Wiring the Right Way

I remember jumping off our roof into the swimming pool when my sister and I were in high school. Super fun and super dangerous, our dad would get so mad at us when he caught us.

According to psychologist David Yeager, something that looks like risky and crazy to us, may be a new way to solve a problem. Well, maybe not jumping off the house roof into the pool, but other things could apply, based on a podcast my wife Amy listened to: Dr. Maya Shankar -- A Slight Change of Plans: What We Get Wrong About The Teen Brain.

This was something Amy talked to me about on our mountain hike this morning. Yes, the teen brain doesn't finish developing and maturing until the mid-to-late 20's. The prefrontal cortex is one of the last parts to mature and it's the area that's responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions. Something many adults struggle to believe at times that teens can do. That teens are "all gas, no brakes". Which is true, again at times, but again, they are capable of planning ahead. 

From the podcast above, the psychologist used the example of planning to sneak out of the house. Now, as we discussed this fact on our hike, we were not advocating it, but my Amy did sneak out when she was a teen. I, however, did not. Really, I didn't. My sister did, including taking my El Camino for a joy ride, but I never snuck out. Nope, I did not. Don't look at me like that. 

Here's a much less risky brain-powered example: How many competitive Olympic heroes are teens who train and develop their bodies and brains for the future? Quite a few actually. Of the 2024 Paris Olympic Great Britain and Northern Ireland team, 14 were teenagers out of 327. There were many others from around the world. 

Our teens are teens, yes, and they've had mental trials already, but they do continue to amaze us with their creative brain power (without sneaking out or jumping off the roof). Our oldest Beatrice constantly develops her artistic abilities and fine motor skills, and one of her recent projects was a meticulous model of a cute alleyway with a coffee shop and a bookshop. I helped with the wiring but she did all the rest. Bryce has also been back at the guitar working their brain overtime to learn some sweet tunes. 

Bryce also surprised us at the joint middle school and high school holiday choir performance when they joined 4 other classmates in singing and performing Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal, which they practiced secretly for weeks. Their version was fantastic and tears definitely came streaming down this dad's face. Plus, there's the fact that both our teens can and do talk thoughtfully about current social issues, ethics, and how they are empathic allies for marginalized groups. 

Sure, they may forget to take out the trash when we ask, or close the freezer all the way after I reminder them, or feed the pets when they're supposed to, but their brains are wiring the right way, and for that we're grateful. 

The Choice of Chance

"We go out in the world and take our chances

Fate is just the weight of circumstances

That's the way that Lady Luck dances

Roll the bones..."

—Rush, Roll the Bones

We hadn't even been drinking when we blew the stop sign. Up until that moment, we had just been driving around, cruising the main drag, listening to music, and talking about girls. For us, it was normal guy teen time in high school. 

My best friend and I decided to hang out with another friend one Friday night who had a pretty sweet old Mustang. He was in the passenger seat and I was in the back seat. After driving around for maybe an hour, we headed to 7-11 to get Big Gulps and other snacks. As we drove along a side street, our Mustang friend accelerated quickly. That wasn't unusual for any of us at the time when we'd decide to hit the gas and flex our testosterone a bit. 

But this time we weren't very far from a main artery in town, a four-lane avenue that usually had regular traffic at all times including later at night when we were driving around. He hit the gas and didn't let up as we headed to the intersection of the main avenue. I remember us cussing and yelling at him to stop -- and then we blew the stop sign. 

We thought we were going to die a horrible death. Unbelievably there were no other cars near us when we ran the stop sign, but when we got to the other side of the main avenue, our friend driving screeched to a stop, laughing hysterically. That was enough for us, though. Both my best friend and I were all done and demanded to go home. 

Teen risk is a ubiquitous rite of passage that transcends generations. It's a big part of the teen brain two-step of growing up and tripping over itself, hopefully learning and growing along the way. I was a conservatively safe kid and still took more risks than I'd like to admit, including those that were seemingly out of my control like the above example. 

When we were first dating and getting to know each other, my wife Amy and I both commiserated over our own risky teen behavior (and beyond teenage-land) that included sex, alcohol, drugs, dangerous driving and other dangerous activities (like jumping off our roof into the swimming pool), and the list goes on. Now that we have teens, we definitely have revisited these memories, the scary ones and those we remember fondly, no matter how much in danger life and limb were. 

For the past two years, even prior to teenage-land, our kids call us the safetyists. They think we're overly concerned with their emotional, psychological, and physical safety, and that we worry too much. And they're right; these are normal parent-teen time discussions we have every week during our family meetings. 

When it comes to risky behavior, teens have a different level of risk assessment than adults do (although adults don't do a great job at times either). Roll the dice and let's go! We'll be okay! Teen brains are still developing and decision-making is a work in progress for sure.

It's true that there's no reward without risk and risk without consequence is no risk at all. However, the realities of visceral life-changing consequence come from experience, something teens don't have a lot of, which is why we review safety plans with ours every week.

Does that mean we don't want them taking chances in life? Of course not. However, it's the choice of chance that makes all the difference. 

Our Sleep Slide

Sometime before noon, my dad would tickle my feet. That was his ultimate way of waking me up when I was an early teen, sleeping in late after being up until past midnight reading and watching TV (yes, reading). No rattling pots and pans. No berating me to get up. No yelling at me. He'd just tickle my feet. Softly.

If that wasn't creepy enough, and highly efficient by the way, he'd say something softly like, "Time to get up, little Kevin." And just like that I'd pop up like burnt toast from a toaster, smoking and angry. 

But again, it worked well. Decades later our own children are now new teens and the sleep slide has only just begun for them. It's fascinating how our bodies develop and change over time. I remember when we put our daughters to bed between 7:30-8:00, and then it slid to 8:00-8:30, and then it slide to 8:30-9:00, and then 9:00-9:30, and now it's sliding past 9:30 PM. And sometimes they're still not going to sleep until after 10 or even 11. Except no TV late for them, but they can read, draw, meditate, etc., to get to sleep. 

They're not sleeping in until noon yet either, although on the weekends our youngest Bryce can sleep until after 9:00 AM. Our oldest Beatrice still doesn't sleep that late, at least not yet. Both their teenage journeys have only just begun. We don't tickle their feet to wake them up, by the way. Or use pots and pans. Or berate them. Just a regular "time to get up" wake up. Many times they tell us when to wake them when they have to get up earlier to do homework or work on a project before school. 

Sleep experts tell us that teens experience a natural shift in circadian rhythm, and this makes it more difficult for them to fall asleep before 11 PM. Teens also need 9 to 9½ hours of sleep per night—that’s an hour or so more than they needed at age 10. This is because teenagers are going through a second developmental stage of cognitive maturation and additional sleep supports their developing brain, as well as physical growth spurts. It also helps protect them from serious consequences like depression or drug use.

Amen to that. Sleep is so important for all people -- kids, teens, and adults. And yet as adults, we don't always get more than 6 hours of sleep on average. My wife Amy and I make it a priority to ensure we're getting 7+ hours of sleep per night, and hitting 7 can be a challenge at times. 

Because what's just as important as all of us getting our proper sleep? Amy and I getting our TV and reading time in. Seriously. The kids' sleep slide is causing us to now slide later and later for our nighty-night time wind down. 

That means our adult TV time and reading time are incremental. Any shows or movies we watch are usually in mini-installments, even staying up later, because sliding fast to the morning floors still comes early for us. Maybe we squeak in 30ish minutes, but most of what we watch are longer shows and movies sometimes, so it takes a few days. Plus, sleep science may tell us not to use our devices before bed, but that's how we read after TV time, even if it's only for a few pages at a time. 

I know, boo hoo for us. Dang kids. At some point there may be the waiting up past curfew due to them blowing past curfew, so for now we're going to make the best of our sleep slide.

Because That's The Job

"A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us, 'No'
Or where to go
Or say we're only dreaming..."

–Disney's Aladdin 

But this isn't a Disney movie. It's just real life raising complex little humans -- now teenagers -- don't blink. The sentiment in the song is how they feel, though, and everything they're experiencing is a whole new world. For them and for us. 

I've been writing about my own personal experiences with parenting and personal leadership for over 15 years, how my own past impacted this journey, and all my learning and growth throughout. My wife Amy and I have mostly lead our lives together, and our parenting, with love and empathy and positive discipline, and of course, practicing social, emotional, and physical safety via Kidpower. Our children have been raised with all this, and for over four years we've had weekly family meetings to check in with each other and review managing emotions, providing support, positive communications, and safety plans.

