A poster for the D.C. punk band Bad Brains, a band that isn’t what you might think by looking at them. Just like Debi’s book isn’t what one might expect while looking at books on brains.

We’re back with a new chapter of Debi Pearl’s bad brains book “Create a Better Brain Through Neuroplasticity” and today we deal with young adult brains. Last week is here and its about autism.

Debi starts the chapter with some very normal descriptions of brain parts and their various functions that isn’t entirely made up. Yes, Debi sciences here for a change. Debi explains that the Pre Frontal Cortex in your teenager is undeveloped and will not stop developing until he’s around 25 years of age. Keep in mind that the Pearls also push for young marriage, and Debi herself was still a teen with that under developed PFC when she married Michael. Explains a lot.

“These half-brained teenagers with full-grown bodies and overgrown sex drives also have loads of neurotransmitters screaming their self-importance.”

Anyone that has ever raised a teenager, a normal teenager not cowed and beaten in a cult can testify to this fact. When raising teens it is so important to realize that they don’t know it all while thinking they do and to take everything they say involving this with a boulder of salt and not take offense.

“It is scary now to know that I was a half-brained dimwit, riding a horse named Know-It-All to a battle against the forces of ignorance and complacency. The ranks of all revolutions are filled with young people under the age of 25.”

Yes, again Debi was married to Mike by the time she was 18, so that’s about seven years rushing about with immaturity raising children. Too bad she’s still stuck intellectually and emotionally in that same place.

Debi goes so far as to say you should get your teenager to repeat every single morning this affirmation:

“As a young adult under the age of 25, I do not have a complete prefrontal cortex, which means I might be inclined to make poor decisions, exercise poor judgement, misunderstand someone or something, or just don’t know for sure if I am right about something. I am really very stupid. I must listen to my parents and those in authority even more than when I was four years old if I hope to come through in good form and without regrets.”

Stupid???!?!?! I cannot believe she would willingly have anyone call themselves that word. Talk about self-esteem wrecking and destroying, creating a laundry list of insecurities that would be enough to buy a psychiatrist that second vacation home.

Please never talk to your kids like this!

Debi goes on to state that if you are having struggles with your child by 15 years of age you will lose him to his own ship of ideas. Again, not true. Our own biology sets us up at that age to start loosening the parental child bonds in preparation for the day when those same children walk out of the door to take up their lives as independent adults. It’s helpful to keep that in mind when dealing with teenagers, and to remember to play out the line, give them increasing responsibilities as they chafe at the restrictions. Talk to your child, heart to heart, and figure out a way both of you can manage to rub together without rubbing each other the wrong way.

Then Debi moves onto tales of MRIs of adult and young adult brains, claiming that youngsters will almost always misunderstand other people and their emotions towards them. She does not say it, but part of me wonders if this is not a sneaky way to shut down kids telling their parents about abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse at the hands of others.

Debi jumps to drunk driving and drugs, pointing out that this is the time it is likely to happen. Debi tells the dumbest tale of her “Johnny Angel” a kid she knew as a teen fooling around with the wrong girl and wrapping his old junker around a tree. Sounds like a bad song from the 1950s, doesn’t it?

One page is all that is spared for the driving engine that is teen sexual development, and it’s described as ‘hormones’ Her own advice is this.

“The key is to fill his life with challenging opportunities–things that will burn hormones in constructive pursuits.”

In Debi’s idiotic world of the imaginary 1950s girls do not struggle with raging pants parts. In the real world we live in we know that this is simply not true. Girls can struggle with the same temptations as boys.

Debi wastes a further five or six pages claiming that the only way to deal with teenagers is to keep them so incredibly busy they don’t have time or inclination to rebel or do the sin pants dance. Mission trips and building stuff is her solution.

Next week Debi explains how to have ‘Big Brains’ So, SO thrilling!

Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4

Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8

Part 9 ~ Part 10 ~ Part 11 ~ Part 12

Part 13 – Part 14 ~ Part 15

Stay in touch! Like No Longer Quivering on Facebook:

No Longer Quivering

If this is your first time visiting NLQ please read our Welcome page and our Comment Policy! Commenting here means you agree to abide by our policies but our main rule is this – Do not be a dick!

Copyright notice: If you use any content from NLQ, including any of our research or Quoting Quiverfull quotes, please give us credit and a link back to this site. All original content is owned by No Longer Quivering and Patheos.com