Wednesday, September 25, 2013

"An adult at 18? Not any more: Adolescence now ends at 25"

"Adolescence no longer ends when people hit 18, according to updated guidelines being given to child psychologists. The new directive is designed to extend the age range that child psychologists can work with from 18 years old up to 25."

There are now three stages of adolescence, according to the BBC report: early adolescence that ranges from 12 to 14 years, middle adolescence from 15 to 17 years and 18 and over is classed as late adolescence."

New scanning technology has made it possible for psychologists and other doctors to track how the brain changes and processes information."

MailOnline, BBC

30 comments:

edutcher said...

Any insurance actuary will tell you males are certifiable until 25.

virgil xenophon said...

This has interesting potential thorny implications for the armed forces. Is some anti-war outfit going to launch a law-suit saying that 18-25 year-olds can't be allowed to handle weapons because their judgment is not yet fully formed--and in addition that military life warps a still developing brain making them a potential danger to civilians. If *I* can think of the potential lawsuits you can be sure that MUCHO creative and energetic attorneys will.

As a 24 year-old fighter-pilot I had already had one combat tour under my belt in Vietnam and was sitting nuclear alert in the UK carrying a 10KT tactical nuke. Will lawyers now argue people such as me at that age can't be trusted around nuclear weapons? All of this is a potential can of worms..

(PS: People should know there is a famous Supreme court case originating in Missouri (iirc) in which these very scientific findings were used to throw out the death penalty for a teenager who plotted, robbed, tortured and then threw off a bridge to his death an elderly man)

virgil xenophon said...

@edutcher/
Yes, don't rental car companies refuse to rent to single males 25 or under? Or at lest charge very high rates?

Matt Sablan said...

This sounds like it is trying to protect guild mates by expanding the amount of time they can see a given patient. What makes us think that psychologists who have been trained to deal with teens are competent at dealing with the problems of a 20 something?

Or, is this the fall out of people living at home and starting "adult" life later?

Calypso Facto said...

From the Brain Institute: "New findings on the adult brain establish [that] the adult brain continues to grow and develop throughout our entire life."

So maybe we should just mandate healthcare coverage for "kids" on their parents' policies until age 100?

virgil xenophon said...

And if anyone thinks I am borrowing trouble that will never come I remember a female federal Dist judge from the 6th Dist once lamenting during a conference on court administration on C-Span that the Federal Courts are clogged with frivolous lawsuits because "...there is not a side-walk zoning dispute in the smallest township in the land that today cannot be gotten into Federal Court if only the lawyers involved are creative and energetic enough."

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

The government treats us like babies from cradle to grave.
Incrementally, this helps make it official.

chickelit said...

This is what happens when we let kids vote.

Leland said...

is this the fall out of people living at home and starting "adult" life later?

I keep wondering if children living at home longer with their paretns is a fall out of changing the law so that parent's insurance covers children until age 25.

Matt Sablan said...

Leland: From my cohort, I know that it was a result of the rising unemployment and debt. So, I think that's the prime cause (with the change in healthcare coverage being an added incentive, along with "free rent.")

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Hollywood encourages Peter Pan syndrome.

Democrats like the welfare state.

It all makes sense to me.

Mitch H. said...

So, we're back to the Regency now, with people not considered fiscal adults (and thus wards either of their parents or a duly designated guardian) until they were 25? Of course, back then they were fine with pitching thirteen-year-old midshipmen into ships to get blown to patriotic bits by cannon-fire...

bagoh20 said...

We've already proven that we can more effectively bankrupt the younguns if we both let them vote and treat them like children. We need an old codger version of a maniacal laugh for us all to use.

Isn't it true that the brain also changes during older years too, so maybe we are all adolescents.

Shouting Thomas said...

Delayed marriage and child rearing.

I can vouch for this. Didn't really find an adult direction in life until I had kids.

We're putting off having kids so that we can improve our job skills, and also for that 7 to 8 year vacation in late adolescence of screwing around, attending Spring Break and appearing on reality TV shows.

In my case, I moved to San Francisco for the interregnum.

bagoh20 said...

This may explain why the younguns are so liberal, and then when the brain matures they often find conservatism, assuming they have the basic brain capacity, but God wasn't real egalitarian with that.

bagoh20 said...

This relentless lowering of the bar for our own people will eventually doom us as we have our lunch money taken by tougher more demanding societies going the opposite direction.

We have been lowing the bar on education, responsibility, self determination and self reliance, logic and the ability to discriminate between: bad and good, or better and worse, or truth and falsehood.

