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Should Teens Be Considered Adults At Age Of 25

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Every day teens make decisions that could impact the rest of their lives. These decisions can be hard to make when the teen’s brain doesn’t fully develop until their mid twenties. Even though teens are getting smarter it doesn’t mean that they are getting maturer. There are incredibly high car crash rates for teens and they aren’t able to take care of themselves without their parents help. This is all because the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex isn’t fully matured inside the brain. Teens should be considered adults at age 25.
“The brain doesn’t fully mature at age 16 or 18 when you can drive and vote, or at 21 when you can drink alcohol, but at 25,” (Steinberg 236,,). This means that teens don’t make adult decisions until they have already been driving, voting and drinking for at least 5 years. “963,000 teen drivers were involved in car crashes during 2013, out of those teens 383,000 were injured and 2,865 were killed,” (Teen Driver Source). The crash rate for teens is 4 times higher than it is for drivers between the age of 25-69. This …show more content…

They make bad decisions when trying to take care of themselves because they don’t know what to do. The part of the brain that we have to think about the most is the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex. “It contemplates the long term effects of a decision and isn’t fully matured till around the age of 25,”(Davis 252). This means that teens don’t think about what will happen next when making a decision. The Dorsolateral Prefrontal cortex also controls a person's emotions and their judgement on quick decisions. For example a teen may need to make a decision on whether or not they should go to that party. That part of the brain tells them what might happen if they go and what might happen if they don’t. These outcomes could change a person's life and teens shouldn’t be considered adults because many times they make the wrong

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