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There is something funny about the way this article portrays early brain development. Ask families with relatives in lean world countries who visit those count

There is something funny about the way this article portrays early brain development. Ask families with relatives in lean world countries who visit those countries often and they will tell you that those kids mature far more quickly than the kids here. And they see it as a positive impact. And lament how children in America do not mature as quickly. Foreign kids who come here to study do better than the kids who are from here. Yet adversity in the article is portrayed negatively. And further, faster brain development is portrayed negatively. Then early puberty is portrayed negatively. And it is all tied together with the statement that there is more depression, anxiety and psychosis. Mind you but those traumatic experiences become so when you are taken from a world of high stress where everyone grows up like you do to a world more relaxed where people are different from you. Think PTSD soldiers finding it difficult to live at home. But ok to live back in war country. Think martial arts training you to be defensive and then going back to a world with only peace. It is not the high stress that causes the trauma but rather how different life becomes when you change gears back to peace. I will always remember the quote from the Walking Dead. Until war is over, we are just walking dead.

vanderZwan 7y ago
> Yet adversity in the article is portrayed negatively. Well, there is "adversity", and there is the sexual abuse and other trauma that the article is talking about.
- nashashmi 7y ago
  I don't find that in the article. It keeps mentioning poverty and socioeconomic conditions and refugee situations.
  - sn9 7y ago
    >Growing up in poverty and experiencing traumatic events like a bad accident or sexual assault can impact brain development and behavior in children and young adults. It's literally the first line.
CydeWeys 7y ago
> they will tell you that those kids mature far more quickly than the kids here. And they see it as a positive impact. This may well not be true, though. Humans as a species mature much more slowly to adulthood than other similarly sized species, e.g. deer become full-blown adults and start reproducing inside of two years. One of the reasons we mature more slowly is it takes a lot of time to grow and train larger brains. It's not clear to me that shortening this cycle and forcing maturation as quickly as possible is a good thing.
scotty79 7y ago
> And they see it as a positive impact. It looks positive from the perspective of a parent because he sees it as faster acquisition of skills he himself already possesses. But it might be negative if because of that faster development kids will never have a chance of achieving some skills their parents don't even dream of possessing because their brains got pruned way too soon.
ip26 7y ago
Early puberty certainly seems like a negative if by "early" we're talking about seven year olds, which happens.

vanderZwan 7y ago

> Yet adversity in the article is portrayed negatively. Well, there is "adversity", and there is the sexual abuse and other trauma that the article is talking about.

nashashmi 7y ago
I don't find that in the article. It keeps mentioning poverty and socioeconomic conditions and refugee situations.
- sn9 7y ago
  >Growing up in poverty and experiencing traumatic events like a bad accident or sexual assault can impact brain development and behavior in children and young adults. It's literally the first line.

CydeWeys 7y ago

> they will tell you that those kids mature far more quickly than the kids here. And they see it as a positive impact. This may well not be true, though. Humans as a species mature much more slowly to adulthood than other similarly sized species, e.g. deer become full-blown adults and start reproducing inside of two years. One of the reasons we mature more slowly is it takes a lot of time to grow and train larger brains. It's not clear to me that shortening this cycle and forcing maturation as quickly as possible is a good thing.

scotty79 7y ago

> And they see it as a positive impact. It looks positive from the perspective of a parent because he sees it as faster acquisition of skills he himself already possesses. But it might be negative if because of that faster development kids will never have a chance of achieving some skills their parents don't even dream of possessing because their brains got pruned way too soon.

ip26 7y ago

Early puberty certainly seems like a negative if by "early" we're talking about seven year olds, which happens.