It doesn't mean with get it all right with them, because we don't, but we're proud of our parenting to date and the closeness we have as a family. Change is constant, however, and now our kids are teens are new experiences are happening all the time for them. Thank goodness nothing close to what Amy and I experienced at 12, 13, and 14 years old (which I'm not telling you or them about). But then again, our kids are now at an age where they're not telling us everything either. Ugh. 

Not only that, they're sometimes embarrassed to be around us, their sarcasm has developed and is no longer their "inside voices," they fight us on doing their chores, they question a lot of what we comment on as adults, they're doing things they're not supposed to without asking us first, they're sometimes lying to us and not telling us everything, and who knows what's next. Thank goodness there's no experimentation with drugs, alcohol, or (God forbid) sex (yet), but school is getting harder and more competitive academically, extracurricularly, socially -- all the ly's -- and the stress has increased exponentially. Plus, the perception of that stress is skewed by a still developing prefrontal cortex, hormonal changes, new life experiences happening every day, and friend group influences happening every day. 

God, it's a wonder that any of us survived adolescence. 

In high school I had a civics teacher who read a passage to us all about how young people today are selfish, misguided, obstinate, sarcastic, emotional, have a lack of respect for their elders, etc. The passage had been written over 2,000 years ago during the Roman Empire. Over 2,000 years later, the point was, it could've been written today (by less forgiving adults).

Again, we're grateful to be so close as a family. That's helped us help our kids deal with new and stressful experiences that could lead to social and emotional struggles if left unchecked, something I went through as a teen that I certainly don't want them to go through. We don't always get it right as their parents, but we've worked hard to provide empathic love, support, and guidance to them -- to help them make good choices in all the choices they'll make more and more on their own each day (and there will be bad ones). Whatever this whole new world of adolescence brings us all, we'll always meet our teens where they're at to help them persevere, overcome, learn, grow, and thrive into adulthood. 

Because that's the job, kids. Happy New Year!

Never Too Old

Sometimes it can take decades to do something you love. Something you always wanted to learn but never took the time to do so. Something you tried in fits and starts that never stuck. Something that would take a pandemic to jumpstart it. 

I took guitar lessons when I was 9 years old, but never played much after that, or played any other instrument in junior high or high school. I never had any interest in joining band, but I did always love music, and sang in choir in junior high and high school. There was one year in high school when I did pick the guitar again to collaborate with an old friend I was in choir with. Someone who eventually got very serious about music and played professionally. We learned the Eagles' song Lyin' Eyes, but then never played it anywhere except inside my house. 

Although I loved all sorts of music growing up, thanks to my mother, with a particular affinity to R&B, rock, and pop, besides guitar, the only drumming I ever imagined doing was air drumming. I realized as I got older how passionate I was about drumming. 

And there were a few fits and starts of trying to learn. In my 20's, I remember buying a practice pad, drumsticks, and a rudiment lesson book. That lasted a couple of weeks and was then buried in the closet. I tried again in my 30's, and that only lasted a couple of weeks as well. Then in my late 40's, my wife Amy bought me an electronic drum set from Costco. I was super jazzed about it, set it up, and played off and on for a few months. But then that drum set got pushed around the garage and eventually sat unused gathering dust. 

That's all it was ever going to be, until the year 2020. That year started off with the death of my favorite drummer, lyricist, and writer, Neil Peart. Two months later, the world locked down everywhere due to the coronavirus pandemic. Shortly after that, I carved out a new location in the garage, set up my drums again, and restarted some video lessons. This time I lasted months and showed no signs of stopping. I practiced every night after dinner, at least 5-6 times per week.

In December 2020, I sold my old electronic kit and upgraded to a new one. I started new lessons and kept going. Two and a half years later, now in my mid-50's, and I'm really playing the drums. I'm not joining a band anytime soon, but I am playing regularly, learning, and getting better. Sometimes when I come in from practice, Amy and our daughters will say, "I heard you, Dad. Great job!" That means the world to me. 

The takeaway for our children is that they should always pursue what they love, no matter at what age or if it pays the bills or not. Mine never will, but that was never the point. The point was the love of drumming, learning, and keep me mentally and physically fit. There's lots of research out there about how learning challenging new activities keeps an old brain trained and active. I even started my own fun Big Daddy Drumming Practice YouTube channel channeling all the stellar drummers I'm learning from. Rock on, kids. You're never too old to learn new things. 

