Maturity
BulletHead
Join Date: 2004-07-22 Member: 30049Members
Join Date: 2004-07-22 Member: 30049Members
<div class="IPBDescription">When does it begin?</div> A lot of people deam 18 as the year at which children gain "maturity"
I know a lot of 18, 19, 20, and even a few 30 year olds that act less mature than my 8 year old brother!
So what I want to know is this- How should a country determine Maturity for things such as:
Driving
Drinking
Deciding which parents to live with
Deciding religion
Deciding Educational Standards by which to live
Engaging in Sexual Activities
and other various, "mature" decisions that, in the US, can only be made at the ages of 18 or 21.
DISCUSS NOW!
PS- I'm 17
I know a lot of 18, 19, 20, and even a few 30 year olds that act less mature than my 8 year old brother!
So what I want to know is this- How should a country determine Maturity for things such as:
Driving
Drinking
Deciding which parents to live with
Deciding religion
Deciding Educational Standards by which to live
Engaging in Sexual Activities
and other various, "mature" decisions that, in the US, can only be made at the ages of 18 or 21.
DISCUSS NOW!
PS- I'm 17
Comments
Personally, I don't think it starts at any specific age. I was about as mature as an 18-year old at 14, and now I'm mentally in my late-twenties/early-thirties most of the time. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> (I occasionally shut it off, for fun.)
Driving - 16 - In our society you need a car to get a job (usually)
Drinking - 18 (or whatever the voting age is in a democracy)
Deciding which parents to live with - huh? The parents should work this out (in courts in necessary)
Deciding religion - As soon as your old enough think. The very nature of religion usually means it is decided for you.
Deciding Educational Standards by which to live- What? Education should be mandatory until say 16.
Engaging in Sexual Activities - Not the states decision. Society can impose social norms but there should be no laws regarding this (as long as its consensual). Age to consent should be 16.
I'm 21 and I know I have matured a lot in the last 3 years (and in the 3 before that) and I expect to continue to mature until I die.
So it depends on the person and the circumstances the person is accustomed to.
Some grow to "maturity" earlier than others, as they are earlier introduced to responsibilites.
Parents can (and should) educate children that way early on.
Self-control is a bit more complicated. I never took any psychology classes, so I'm not qualified to explain it. However, I know that it is connected to certain changes that happen in your brain during the middle teens. I'm pretty sure mine occured when I was 15, when I started REALLY asking myself questions about the purpose of life and the meaning of my existance. Let's just say I was really depressed that year. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
IMHO, maturity is a mixture of 5 key elements
Knowledge
Logic
Mental Discipline
Self Control
Self Awareness
If you think about it, it makes sense.
Between the years of 3 and 12, I was out of control. My ADHD was running wild and unchecked, and the dozens of medications I was on didn't help a whit. Around 13.5 I was put on Adderal, which helped me a LOT. By 14 I was on the ER version which made it a once a day pill. Last year at the start of school, I decided enough was enough and quit taking them despite my psychiatrist and familys protests. I was better than ever! For the most part. It was harder to concentrate, but the onset of chronic sleep depravation, which I had diagnosed about 4 months ago, did not help matters much. Now, at 17, I'm only ADD, no longer hyper. I am capable of keeping my attention focused, for the most part (if it's something REALLY boring... yeah... >_> but that's only human), and most of my once explosive triggers I can now ignore. I am a whole new person. I also started to bulk up, and now i'm no longer this scrawny, crazy, idiotic kid but now a slightly-built, only semi-psychotic, semi-handsome young man who, with a bit of effort, can reign his emotions under a tight leash.
But from the age of 8, I was also more mature than my peers. I was the only one who took sex ed seriously. By age 10 I was learning basic physics (and I mean BASIC, eg how the Theory of Relativity ties into Time and Space Reality) and was failing math because I couldn't, for the life of me, sort out my 9's times tables. Then I discovered the up the tens by one down the ones by one pattern (eg, 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90, ect) and wound up first in the class (math class). But my attention span stopped me being fully matured, and my temper was wild and unpredictable.
So for me, I was "mature" at 8 but not Mature till about 2 months ago. And looking back... gods I made a right pretty arse of myself didn't I?
QFT.
