More Homophobic Bullshit from Itawamba

[evolveme]

Originally Posted by Medusa

Oh yeah, and I prettttttty much agree with this - Im just thinking that some of these kids are closer to 15 and 16 than 17 and 18 and that their emotional intelligence is obviously lacking.
I do agree that they know their behavior is hurtful - I think back to the "mean girl and boy" mentality of high school and how kids who are too scared to think for themselves will often follow the crowd because its "safer" for them (thinking of all of those Queer kids who "act straight" in small towns in order to keep from getting the shit kicked out of them)

I think that people at that age aren't wholly formed yet and that maybe hearing and seeing the backlash might help them evolve a little. Or not.

I do think that Constance is incredibly brave and level and has shown immense grace under all of the stabby stuff. I hope that in some small way she gains strength from seeing all of the thousands of people who support her and love her.

I also agree that Constance should be commended. She's certainly brave.

What I want to speak to here is the back-and-forth about the developmental capacity of teenagers - whether we should expect them to be responsible (I believe we should) and to own compassion (I also believe we should) provided that we also understand their brains* and their environments. We need to have compassion *for* them, in order to expect it *from* them. And being from Mississippi, I can tell you that there isn't a meaty air of compassion from which to draw in the first.

The brains of teenagers are not fully formed. Their frontal lobes are "sluggish." They are high on impulsiveness and weak on decision making skill. This article from NPR came about when a pediatric neurologist decided to study what the heck was up with her teenage sons and why they appeared to be making such ridiculous decisions.

It isn't believed that brains are fully developed until into the twenties. So, I agree with Medusa, that while we can (must) hold these teenagers responsible for the poor choices they are making (we have to teach all kids to be accountable for themselves), it is really the parents here who must own what has occurred. Constance and every other teenager like her deserves that much.

[Selenay]

Originally Posted by evolveme

The brains of teenagers are not fully formed. Their frontal lobes are "sluggish." They are high on impulsiveness and weak on decision making skill. This article from NPR came about when a pediatric neurologist decided to study what the heck was up with her teenage sons and why they appeared to be making such ridiculous decisions.

It isn't believed that brains are fully developed until into the twenties. So, I agree with Medusa, that while we can (must) hold these teenagers responsible for the poor choices they are making (we have to teach all kids to be accountable for themselves), it is really the parents here who must own what has occurred. Constance and every other teenager like her deserves that much.

Right, that's entirely accurate and may full well explain why I, and so many other teenagers and early twenty-somethings are more apt to say, "Well. It seemed like a good idea, at the time..." than are our older counterparts.


However, there is a large difference between an impulse decision and a series of impulse decisions. If I decide that it's a really good idea to skip class and take a nap, that's an impulse decision that may not be the right one. If I decide it's a really good idea to skip class every monday for the rest of the semester, I do not think that falls under the category of my poor frontal lobe connectors.

There is a huge difference between the postulation that teens are unable to appropriately judge the consequences of their actions in the moment, and being unable to judge them in the long term--and this article does not confirm or deny that it applies to long term decisions, it focuses on singular decisions (with the exception of the goth change, which could also be attributed to the studies done on the effects of peer pressure on teenagers, in regards to their underdeveloped frontal lobe; i'd be happy to look for that article if someone is curious about it. )

[evolveme]

Originally Posted by Selenay

Right, that's entirely accurate and may full well explain why I, and so many other teenagers and early twenty-somethings are more apt to say, "Well. It seemed like a good idea, at the time..." than are our older counterparts.


However, there is a large difference between an impulse decision and a series of impulse decisions. If I decide that it's a really good idea to skip class and take a nap, that's an impulse decision that may not be the right one. If I decide it's a really good idea to skip class every monday for the rest of the semester, I do not think that falls under the category of my poor frontal lobe connectors.

