It’s the brain chemistry

I am awed by some of the newer brain research that has been coming out in recent years, particularly as regards the developing child/adolescent brain.  Here are a few factoids of interest:

• The brain develops from back to front; that is, from critical life-sustaining functions in the brain stem (like breathing) to the more complex, problem-solving matters in the frontal lobe (perhaps calculus…personally, I never got there, but you get the point.)
• The limbic area (further back in the brain) is the home for our fight/flight/freeze response when we are afraid or angry—again, part of the life-protecting response to some perceived danger, I suppose.
• The frontal lobe (housed right behind the forehead) is also for decisions involving the word should, (as in, “no, I definitely should NOT take calculus”), and involves moral and ethical capabilities.
• And here’s the kicker—the frontal lobe does not fully develop in the human brain until the early to mid-twenties.

 Explains a lot, don’t it?

So when I read this from

“God is more powerful than my stupid”

My husband’s brothers and their childhood friends are an interesting lot.  Nice guys, really, but growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, they made their mark, and thankfully were also prevented from doing so a time or two.

One of the (many) stories that has passed into family lore has to do with Bob’s brother and a friend who were caught as they were trying to set fire to some old newspapers in an alley within a neighbor’s garage.  For “some reason” (thank God for guardian angels), the