The Teen Brain Two-Step

"Now would I say something that wasn't true?
I'm asking you sugar
Would I lie to you?"

—Eurythmics, Would I Lie to You?

I remember teen brain. Oh, do I ever. Although it's funny to say that now decades later when I didn't remember much then about things I did then. Like completely spacing out on things. Or, I just didn't want to remember them because I wasn't supposed to do them, and so I lied about them because I didn't want to get into trouble. Or, because I didn't want to do them when I was supposed to do them, and so I lied about doing them because I didn't want to get into trouble. 

Shall we dance?

Teen brain development goes on for years until at least our mid-twenties based on research I've read. Teen brains are more susceptible to stress, but are more adaptable the resilient that what adults give them credit for, because there is a big learning curve. However, the prefrontal cortex is one of the last brain regions to mature and is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and controlling impulses.

Which is why teen brain can be bonkers at times, like lying about stuff. I do remember lying to my parents, or wanting to lie about something, more than once, what many of us did at that age.

Take for example the time I fell out of a moving truck when I was almost 16. Yes, a moving truck. There were no alcohol or drugs involved, just teen brain stupidity. My friend at the time, who was 16 and had his license, was driving me and another friend around the neighborhood in his truck. We were in the back of the truck sitting on either side of the truck bed. Above the bed actually, sitting up on the sides of the truck with only our hands holding on as we sat. 

So, what did we do then? My friend and I in the back of the truck begin to rock the truck. Because it was fun. We laughed and rocked — until my friend driving began to swerve back and forth. That's when things took a teen brain turn for the worse. 

I flipped over the side of the truck going around 25 miles per hour. My chest hit the moving back tire and I put my hand out to stop my fall. I hit face down on the asphalt and rolled over 10 feet (according to my other friend who didn't fall out). Both friends ran over to me, the one driving extremely apologetic, to see how I was. It was dusk now and we were under a street light. I remember asking how bad it was as I held up my right hand I used to break my fall that was now fat and swollen (and broken I'd find out the next day). 

They both looked at each other and then me again and said, "It's bad."

I remember I said, "Maybe I'll just tell my parents I got in a fight."

The other friend who was in the back of the truck with me shook his head and said, "With the road maybe. No, you know you've never been in a fight, Kevin. They'll know you're lying. You'll have to tell them the truth."

And there it was. So, that time, I didn't end up lying to cover my butt, because it would've made it worse. Weeks later when the road rash across my face, chest, and legs was healed up, and the case on my hand came off, and I wasn't grounded any longer, it was back to teen brain business as usual. 

Hopefully our daughters won't have this kind of literal painful teen brain moment, but the odds are there will be some things in the years to come. Maybe not falling out of the back of a truck something — good God, not that. But we are already experiencing teen brain now, and that includes saying that chores were done, when obviously they were not. 

Compared to falling out of the back of a truck and wanting to lie about it, lying about doing one's chores is pretty mild. But it's still something as parents we have to deal with. My default setting is always to go punitive, to confront the lying and to take allowance money away if the chores weren't done. My wife on the other hand reminds me that teenage brain will double down on the lies when called out. We both had plenty of experience with that when we were their age. 

Instead, we compromised and said the chores had to be done again, which after some protest they were, and in the future would have to be done when we're around to verify they were done. Not that we didn't believe they weren't done, just that we need to verify they got done. 

That's pretty much the same thing as not believing they were done, because they weren't, but that's the teen brain two-step we'll be dancing for the next decade. 

Oh, how the cartoon Bea swells

"You know, you guys are doing a great job," the grocery store checker said to me.

"Thanks," I said. "This is all new to us and we're figuring out as we go along."

He nodded, helping me bag the last of the produce. "I see a lot of parents with their kids in here, and trust me, you're doing a great job at setting limitations."

I thanked him again and we left. I don't know how right he is, because sometimes it feels so wrong.

Only 25 minutes earlier, as soon as we walked in the store, Beatrice took off giggling. We told her to stop, to come back, but she giggled some more and ran outside through the store doors.

I had just locked Bryce into the cart when Bea headed out the door. Mama came to the cart and I sprinted after Bea.

Livid. We've been dealing with this a lot lately.