Any general answer to this question will have to be very vague, simply because there are so many factors, and every person's definition of maturity is going to be different.
The age thing for driving, or drinking can't really be compared to maturity IMO.
Society has decided that at 16, you can most likely drive responsibly without killing yourself, therefore at 16 is when you are allowed to drive. But that simply means you have the understanding of what happens when you press the accelerator, it doesn't really have any bearing on how mature you are.
Diazo
Society must put a concrete number down or else people would complain about things being unfair. "He gets to drive why can't I" etc. (The immature ones are the ones who would do the complaining, as they would be the ones denied priviledges)
Furthermore, Bullethead, i also have ADHD (i have been put on medication though i don't think i have been formally diagnosed) and have noticed that i am most of the time more mature than my peers. So it may have something to do with the way the mind of someone with ADHD developes over time. But that is something for another time and another place.
I think that this is <i>very</i> true as is
<!--QuoteBegin-NGE+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (NGE)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Maturity is really all about learning accountability.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maturity is about knowing your place in the world, knowing that the actions you take can and will have lasting affect on your life and on those around you.
When it comes to the ages of consent, drinking etc it can only really be based on the average age that people mature. For instance livers don't really finish growing until you're about 17 so an age limit of 18 makes sense. For driving, 16 is a practical limit as some will be working at that age, however the average 16 yr old is still too unstable and isn't calm enough to be sensible behind the wheel <i>all of the time</i>. In England we have a really rubbish compromise at 17 but about 16 or 17 is about right I guess.
Sex is a difficult one as many of us are physically mature before then but mentally and emotionally they are still children. Still I think a good level of sex education can help increase their maturity level in that aspect and, whatever the rule set, people will start experimenting when they feel ready (whether they are or not).
Deciding your religion? What? You shouldn't decide what to believe in, your faith should choose you.
The only way would be some kind of test. I'll leave you to think what that should entail, I'm rather busy right now.
Those numbers are just being practical.
Drinking-none but you have to be 16 to buy in shops 18 in resturants
Deciding which parents to live with-well when the court thinks he can decide
Deciding religion-you can decide that at any age... we are mostly protests... but actualy we are not... because we are not a religues people...(mostly atheists but we dont think about it)
Deciding Educational Standards by which to live-we decide that our selfs.. but our parents normaly guide us... any age...
Engaging in Sexual Activities-well they say 16... but its not really a law...
Im from Denmark... we are a very free people (more than USA) Bill Clinton tried to shape the armerican economy after ours... and we have a very strong middelclass...
its in our culture to drink... just like the Irish... (been doing it for 1000s and 1000s of years... since the vikings...) we mainly dont belive in "God"... at least I only known 1 person at my age... in my life who was very christian... oh wait... 1 sec... 1 2 3 4... sorry 4 people then lol... not alot... only our old people still belive and go to church... no one at my age goes to church...
well even if there is a rule... my parents gave me condoms since... 6 grade... we... they say... if im going to have sex... then do it safe...
we have to be 18 to drive a car... but 16 to drive a scooter... (proberly because we drink so much hehe)..
im missing something I wana tell... ill just edit... but what do you care???
No.
I suspect the definition of free that ickaz is using, which is referring to how straight-laced, or uptight society is, is different from Cyndane's definition, being the personal freedoms and liberties we have.
Getting back on topic, really, all being "mature" means is that you are capable of living by yourself in cleanliness and comfort, without being an annoyance, or worse, to the people around you.
There are different levels of maturity you can apply, but if you can apply the statement above to someone, I would say that they are mature.
Diazo
There are definitly some 40 year olds out there that still havn't got some things figured out and havn't matured but with setting laws to these things it can't be individual. There are people out there that don't have the mind to make certain decissions but that's where parental influence comes in. Who knows?
<b>Drinking</b> Whatever age one can vote and/or join the armed forces
<b>Deciding which parents to live with</b> Totally up to the judge.
<b>Deciding religion</b> Rents decision till they leave the nest
<b>Deciding Educational Standards by which to live</b> 18. <i>I think</i> Florida won't let you get a driver's license if you quit school.
