Children & Values
Hi, this is Dr. Roger Hall and this is Roger’s 2 cents in this video blog, I answered questions that people have written on cards, open them in front of you and give you my 2 cents right off the cuff. If you’d like to submit one of these, send it to 6568 south federal way, suite 223, Boise, Idaho, 83716. All right, so here’s our question for today. As a leader for your family, how do you help teach, instruct, advise your children to develop much of this insight and awareness to build their character for the better before it’s too late if their prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed until later in life. So they’re learning on the front end of what we’re hearing now. So the question is, how do you teach your kids this, this the stuff that I teach, if their prefrontal cortex isn’t developed until later? Young people’s prefrontal Cortex, the part right here, right above your eyes, which is the part of your brain in charge of decision making, self control, the delay of gratification, abstract thinking, all of that, that’s not completely developed until the age of about 25 so the prefrontal is not fully developed until 25 that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
It doesn’t mean that you’re, you’re dealing with someone with the intellect of a puppy or kitten. You’re dealing with a person whose prefrontal cortex is not fully developed. So can young people learn self control? Can they learn in the delay of gratification? Can they learn all of the skills that are important to character? Yes, they can. Are they particularly good at that? Some of them better than others. Some people, uh, achieve greater development of their prefrontal cortex at a younger age. Other people way beyond the age of 25. What we typically say about young people as boy, that that young person is really quite mature. That means that that’s a person who has learned the delay of gratification, who has learned self control. The important thing when you’re training children is to put it in language that their brains can understand, usually in stories. Um, kids love picture books and picture books are a great way to teach abstract concepts.
Aesop’s fables, which were fables that Aesop wrote, you know, over 2000 years ago are still around today because they illustrate principles of life in the stories of animals. So if you want to teach children, character principles, teach them in stories. There are lots and lots of great stories out there, lots of great literature for young people to help them understand the issues of character. When I was a kid, um, there is an English author, her name is Enid Blyton and she wrote a bunch of adventure stories for children that talked about self – , that that illustrated self control, that illustrated adventure, uh, that illustrated good judgment and kids doing the right things. So find authors that you like, that you agree with the values and the virtues that they’re teaching, and then let your kids read those things. That’s Roger’s 2 cents.