She of course was laughing hysterically as she ran into the parking lot thinking it was a game. I grabbed her -- stopped myself from smacking her on the butt (which we've done) -- picked her up, carried her back in and dumped her into the shopping cart, which she didn't like one bit since she wants to walk on her own more and more. We then told her, as we've done a hundred times already in the past few weeks, that it's not okay to run away like that and not stop when we ask her to.

Yes, we know she's not even three years old yet. It makes sense that she doesn't understand the repercussions of her actions and why it's dangerous to run away. But the problem is that for the past few weeks she's been getting more and more bold in taking off away from us like it's a cartoon game of chase.


That's the catch -- the fact that Bea wants more independence and walk around without a tether but she doesn't get boundaries yet. We're working on getting her to understand that running down the sidewalk toward a busy street is not acceptable while running around the grassy field in front of the Santa Cruz lighthouse is.

Except when cartoon Bea runs into the real brick facade of the Santa Cruz lighthouse, she doesn't bounce away cleanly like a cartoon would. She goes "smack" and oh how the cartoon Bea swells.

That's all folks! [queue the music]

If we were no longer here: the elasticity of God-empowered DNA

At 16 months old, will she remember our Martian family vacashun?

Will she remember holding hands walking on the beach, bare feet treading the chilly Pacific?

Will she remember the animals at the San Diego Zoo and Sea World?

Will she remember going on her first amusement park ride with Daddy?

Will she remember Mama nursing her through her cold last week in the middle of the night?

My lifelong fascination with how the human brain works and how if plays out in our everyday behavior has been rekindled through the developmental "wonder fire" burning inside Beatrice.

The sheer number of neurons at birth -- firing, wiring and re-wiring -- and by 8 months of age a baby may have an astounding 1,000 trillion synapses in her brain!

Between reading How We Decide to the website Zero to Three to other brain development content candy bars, I'm seeking the knowledge of how and why.

Why, for example, don't I have any memories before the age of 5-6 years old, but my sister claims she does from as early as 2-3?

Most child development experts believe that short-term memory isn't fully developed until age 3, so the ability to store occurrences at any given moment with regularity is hobbled by biological development.

Barring any other predisposed genetic disability or physical defect, a loving and nurturing family environment helps to spur the healthy wiring and re-wiring.

Trauma hampers the circuitry to no end.

According to Zero to Three's Starting Smart:

At the Developmental Traumatology Laboratory at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinics in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, researchers are conducting studies in traumatized children using the most up-to-date methods to study their stress circuits and brain development. In a recent report, they described their findings on maltreated children with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) who they compared to healthy, normal children and to children with clinical anxiety disorders who had not been maltreated. Many of the maltreated children had been sexually abused beginning between the ages of 18 months and 7 years. They had also witnessed domestic violence beginning early in life, and some had been battered by family members. For most of the children with PTSD, the trauma was chronic, lasting for several years before the children were rescued.

Unlike non-maltreated comparison children, the children with PTSD had elevated levels of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, even on a normal day when nothing especially stressful was happening (DeBellis, Baum, et al., 1999). Thus, these children’s stress systems seemed to be turned on even when they didn’t need to be. Especially high stress hormone levels were found among the children who had been abused for longer and/or had more severe PTSD. Very similar results have been found for children rescued from Romanian orphanages, even though for the most part these children had been severely neglected rather than physically or sexually abused.

Not surprising then on how PTSD played an unfortunate role in my development and my sister's, and the teenage/adult struggles that ensued. As I've said many times before, we need a helluva lot more purple elevate patches out there.

However, the elasticity of God-empowered DNA gives those of us who fight back a semblance of sanity, and in turn, the opportunity to break the cycle of trauma -- whether that's domestic violence, extreme neglect, even genocidal warfare.

And it favors the nurtured offspring.

This morning we woke Beatrice together as we usually do, talking with her and giving her hugs and kisses, singing her our morning song, and pointing out different icons in her room -- Pooh, Piglet and the flying bees that Amy's sister made.

This morning Beatrice pointed out my ears, mouth, eyes and nose, and then honked my nose. I asked her if her nose felt better ('cause here and Mama shared a cold this last week). She squeezed it and said, "Doe, doe, doe, doe, doe..."

Not that I focus on morbidity with any frequency these days, but this morning I also wondered if suddenly we were no longer here, would Bea remember us? Would even Bryce at this stage?

I'm going to buck the expert scientific trends and say, yes -- yes they would.

I'm crazy like that. I told you before it's the dope.