<b>Engaging in Sexual Activities</b> When you get married
As you can see, I'm from the "old" school. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
There's more than one level of maturity, and this is intrinsic as you can see simply by development. An understanding of death must be grounded before the contemplation of an after-life (and thus, forcing a kid into church when they think Molly the goldfish is "just sleeping awhile" is inherently illogic on the parents' part).
Before being able to consider one's well-being, they need to consider aspects of ...poor-being. That is to say, before you could consider being able to drink or smoke or ear chocolate for hours or anything of that caliber, it would need to be understood on a basic level that they are bad for you. Unfortunately, understanding of these concepts usually only occurs during puberty when the realization of an unhealthy, unappealing or otherwise disapproved body (or the opposite) is self-realized.
Gun ownership (let's throw military service in here too), voting and driving are three other aspects of maturity that rely on an understanding of one's actions in group situations with outside modifiers. In order to be properly considered to do any of the following, the person needs to think out the conclusions of any decision made.
Driving is probably the more variant of the three, as people need cars for different reasons, but calling yourself mature so you can use a car to go to a party isn't mature (perhaps that's a bit rash of me, as I never had such considerations). My inherent dissuasion from using a car does not allow me to properly describe the maturity involved in "needing to drive." The first time I drove a car I could explain the basics of internal combustion engine and had no real use for the car.
Suffrage should be obtained through a simple test of your country's previous history and thinking ability (I think a forced view of international opinion of your country might need to be in there too). The problem is, this test could easily be manipulated for racial, political or any other means to prevent people from voting. The reliance should probably then fall to having gone through "Your Country's History Here" in "Whatever grade you learned it here" grade. I mean, once you take American Civics (even if it was boring, tedious and you already knew everything taught in the class), you should be elligible to vote, even if it's only at 15.
Joining the army should rely on the right to vote and the ability to drive. If you can do both, you're basically ready for the army. If the army considers you ready to join its ranks, and after passing a bit more stern of a psyche evaluation, then you can own a gun.
The problem is, any test involved with maturity would need to be very strict, and people would just not want to believe them. That said: A drinking age of 21 is idiotic, a driving age of only 16 is retarded and a voting age of 18 is moronic.
Making a drinking age so late allows more binge drinking (don't look at me though, I go by taste and alcohol tastes bad <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ). It also doesn't show much real point, as basically the rest of the world is lower. Not like it's saving American schools any young, bright minds...
A driving age of 16 encourages group activity (but not active activities). The main use of an automobile should be employment, education and family entertainment; all of which can be accomplished by younger people by biking or public transportation (and "I don't look cool getting out of my Mom's SUV" isn't a very mature response for needing to drive <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ).
And finally: if you can die for your country you damn well should have been able to vote to avoid the war a bit earlier in the first place. I'm also not quite sure what an age of 18 really accompishes (unless the voting age was completely lifted and Big Bird was elected president or something).
Perhaps that's not completely described, but that's as well as I'd like to write it right now (at least, how I feel about it). Something a bit more helpful to people might be: all age required things should rely on a person to have reached puberty.
Maturity doesnt equal knowledge, however. You may not know that the brain stops developing around the age of 21, which is why the drinking age is in place. The person can be mature and would still drink because they simply like the taste if the drinking age wasnt in place. They might not binge drink being that they are mature, however they're still harming their brain cells if they go over the amount of drinks the body can filter.
I fully agree with that statement (and I'm also 15 years old myself). I made the decision to become an Athiest when my whole family is Christian, which was a big step, because most family events evolved around Church. Ever since I turned 15, I've become more independant, able to make more decisions. High School was a small step, but taught me a lot so far. Lots of bad things happened, but the fact that I chose what to do and why is totally different than my life before.
I see tons of people around me, some older, that act really irresponsibly and wreck everyone else's outlook on that certain age group. It pisses me off a lot, and I really have a hatred towards those people (e.g. I do drugs and smoke because it's cool, OLOL KTHX!).
Next year, I get my G1 - hurray <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
This year in school, I've had to make much more decisions:
-skip class
-smoke/do drugs
-steal stuff, vandalize stuff, general anarchy
-school pranks
-fights
-sex
I don't know where I'm going with this, but it's probably that 14-16 is the deciding age for your life, how it'll turn out. These years are when you make the decisions, get used to them, and accept concequences.