We have feminized our men and now we are infantilizing all our offspring. We are ignoring Darwin's lessons, and the most basic lesson of all higher life forms. Train your children to winners or they will be losers. If you raise a dependent loser, don't expect them to thank you for it.

Chip Ahoy said...

Sexual education in kindergarden, girls develop breasts earlier than ever, boys don't mature until twenty-five. My report to Jupiter this week will note an age discrepancy and general age-related disruption and disorientation.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The fruit bat has a good point.

If you are classified as children or adolescents until the age of 25, then why shouldn't we also raise other age based hurdles.

Age of consent. We shouldn't allow unstable and unsuitable adolescents to have children.

Drinking age. Can't have children drinking and doing childish things with their undeveloped minds

Age of conscription. How dare we have children of the tender age of 21 be in the military. Are we monsters?

Driving.....nuff said. Take the keys away from those delicately unformed children

Working. OMG. Child labor laws. Have we not learned anything from the past!! Young people should be allowed to lounge around in the parents basements and play Skyrim. Grand Theft Auto V is completely out of the question. The violence may damage their developing minds.

/sarcasm off.

edutcher said...

Let's not forget voting.

virgil xenophon said...

Yes, don't rental car companies refuse to rent to single males 25 or under? Or at lest charge very high rates?

Insurance rates are astronomical for any male 25 or under because the stats are very clear 25 is the age they stop using motor vehicles to wrap themselves around telephone poles.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

I would love it if we didn't allow voting until age 25.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

The young'uns are librul because the public school system indoctrinates from a young age now.

When I was a kid, I don't recall much liberal indoctrination. I bounced around schools a bit too, private and public. I was not indoctrinated until college.

The libs are actively going after young minds. The communists knew this was the way in, and they are succeeding.

Now, when I listen to my teen-aged nephew talk, I understand fully he is being brainwashed by leftists.

Matt Sablan said...

"Now, when I listen to my teen-aged nephew talk, I understand fully he is being brainwashed by leftists."

-- I think that sometimes when I talk to a few people just a few years younger than me. I feel like, when I was in high school and college in the late 90s/early oughts, it wasn't that bad.

But, lately? The deluge of stupid springing forward in young people is shocking. Even in unrelated to politics things -- like explaining board game rules or the like -- this wall of duh is there.

Methadras said...

You see how this works folks? This is leftist indoctrination and inculcation on full display as a direct attack on people as function to keep us under even more control. Think about it from a legal point of view. If adolescence is rated to end at 25, then any types of medical/legal quackery can be instituted to either absolve or incriminate you even further. Infantilization is the name of the game, yeah, but you keep making that tax money for us you big baby.

ricpic said...

The guidelines were handed down to psychologists? By whom? Find who did the handing down and hang 'em from the nearest lamppost. Cause nothing less will succeed in breaking the grip of those who are infantilizing a whole people in order to rule supreme.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Adolescence ends when you get off the "dole"

Grow up! Get a job! I get that there are a lot of college grads who are underemployed, but mow grass, shovel walks, do landscaping and handyperson stuff, open a small business (say as a landscaper, etc.) and keep busy.

Methadras said...

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Adolescence ends when you get off the "dole"

Grow up! Get a job! I get that there are a lot of college grads who are underemployed, but mow grass, shovel walks, do landscaping and handyperson stuff, open a small business (say as a landscaper, etc.) and keep busy.


Hell, volunteer even.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Grow up! Get a job! I get that there are a lot of college grads who are underemployed, but mow grass, shovel walks, do landscaping and handyperson stuff, open a small business (say as a landscaper, etc.) and keep busy.

The government makes sure that you CAN'T do any of those things or makes it extremely difficult.

Open a small business: You need to be licensed likely as a state contractor and/or at the local level, buy a surety bond, take education courses and pass a test initially and probably periodically after that, have liability insurance, report your income to the IRS and the State, deal with sales taxes or resale licensing, deal with certifications for handling hazardous chemicals, obey arcane signage rules on your vehicle and place of business, keep track of your own personal tax liabilities.

God help you if you have employees.!!

Dante said...

"Sexual education in kindergarden, girls develop breasts earlier than ever, boys don't mature until twenty-five. My report to Jupiter this week will note an age discrepancy and general age-related disruption and disorientation."

It's antibacterial soap causing early onset of puberty:

Recent animal studies of triclosan have led scientists to worry that it could case hormone-related problems in humans including an increase the risk of infertility and early puberty.

Paddy O said...

We're becoming more and more hobbit-like, that's all.

Matt Sablan said...

"We're becoming more and more hobbit-like, that's all."

-- Does this mean I can end the oppression that is socks and shoes?