Brain Development

Karen Williams' lecture on brain development was very interesting and insightful. I was very surprised how costly drinking can be in a child's development. I never knew that there was such a strong correlation between the starting age of alcohol use and the development of alcoholism. This lecture changed my outlook as a parent and the role I will play in my children's alcohol consumption. I understand that kids will almost always go against your word, but now I want to prevent my children's alcohol use as long as I can. I always thought I would let my children make their own decisions with provisions on my part, as long as they were safe. But when Ms. Williams said that its still hurting your teenager when you allow them to drink as long as they don't drive, it changed my view on the idea. I want to enforce no drinking for as long as I can, because the longer they wait the less chance they have of developing alcoholism and less damage to their brain. Something else that really shocked me was the case study that was done on a 15 year old who drank 6 beers each week for a couple of months compared to a 15 year old who consumed no alcohol. When Ms. Williams showed the pictures of both of these 15 year old kid's brain there was an extreme difference in development. Six beers isn't much and I admit that I started drinking when I was about 16 and there was a period in my life where I was probably drinking more than 6 beers a week. I related to this lecture and applied a lot of it to personal experience, and that makes me want to prevent some of these mistakes to my future children and students. I appreciated this lecture and will apply it to my own life the best I can.