Art of Conversation Requires Insight 

If anyone has ever clammed up you when you were trying to make conversation, you know how frustrating it can be. When this happens, it’s best to explore why you think the person is not contributing to the conversation. Is he or she shy? Is the person self-conscious? Is he or she trying to control the situation? 
 
According to Loren Ekroth in her article “How To Keep a Conversation Alive,” printed in the e-zine Conversation-Matters, determining why the person is withdrawing should give you some insight in how to proceed. If her or she is just a quiet person, you can try mirroring him or her and adopt a quieter demeanor yourself. Speak softly and don’t be too exuberant. It’s best to be patient and try to draw the person out by asking open-ended questions that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. Maintain your interest in what the other person has to say. If you’ve been polite and thoughtful and you still can’t get the person to talk, you might need to walk away gently and realize the other person just does not want to talk at this time. Respect this and say something polite before you leave such as “Maybe we can get together and talk another time.” 

Underdevelopment Makes Teen Drivers Dangerous

While teens’ bodies develop fully by the time puberty is over, the brain has a ways to go before it’s done with development, according to Chicago Tribune writer Ronald Kotulak in a piece titled “Driven to Distraction.”

According to Kotulak, it’s just this mismatch, a fully developed body coupled with a still-developing brain, that is a key reason the number one cause of death among adolescents is motor vehicle accidents.

Using MRI scans, scientists have found that adolescents undergo a biological makeover that includes massive synaptic growth in the brain. This renovation of the brain is not complete until sometime in the mid-20s, scientists now believe. This new information explains a lot about teens. Teens are often able to reason just as well as an adult can, so parents and other adults often wonder why they make such bad decisions. Scientists now know that a teen’s reasoning can be easily overrun by out of control emotions or other distractions. In other words, their ability to use their logical faculties are being undermined.

Researchers say that this huge synaptic growth they now know adolescents undergo, resembles the ones that occur right after birth. Many synapses are created, but learning will only occur after the extra synapses in the brain, the ones that aren’t being stimulated by experience, are eliminated. Kotulak said this is much like the process of sculpting. M aterial has to be removed, chipped away, to make a work of art. It’s this “blossoming” and “pruning” that allow an adolescent to make the transition to adulthood. It seems that science is finally starting to understand the adolescent mind. Unfortunately, this long period of brain development (up to the mid-20s) can spell trouble and even disaster when teens begin to drive. Scientists believe that the last part of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortex, which controls decision-making, impulse control and judgment. It develops later in boys than in girls, and considering that driving requires a lot of multitasking that requires the very skills that are last to develop, it’s not surprising that many teens find themselves in trouble when they begin to drive.

With the new information now available on teen brain development, society and parents will probably want to monitor driving even more closely, and possibly consider changing laws and driver education requirements to help teens through this perilous period.

— Attributed to Anonymous from the Internet