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Listen up. The closing of the teenage mind is almost complete
Jewish World Review ^ | 20 DEC 2023 | Zach Gottlieb

Posted on 12/20/2023 4:03:23 PM PST by Chad C. Mulligan

Almost a century ago, the psychologist Jean Piaget defined the stages of cognitive development. Up until about age 2, children learn about cause and effect through their actions. For the next five years, they learn through pretend play but struggle with logic. By middle school, they're in the "concrete operational stage." Their thinking is more logical but still rigid. Then around age 12, children enter the "formal operational stage," becoming capable of theoretical and abstract reasoning. This progression isn't just about acquiring knowledge; it's about a change in the very nature of how we think.

Madeline Levine, a psychologist and expert in child development, says today's adolescents aren't making it all the way: "We're turning out kids who don't think in complex ways."

"Some of what I see," she adds, "is even pre-operational thinking. It's I can only see it from my point of view. This egocentrism starts to go away in concrete operational thinking."

What's interesting, she notes, is that high school students do demonstrate abstract thinking in specific situations — they can do calculus and physics, after all. "But within the cultural bubble, they're still stuck at the earlier stages. It's a developmental issue that isn't just about, ‘How are kids going to learn?' but ‘How are they going to face life?'"

In other words, we're growing older, but we're not growing up.

(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: adolescents; cognitive; cognitivedevelopment; division; education; egocentrism; isolation; narcissism; schools; youth
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This is a very thought-provoking piece. Explains what I've been seeing in my grandchildren, and to be honest, even in daughter #2.
1 posted on 12/20/2023 4:03:23 PM PST by Chad C. Mulligan
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To: Chad C. Mulligan

I’ve noticed a high percentage of severe narcissism in Gen Z co-workers.

Managed to get one of the newly employed one fired. She was nuts!


2 posted on 12/20/2023 4:10:55 PM PST by lizma2
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To: Chad C. Mulligan

We’ve screwed up everything. It will certainly take decades to fix this mess. And if it takes well over 100 years, I wouldn’t be surprised. But I’ll be dead, so there is that.


3 posted on 12/20/2023 4:12:40 PM PST by ClearCase_guy
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To: All

I never grew up, I just learned how to act around adults.


4 posted on 12/20/2023 4:14:32 PM PST by BipolarBob (Yes officer, I saw the speed limit sign. I just didn't see you.)
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To: BipolarBob

^ This right here. ^


5 posted on 12/20/2023 4:22:14 PM PST by AloneInMass (You'd think there would be more similarity between "chain letter" and "chain mail".)
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To: lizma2

I blame the parents as well. In broken homes, mom and dad compete in a race to the bottom to see who can be the house with the least amount of rules; where Junior has zero chores, responsibility, accountability, consequences and 100% authority as an adult confidant (a horrid form of child abuse, actually).


6 posted on 12/20/2023 4:22:16 PM PST by AbolishCSEU (Amount of "child" support paid is inversely proportionate to mother's actual parenting of children)
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To: All

Most of them aren’t White.


7 posted on 12/20/2023 4:27:29 PM PST by escapefromboston (Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.)
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To: AbolishCSEU

I would blame it more on the parents’ warehousing of children to the care of strangers, starting in infancy, instead of staying home to take care of them themselves.


8 posted on 12/20/2023 4:27:48 PM PST by Bigg Red (Trump will be sworn in under a shower of confetti made from the tattered remains of the Rat Party.)
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To: BipolarBob
I never grew up, I just learned how to act around adults.

Except now, there are practically NO adults, and that's a problem.

9 posted on 12/20/2023 4:31:10 PM PST by workerbee (==)
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To: AbolishCSEU

Too many parents have let their kids be raised by social media.

Ever notice at a table next to you at a restaurant that has a family that’s spend their whole time on their phones!


10 posted on 12/20/2023 4:34:37 PM PST by lizma2
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To: lizma2

Right. Again that would come under parents having no rules for their kids aka unlimited screen time.


11 posted on 12/20/2023 4:36:47 PM PST by AbolishCSEU (Amount of "child" support paid is inversely proportionate to mother's actual parenting of children)
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To: escapefromboston

“Most of them aren’t White.”

That’s not what I’m seeing AT ALL.


12 posted on 12/20/2023 4:36:58 PM PST by lizma2
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To: Chad C. Mulligan

All on purpose. They don’t want non-elites questioning the way things “work”.


13 posted on 12/20/2023 4:40:12 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Bigg Red

I have watched this since the 1960s when I started my family. I sensed that the feminist movement was going to have some very serious negative consequences on children.

Certainly not all, but a good majority of them are harmed by constantly changing caregivers, overcrowded day care facilities, and a lack of parental guidance, structure, discipline, and time spent listening, discussing, following through, and teaching responsibility.

We are reaping the consequences, and these are destroying our morals, our values, our legal system, our institutions, and our nation.


14 posted on 12/20/2023 4:41:11 PM PST by jacquej ("You cannot have a conservative government with a liberal culture." (Mark Steyn))
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To: Bigg Red

Agree


15 posted on 12/20/2023 4:46:00 PM PST by Guenevere (“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”)
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To: jacquej

Absolutely……that was my fear as well……and it has come to pass!
They convinced women to leave home/ children and ……here we are!
There was/is a plan…….and we are seeing it’s fruition


16 posted on 12/20/2023 4:49:57 PM PST by Guenevere (“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”)
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To: Chad C. Mulligan
Then around age 12, children enter the "formal operational stage," becoming capable of theoretical and abstract reasoning.

I just don't know about a "formal operational stage," at 12 I and my friends were heavily into "General Interest Relationship Learning Seminars."

.

17 posted on 12/20/2023 4:55:10 PM PST by TLI (ITINERIS IMPENDEO VALHALLA)
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To: Chad C. Mulligan

“This is a very thought-provoking piece.”

The first thought it provoked in me came from the first paragraph:

“The topic was gender and how the experiences of the authors we were studying related to our world today.”

This is an English AP class, not a cultural affairs class.

“Even when teenagers want an open dialogue, they don’t agree “

By definition, an open dialog is one with non-agreed-upon ideas.

“During lunch at school recently, someone brought up transgender females ...”

Ouch! Obviously this sort of thing is what the author likes to talk about and have her students talk about.

Oh well. Mother Theresa said that wisdom is acquired through suffering.


18 posted on 12/20/2023 5:01:30 PM PST by cymbeline
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To: cymbeline
Oh well. Mother Theresa said that wisdom is acquired through suffering.

So true.

19 posted on 12/20/2023 5:05:44 PM PST by neverevergiveup
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To: lizma2
Ever notice at a table next to you at a restaurant that has a family that’s spend their whole time on their phones!

I've posted on what I see as a tragedy--families eating out, at the same table, each on their own cell phone--several times. They'd rather interact with anonymous electrons than real people. Ugh.

20 posted on 12/20/2023 5:14:44 PM PST by EinNYC
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