There is a huge difference between the postulation that teens are unable to appropriately judge the consequences of their actions in the moment, and being unable to judge them in the long term--and this article does not confirm or deny that it applies to long term decisions, it focuses on singular decisions (with the exception of the goth change, which could also be attributed to the studies done on the effects of peer pressure on teenagers, in regards to their underdeveloped frontal lobe; i'd be happy to look for that article if someone is curious about it. )

I like the way that you're thinking (usually do; you know this) and while I see the validity of your point here, it's also true that repeated behaviors (good, bad or otherwise) can create neuron pathways in the brain, leading to automatic behavior (as opposed to in-the-moment creative behavior). It's fascinating that our brains can literally be changed by our behaviors, yeah? I'm not necessarily suggesting that the choice to cut class every Monday could become an example of such a brain change toward auto-pilot behavior, but I do believe that regularly chosen poor behaviors (and corresponding attitudes) can be.

[Selenay]

Originally Posted by evolveme

I like the way that you're thinking (usually do; you know this) and while I see the validity of your point here, it's also true that repeated behaviors (good, bad or otherwise) can create neuron pathways in the brain, leading to automatic behavior (as opposed to in-the-moment creative behavior). It's fascinating that our brains can literally be changed by our behaviors, yeah? I'm not necessarily suggesting that the choice to cut class every Monday could become an example of such a brain change toward auto-pilot behavior, but I do believe that regularly chosen poor behaviors (and corresponding attitudes) can be.

What do you know of Exchange Theory? One of the criticisms of that paradigm is that for it to be entirely plausible, we would have to weigh the benefits of every single action we do--and some don't believe it's possible to do that. Others believe that when you make decisions on a frequent enough basis that you unconsciously make a decision based on your experiences. So yes, I understand your belief that the neural paths are branded by our common behaviors, but I cannot believe that any teenager could have made the decision to step on the rights of others enough time to create a new pathway contrasting what they (theoretically) have been taught about right and wrong; I think that takes more than eight years of conscious decisionmaking.

[evolveme]

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

If we also consider that it is far from uncommon for adults with fully developed frontal lobes to make many poor decisions, I wonder how we can differentiate between a poor decision one makes as a teenager and a poor decision one makes as an adult, and if these adults made the same poor decision as these 18 year olds, can we really say, without a shadow of a doubt, that these teenagers simply made the decision because they were 18 and not 38? What these studies on teenage brain development show is that teenagers are more likely to make poor decisions because the frontal lobe is still developing, not that every poor decision they make is because of it. If that were the case, then adults with fully formed frontal lobes would not be making poor decisions.

I believe I went to senior prom as a Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior. One could go provided their date was a Senior. I was only 18 the final year that I went. I'm not postulating here that this is the case of the students at this Mississippi "Secret Prom," but I imagine a good many of those students were not legal adults; not 18 years old. Can we say that these teens made any decision simply because they were [teenagers] and not because they were "38"? Well, EnderD, I imagine they made whatever poor decisions they made based on a number of factors: inexperience, lack of social awareness, lack of empathy, need to be accepted, having been raised in an environment of intolerance, impulsiveness indicative of their age, etc. Some of these things are, yes, more associated with being a teenager than with simply being a (depraved?) human.

A fully formed frontal lobe is not the card and key to good decision making, as you seem to suggest.

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

I'm also unsure if I follow in your reasoning about owing Constance that much. To me, all persons involved should be owning up to what they did, not just the adults. I realise that you claim that the teens should also be held responsible, but I'm not sure I understand why there should be any difference between the responsibility taken by the teenagers and the adults. Considering both made equally wrong decisions, we shouldn't necessarily assume that one group did so just because they may be more likely to. We don't know that that isn't a decision they wouldn't have made as adults. I also think that by claiming "that while we can (must) hold these teenagers responsible for the poor choices they are making (we have to teach all kids to be accountable for themselves), it is really the parents here who must own what has occurred," we are taking away the weight of that responsibility. It's a bit like saying "you're responsible, but not really."

