The Addiction Inoculation Quotes

“Synaptogenesis and myelination take place over years. A kid may be capable and competent one day, and a total, catastrophic mess the next. She will be perfectly able to reason in a rational and mature fashion in first-period science class, but by the end of the school day, she may devolve into a weepy, frustrated mess. Adolescent brain development is messy and imperfect when viewed day to day, but in the bigger picture, progress is being made. Just step back a little. Be patient with the short-term outages and be grateful for what’s functional on any given day.”
― Jessica Lahey, The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence

“Ben learned guitar faster than I did, not (necessarily) because he’s smarter than I am (he is), but because infant and adolescent brains are extremely plastic. Plastic brains learn quickly, but they are also highly sensitive to the good and bad in their environment. This is a boon for learning, but it is also a dangerous, precarious time. During this transition from child to adult, adolescents are much more sensitive to negative environmental influences such as trauma, stress, social rejection, and sleep deprivation. “Plasticity is the process through which the outside world gets inside us and changes us,” writes adolescent psychologist Laurence Steinberg in his book Age of Opportunity.4 In other words, before your teen can strike out on her own to change the world, the world will change her.”
― Jessica Lahey, The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence