Please don’t tell me how you will get those brains. I don’t want to know.

p.s. I might be able to score some 3rd world adolescent brains to study . I’ll probably get thrown in jail for saying that, but I thought it would be funny. Enjoying your blog.

2.) I think he’s trying to say that we’re fooling ourselves about working for the common good. And it’s exactly because each little kingdom desires to be THE place that we are in a mess. He’s just diagnosing the issue.

3.) Yes, and Epstein is saying that the turmoil, while real, is not necessary. And in fact, we are significantly under-utilizing a large segment of our population by delaying productivity and meaningful participation in society until age 25 or so.

On The Primal Teen, Epstein would probably say exactly what I quoted above: “But it’s also the case that a wide variety of behaviors–meditating, reading, drinking, having sex and so on–literally change the brain.” Therefore, it is possible infantilization changes the brain. The Primal Teen itself documents research in mice which show that brain development can be altered by not using various portions of the brain. It is not completely genetically controlled. There are important environmental factors at work. Whereas Barbara Strauch reads the correlation in one direction, Epstein appears to be reading it in another. This is why I would like to see some research on brain development of teens in non-industrialized cultures. I haven’t seen any. But I haven’t looked too hard. Seems like that would help to put some more clarity on this debate.

Thanks for contributing to the conversation.

On another note, what is it with JBU grads and Denver Seminary? Melissa Earle and Aaron Elmore are there, I think. Any others?

Oh, and tell your lovely wife hi.

1) Correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but the only way to accurately study for causation is to do a double blind study with a strong control group. This is practically impossible for human studies. the best we can do is to imply possible causations. To say that correlation does not equal causation is nice, but doesn’t appreciate the complexity of psychological studies (Hey, i did learn one thing in statistics).

2) Surely societal paradigms are to blame for much of the “adolescence as turmoil”, but that is primarily due to our desire to legitimize our programs for the common good. Rather than wholistically developing family units, governments, churches, and schools desire to be seen as THE place for healthy child/family/society development. In other words, we cannot but help build our own little kingdoms because of our pride.

3) Epstein convincingly argues that adolescence is a social construct, I think many third world cultures demonstrate how constructed it is. That does not change the fact that adolescence is a perceived time of inner turmoil. We can better understand how we got here through Epstein, but need to also recognize that current cultural norms are the water in which we swim.

Out of curiosity, what does Epstein say about current brain research showing physical brain turmoil a la “The Primal Teen”?

I also agree with Matt’s idea that the church can lead the way in influencing the greater culture by creating its own kingdom culture. A culture where teens and young adults are valued as disciples created in the image of God, not as an age demographic or future disciples. A culture where adults and teens love, serve, and worship alongside each other instead of requiring separate venues to accommodate generational differences. It’d have to be a culture of grace and patience, I suppose.

What excites me is that I think that churches have the potential to implement most of these changes immediately and comprehensively. We are often our own mini-societies with out own sets of governance, rules, leadership, etc. Maybe the church could be a microcosm of what the rest of society could look like if we valued teens for the abilities and potential.

I think this is a theologically sound way to move forward in multiple areas as well. This speaks volumes to those of us who seek to do inter-generational ministry.