This is a fine line you've attempted to parse from my words. Basically, it comes down to the fact that I believe all children are led toward acts of wrong-doing or right-doing originally by the adults in their given environment. Their motivations are eventually their own, but their aims are given birth in the arms of the adult humans that teach them by word and by example. By witnessing acts of cruelty, children learn to enact their own motivations for power in harmful ways. By having parents and teachers expressing negative and hateful sentiment toward Constance, and providing a "safe" prom for their own children away from her, they created an environment wherein their own children could be protected and inspired toward the acting out of their aggressions.

In a just society, we do not punish a child for the same crime and in the same way that we do an adult. In a *just* society.

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

The other issue I thought I'd bring up is treating teenagers and young adults in general as though they are not real human beings because "their brains aren't grown up" and that that affects every single thing they do. To talk to a teenager like that (as this mother does in the article you posted) is really condescending and teenagers do pick up on that, which can lead to bigger problems, imo.

I didn't get this from the same article. But, you know, when I speak to my teenager like this, she doesn't pick up on it at all (I blame her poor undeveloped brain). Do yours? Also, in our home, people aren't considered real humans until they can understand tax law and the true nature of death.

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

Lack of "emotional intelligence" (a difficult term to use anyway) is not always correlated with lashing out at the unknown, nor is it necessarily linked to compassion. Emotional intelligence is largely defined by the ability to interpret another human being's emotion, however, interpreting emotion correctly does not necessarily bear any testament to what a person does with that information. You seem to assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, that because a person correctly interprets another's emotions, that they will automatically be compassionate. A person may very easily understand that their victim is fearful or angry, but they may continue their torment of that person for a number of reasons, whether that be out of their own subconscious fear, their desire to feel powerful or myriad of other reasons. If the aggressors believed they were in the right (with their fear being subconscious rather than conscious), then it becomes difficult to evaluate emotional intelligence. At the same time we might interpret that, as you say, as a lack in the ability to see subconscious fear, but if that is the case how entirely aware are any of us of our subconscious?

Admittedly, I take issue with the term "emotional intelligence" because it is a bit of an unclear term that can be interpreted in a number of ways.

When I did a search to try to understand where you might be gleaning this very basic utilization of emotional intelligence, Wikipedia did express a similar point of view, but I don't consider Wikipedia an always valid or comprehensive enough source.

Here, I quote some examples on the utilization of EQ that I find relevant to the issue at hand. You may or may not find them of use.

“Payne (1986)… believed that emotional intelligence could be fostered in the schools by liberating emotional experience through therapy. Liberating feelings, he wrote, ‘will be no easy task politically…in terms of the social unrest it will likely create. But we must come to terms with this or continue to raise generations of adults who behave in emotionally ignorant—and, therefore, destructive—ways” (Payne, 1986, p. 441).

“…Cooper’s (1996/1997) EQ map begins with emotional self-awareness, emotional awareness of others, interpersonal connections,…resilience, creativity, compassion, and intuition, among other things” (Caruso, Mayor, & Salovey, 2000, p. 102).

As for the remainder of your post, you seem to be addressing sociopathic behavior or antisocial personality traits. This kind of pathology can be found in approximately 4% of the population. I’ve joked that it is more prevalent in teenagers. But I was only joking.

[evolveme]

Originally Posted by Selenay

What do you know of Exchange Theory? One of the criticisms of that paradigm is that for it to be entirely plausible, we would have to weigh the benefits of every single action we do--and some don't believe it's possible to do that. Others believe that when you make decisions on a frequent enough basis that you unconsciously make a decision based on your experiences. So yes, I understand your belief that the neural paths are branded by our common behaviors, but I cannot believe that any teenager could have made the decision to step on the rights of others enough time to create a new pathway contrasting what they (theoretically) have been taught about right and wrong; I think that takes more than eight years of conscious decisionmaking.

Sociology gets me goin', man.

