By Rachel Belle

Listen
to Feature: Adulthood at 18? Not so much. More
like 24.

When you’re 16, you’re entitled to a bit of immaturity.
You might sleep until noon every weekend, make poor
decisions and get into trouble. But when you turn 18 you
have the right to vote, buy cigarettes and gamble. You’re
officially branded an adult in this country. But think
back to when you were 18: did you really feel like an
adult? I definitely did not. Scientists now say that as
far as your brain is concerned you’re not an adult at 18.

Jen Brown is a nurse in the adolescent medicine
department at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

“For late teenagers, there are still some of those
adolescent traits, what they call Sensation Seeking, doing
things for the thrill of them. From what we can tell, the
brain peaks at 15 for that kind of thing. In the late
teens I think that people are taking risks and perhaps
seeing rewards such as something novel or a new sensation
or peer approval.”

Even though some of the risks can be negative, like
driving drunk without thinking of the consequences or
having unprotected sex and not thinking that they could
get pregnant or an STD, there’s an evolutionary purpose to
acting like a crazy monkey in your late teens.

“There’s a theory that all of these traits are
basically what you need to boot yourself out of the house.
You are seeking thrills and you are caring more about your
peers than your parents and that’s important because
you’re transitioning. It drives adolescents out of the
home. In your parents home, you’re fed, you’re clothed,
you’re sheltered. You need a reason to leave or you just
stay there forever.”

So when your smart teenager makes terrible decisions,
sometimes their brain is to blame. The frontal lobe of the
brain is the last to develop, and that’s the place where
you learn to organize, form strategies, control impulses
and weigh priorities. This part of the brain usually isn’t
fully developed until you’re about 24-year-old. But Jen
says you should still try and set your teen on a good
path.

“An important thing for parents to do is help their
teens learn self control. To help their teens learn which
risks could have some really cool rewards. Learning
something new, meeting someone new, traveling; there are
plenty of risks out there that can be really useful. As
opposed to risks that just don’t have much of a reward.”

Like doing meth and dropping out of college! Despite
the fact that the brain isn’t quite adult, cultures around
the world seem to be fixated on the number 18.

“If you look at most societies, the average age for
being considered an adult is about 18. I looked up the
average age of marriage around the world. It’s about 18,
for women anyway.”

So should we shift the age of adulthood in this
country?

“I certainly wouldn’t say that we should raise the age
of majority because of this research. I think that by 18
most late teenagers, depending on their circumstances,
have the the capacity to act in an adult manner, even if
their thinking is different from a 30 or 40-year-old.”

 

Who is Rachel Belle?