want to go to college at 16 or whatever age, so be it, but I don’t think I will push it. I would rather see them pursue their passion if they have time to do so before college, and I would like to them to test the waters of becoming entrepreneurs during a time that it is safe for them to fail (before they have to support themselves or a family).
Ideally though, I would like to find an extremely high quality school that supports them very well and that they enjoy. Until then, I will probably after school, unless I decide to home school during the early years for one reason or another, but I don’t expect to right now. I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow though. :biggrin:
Its nice to listen to all your comments on this subject. Like you guys mentioned the whole idea of early education/accelerating is not to get our kids early into the workforce nor to send them off to college earlier. However, some kids need more stimulation…even more than they receive at school and its important to provide them that. It might well pave the way to getting their degrees earlier but again at the end of the day accelerating a child with the goal of getting them into college or workforce earlier is probably not the right path. I strongly believe that depth of knowledge is very important in education.
As for teenage rebellion, a lot of research done in this area and they all have proved that the teenage brain is responsible for a lot of their craziness. This is one of the article I came across :
[i]According to report published on website www.telegraph.co.uk, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland (US) have found that ‘brain pruning’ may better explain why adolescents act the way they do.
The study tracked the brain development of 400 children every two years and found that about 1 percent of the brain’s grey matter was lost every year right into their early 20s. This one percent accounted for the unused neural matter that was overproduced during the child’s growing years.
The ‘pruning’ begins with the areas of the brain responsible for the more basic and motor functions, moves on to the language and spatial regions of the brain and finally the area of the brain responsible for decision-making and impulse control. It is the pruning of the last area that could explain why many teenagers exhibit moodiness, short tempers and indulge in what may be described as bizarre behaviour.
As white matter gradually replaces the lost grey matter, neural connections stabilise and behaviour begins to stabilise as well. The research suggests that while this pruning encourages learning in children, it could also be the reason for increased risk-taking behaviour[/i].
Teenage Brain Development
In[i] adults, various parts of the brain work together to evaluate choices, make decisions and act accordingly in each situation. The teenage brain doesn’t appear to work like this. For comparison’s sake, think of the teenage brain as an entertainment center that hasn’t been fully hooked up. There are loose wires, so that the speaker system isn’t working with the DVD player, which in turn hasn’t been formatted to work with the television yet. And to top it all off, the remote control hasn’t even arrived!
The brain’s remote control is the prefrontal cortex, a section of the brain that weighs outcomes, forms judgments and controls impulses and emotions. This section of the brain also helps people understand one another. If you were to walk into a sports bar full of Lakers fans wearing a Celtics jersey, your prefrontal cortex would immediately begin firing in warning; those teams are bitter enemies, and it might serve you to change your behavior (and your clothes). The prefrontal cortex communicates with the other sections of the brain through connections called synapses. These are like the wires of the entertainment system.
What scientists have found is that teenagers experience a wealth of growth in synapses during adolescence. But if you’ve ever hooked up an entertainment center, you know that more wires means more problems. You tend to keep the components you use the most, while getting rid of something superfluous, like an out-of-date laserdisc player. The brain works the same way, because it starts pruning away the synapses that it doesn’t need in order to make the remaining ones much more efficient in communicating. In teenagers, it seems that this process starts in the back of the brain and moves forward, so that the prefrontal cortex, that vital center of control, is the last to be trimmed. As the connections are trimmed down, an insulating substance called myelin coats the synapses to protect them.
As such, the prefrontal cortex is a little immature in teenagers as compared to adults; it may not fully develop until your mid-20s [source: Kotulak]. And if you don’t have a remote control to call the shots in the brain, using the other brain structures can become more difficult. Imaging studies have shown that most of the mental energy that teenagers use in making decisions is located in the back of the brain, whereas adults do most of their processing in the frontal lobe [source: Wallis]. When teenagers do use the frontal lobe, it seems they overdo it, calling upon much more of the brain to get the job done than adults would [source: Powell]. And because adults have already refined those communicating synapses, they can make decisions more quickly.
Adult brains are also better wired to notice errors in decision-making. While adults performed tasks that required the quick response of pushing buttons, their brains sent out a signal when a hasty mistake was made. Before 80 milliseconds had passed, adult brains had noticed the blunder, but teenage brains didn’t notice any slip-up [source: Monastersky].
An area of the teenager’s brain that is fairly well-developed early on, though, is the nucleus accumbens, or the area of the brain that seeks pleasure and reward. In imaging studies that compared brain activity when the subject received a small, medium or large reward, teenagers exhibited exaggerated responses to medium and large rewards compared to children and adults [source: Powell]. When presented with a small reward, the teenagers’ brains hardly fired at all in comparison to adults and children.
So what does it mean to have an undeveloped prefrontal cortex in conjunction with a strong desire for reward? As it happens, this combination could explain a lot of stereotypical teenage behavior[/i]
Exactly, Sonya. I love the way you put it.
On teen rebellion:
In Scientific American Robert Epstein weighs in on the debate that teen rebellion is caused by brain chemistry issues among teens (a widely held view). He explains,
It's not only in newspaper headlines--it's even on magazine covers. TIME, U.S. News & World Report and even Scientific American Mind have all run cover stories proclaiming that an incompletely developed brain accounts for the emotional problems and irresponsible behavior of teenagers....As you will see, a careful look at relevant data shows that the teen brain we read about in the headlines–the immature brain that supposedly causes teen problems–is nothing less than a myth…
But, he then cites some of the literature that address the questions at hand:
But are such problems truly inevitable? If the turmoil-generating "teen brain" were a universal developmental phenomenon, we would presumably find turmoil of this kind around the world. Do we? In 1991 anthropologist Alice Schlegel of the University of Arizona and psychologist Herbert Barry III of the University of Pittsburgh reviewed research on teens in 186 preindustrial societies. Among the important conclusions they drew about these societies: about 60 percent had no word for "adolescence," teens spent almost all their time with adults, teens showed almost no signs of psychopathology, and antisocial behavior in young males was completely absent in more than half these cultures and extremely mild in cultures in which it did occur.Even more significant, a series of long-term studies set in motion in the 1980s by anthropologists Beatrice Whiting and John Whiting of Harvard University suggests that teen trouble begins to appear in other cultures soon after the introduction of certain Western influences, especially Western-style schooling, television programs and movies. Delinquency was not an issue among the Inuit people of Victoria Island, Canada, for example, until TV arrived in 1980. By 1988 the Inuit had created their first permanent police station to try to cope with the new problem.
Consistent with these modern observations, many historians note that through most of recorded human history the teen years were a relatively peaceful time of transition to adulthood. Teens were not trying to break away from adults; rather they were learning to become adults. Some historians, such as Hugh Cunningham of the University of Kent in England and Marc Kleijwegt of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of Ancient Youth: The Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society (J. C. Gieben, 1991), suggest that the tumultuous period we call adolescence is a very recent phenomenon–not much more than a century old.