Okay. So, let's talk (loosely) of Exchange Theory for a moment. Provided that a teenager has been given what we might term a moral framework around which to center her or his own ethical compass (and many have not...also media directed toward the teenager does not foster it), the external pressure to engage in unethical behaviors are strong enough in our society (and others) to steer one away from what one knows to be "right," while creating varying (and progressively greater) degrees of cognitive dissonance. We could get philosophical for a moment and discuss whether and if these are perhaps the years in which the human is meant to learn the very essential need for social order by employing all manner of instinctual behaviors against it (while still under the protection of the family), thereby learning her/his value to the self and the group. A sense of ethics is both taught and built. Often, it must be repaired.

Rational choice is a matter of development and, person-to-person, a matter of degree. It too, must be taught, built, sometimes repaired.

I think that what the teenager is getting from negative social behaviors (acts of social aggression such as the homophobia directed toward Constance), thus why s/he does it, is a kind of peer approval. Acceptance. Validation that one believes correctly and that one is also safe from the kind of derision one is party to. I think that the need for these things guides this decision making - however many times, and however unconsciously - and that until the desire not to be party to something so ugly and painful becomes greater than the need for approval and acceptance, then these behaviors will only continue.

Admittedly, I have an evolutionary perspective on all of this, as I do on most things.

[Daryn]

I am going to tackle this from a slightly different perspective. It comes from my views of how personal change is the first step to all kinds of other change. Most people and especially teens hold a lot of unexamined beliefs. I did.

While I did not grow up in the South, I did grow up in rural, red neck, stupid f**k Amerika and many decades ago. So all I ever heard was that queers were bad, immoral, etc. And mostly the concern was with gay males. Everyone I knew thought that way, pretty much. And if you wanted to insult someone a lot than throw in a homophobic pejorative.

While I did not believe in a lot of the standard local b.s. (I was against the war in Viet Nam and had my black arm band torn off the day of the Moratorium - my frosh year), I still bought into homophobia. So it's not like I needed my high school peer's approval or even my parents'. That belief was just unexamined and deep seated.

In June of 1969, Time mag ran a cover story about Homosexuality in America after the Stonewall uprising. I was finishing 9th grade. I read it. I had to look up a lot of words (sexual terms). My reaction was - those people should have rights but I don't want them around me. At that time I was had dreams of joining the SDS and blowing up banks and taking LSD. Well, I never did any of those three things. But......... here I am.

And what changed my thinking was my senior year I started hanging out with college students and grad students who were not from my home town (most of them were from very large cities). Some of them were involved in the theater. And I heard a lot of discussion where the narrowness of the locals (and that includes the next town over where this college was) was the butt of jokes. So essentially, I realized there was a different point of view than the only one I had ever been exposed to.

So the first part of any change is to change the way you think about things.

One of my mother's friends read me as queer before I was even 13. At the time, I had no concept of queer. But my behavior got a lot of attention and I did learn what was concerning them. And that's where I started learning gay was not OK.

And more years went by (and that many) I found the freedom (some people have told me courage but I've never seen it that way) to be with women. Coming to my masculine identity was a much longer and trickier journey.

There are openly queer kids in my hometown now and their parents don't disown them or kick them out.

So for the most part, I guess I'd blame the parents here. Not that teenagers cannot be cruel and mean. They can. And what is tolerated and what goes on is apparently a lot worse than what it was years ago. As a geek I got excluded from a lot of things but no one was ever too overt or in my face or anyone else's. Probably just as well as just about every teenager in the county had easy access to guns. While I don't condone kids who go ballistic, I think I can understand it as a response to bullying.

[Toughy]

For 30 years, my Dad was teacher, coach, athletic director with a Master's in Natural Sciences and a Master's in Education He spent half of his teaching and coaching time in junior high school (7th, 8th, 9th grade). This was in small town of 9,000 where he was born and raised.

He always said that you could talk to teenagers until your tongue couldn't move and they never learned or heard any of it. What kids learned was from the actions of the adults around them......parents, parents of friends, teachers, school administrators, church folks........the example set by those 'older' and 'in charge'.

that old saying.........actions speak louder than words.........it is very true when it comes to kids.