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https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051

From the link:

Understanding the Teen Brain

It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet.

The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.

In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.

In teen’s brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not necessarily at the same rate. That’s why when teens experience overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling.

I think that is very true. It explains, when teenagers are often asked "Why did you do that?" why the often honest answer from them is "I don't know."

You couldn't make me be a teenager again for all the tea in China. I wouldn't mind having that healthy body capable of running and jumping, but...if I had to go back and live it again and have to learn lessons the same way again...no. Never.

That was too unpleasant.

“In teen’s brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not necessarily at the same rate. That’s why when teens experience overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling.”

And that has nothing at all to do with the law.

Corey was 16 and could have been charged with a state jail felony just as if he were 36 years old.

Corey was responsible for his actions just as we hold other people of Corey’s age accountable when they are accused of crimes.

We seem to constantly excuse “children” of all ages with some pablum about “it’s a stage”, including adolescents.

BS.

Read up on teens 100, 200 years ago. People had much higher expectations of them and they filled it. Hell, there was no “teenager” then. No such term.

Truth is we keep treating everyone like babies and they fulfill THAT. This crap that teens are “different” has to stop. They CAN learn and CAN control themselves.

I remember learning that in psychology years ago and believe it’s true to some extent. On the other hand, it also seems to me that there’s quite a bit more to it.

Like we have to ask, when they study teens’ brains versus adults, are they able to look at the brains of teens from different countries? And can they say that teens’ brains were always like they are now in the past?

We know at all ages, in terms of the brain and body, it’s important how they’re used. In modern societies, teenagers are increasingly lavished with things while they have less responsibility in the past. Children who worked on farms or in factories from young ages had to grow up fast. It was demanded of them by adults and by circumstances.

Then we have to consider, too, things like that teens have so many more truly bad influences on them today. The entertainment industry churns out destructive ideas and images, sowing moral confusion. And whereas children in other eras got steady guidance from spending much if not most of their time with people older than them, today teens look to other teens (as well as entertainers and teachers) for much of their guidance. Those things can’t really help the development of their brains.