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In the article When Are You Really an Adult? the author ,Maria Crammer, demonstrates that a person comes of age when they are able to make mature and educated choices.

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In the NPR conducted by Tony Cox, called Brain Maturity Extends Well Beyond Teen Years Sandra Aamodt a neuroscience states that a person does not reach full maturity until the age of 25.

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In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian the author ,Sherman Alexie the author, demonstrates that a person comes of age when they can make mature decisions and actions on their own.

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A person comes of age and can be considered an adult when they reach a level of maturity in which they can make mature decisions and actions for themselves.

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Quote 1: "The scientific consensus that most brains do not fully develop until age 25 has led to a host of reforms in the criminal justice system and reexaminations about how society should punish young adults." (Cramer)
Quote 2: "If laws are skewed against young folks and public perception is skewed against young folks, it’s that much harder to get involved. It takes extra effort and willpower." (Cramer)
Quote 2 idea: Since people who are young can't change anything until they are of age it gives less of an opportunity to change laws to go in favor of maturity over age.

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(Coming of Age)
This book follows Junior who is an Indian young boy starting high school. Junior is intelligent and wants a better future for himself but is stuck in his reservation. He shows his maturity by making the decision to go to Reardan, a school filled with a majority white students to improve his future even though the majority of people around him aren't mentioning his future. When he finally gets into Reardan he wants to join the basketball team but is afraid that the coach wouldn't like Indians. Nonetheless his maturity shows when he ends up trying out for the basketball team even with his fears because he knows that joining basketball is good for him and his future.

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America has been inconsistent at best when it comes to deciding what 18- to 21-year-olds are too young, or just old enough, to do.

A Selective Service lottery in Washington on July 17, 1941. Eighteen-year-old Americans could be drafted into the armed forces, while the minimum voting age was 21. Credit... Associated Press

The proposed legislation was never meant to be taken seriously, said John Rodgers, a Vermont state senator and a fierce gun rights advocate.

"In light of the dangerous and life-threatening consequences of cellphone use by young people, it is clear that persons under 21 years of age are not developmentally mature enough to safely possess them," Mr. Rodgers wrote in a bill this month proposing to outlaw the use of cellphones by anyone under 21.

It was in part, he said, a rebuke of a law Vermont passed in 2018 that banned the sale of firearms to most people under 21, and an attempt to show the absurdity of allowing 18-year-olds to go to war but forbidding them from enjoying the constitutional rights and vices afforded to older Americans.

Mr. Rodgers, who said his family had been hunting the woods of the Northeast Kingdom since the 1800s, was quickly bombarded with angry tweets, emails and calls to his home that accused him of trying to create a nanny state. His critics missed the point, he said.

"There are all these pushes around some parts of the country for 16-year-olds to vote but we're saying they're not mature enough to smoke or purchase a gun. So which is it?" said Mr. Rodgers. "When are you really an adult?"

It is a question that has possessed both poets and lawmakers.

But there is not much clarity in state laws. In Alaska, teenagers as young as 14 can get married with a court order. Only a handful of states allow drinking under 21 and that is under strict circumstances, like when a parent or legal guardian is present.

Eighteen-year-old adults can run for office, go to strip clubs, be sentenced to life in prison, and volunteer to go to war or be drafted, but as of last December, they cannot vape or smoke tobacco products.

And since 1984, when states began raising the legal age of drinking to 21 from 18 in exchange for federal highway funds - in some cases barely a decade after lowering it - they have not been able to buy a beer at a bar in most of the United States, a restriction that has infuriated college students ever since.

"If 18-year-olds are burdened with the responsibility of adulthood, they should be afforded some of its privileges," said Charlotte Lawson, a 21-year-old fourth-year student at the University of Virginia who wrote an opinion piece in the campus paper in 2018 calling for the drinking age to be lowered from 21.

"It's interesting these are people who work full-time jobs, pay their own rent, pay taxes and are eligible to vote," she said. "Yet none of this constitutes adequate proof that a person is responsible enough to drink."

Charlotte Lawson, 21, a fourth-year student at the University of Virginia says there are inconsistencies in society about adulthood. Like many others, she pointed out that the drinking age is higher than the age to join the armed services. Credit... Julia Rendleman for The New York Times

Most laws that govern age restrictions are set by the states.

For much of the 20th century, the minimum age for drinking in the United States dovetailed with the voting age, said Jonathan Parent, a professor of political science at Le Moyne College in Syracuse.

After the end of Prohibition in 1933, most states set the drinking age at 21, which was also the minimum voting age at the time.

Lawmakers reasoned that if you were old enough to vote, you were old enough to drink, Mr. Parent said.

That philosophy continued in 1971, when Congress lowered the voting age to 18 in response to fury over the draft during the Vietnam War, which conscripted thousands of men between 18 and 21 into war.

States, in turn, lowered the drinking age to 18, Mr. Parent said.

President Ronald Reagan signed legislation raising the national drinking age to 21 in 1984. Credit... Associated Press

But in 1984, President Ronald Reagan began pushing hard for states to raise their drinking age, citing what he called a "great national problem" of drinking and driving by teenagers.

In July of that year, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required states to raise the age of drinking to 21 or risk a 10 percent cut in their federal highway funds.

The law put the United States at odds with the rest of the Western world, where in some European countries people as young as 16 can drink wine and beer.

"It's pretty unique to us," Mr. Parent said. "It probably goes back to more of a Puritan idea in the United States. This is one of the only countries in the Western world that banned alcohol."

It's a question that Apryl Alexander, a psychology professor at the University of Denver, often gets from her graduate students and that has become even more fraught with the growing research around the development of the juvenile brain.

"We don't have a clear answer for them," Ms. Alexander said. The scientific consensus that most brains do not fully develop until age 25 has led to a host of reforms in the criminal justice system and reexaminations about how society should punish young adults.

But it has also fed the confusion over what young adults should be allowed to do when scientists know that they use less restraint and discipline than older people, said Warren Binford, a law professor at Willamette University and founder of the school's Child and Family Advocacy Clinic.

"We're constantly trying to balance the rights to protection and the rights to participation," said Ms. Binford. "We are a society that loves its liberty, but we're also a society that recognizes that children are unique and special and deserving of protection."

A peace group picketed the Draft Board in Great Neck, N.Y., in October 1967. Credit... Stan Wolfson/Newsday RM, via Getty Images

That tension can leave young people feeling disenfranchised and less likely to participate in civic life, said D. Scott Foster, who was 22 in 2010 when he ran successfully for City Council in Williamsburg, Va.

"They don't see themselves as fit for those roles or having an impact," said Mr. Foster, who is now 32. "If laws are skewed against young folks and public perception is skewed against young folks, it's that much harder to get involved. It takes extra effort and willpower."

Benming Zhang, who was elected to the Williamsburg City Council in 2016 during his final undergraduate year at William & Mary in Virginia, said he was surprised to encounter more skepticism about his campaign from people his own age than older residents of the city.

"The first thing my classmates thought was, 'Who is this kid who is running for office?'" said Mr. Zhang, now 25. "It's that disconnect of seeing one of their own, a like-aged person, sitting on that dais with older, largely white male counterparts.Can we envision someone like us sitting on that dais?"

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When Are You Really an Adult? (Published 2020)

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America has been inconsistent at best when it comes to deciding what 18- to 21-year-olds are too young, or just old enough, to do. The proposed legislation was never meant to be taken seriously, said John Rodgers, a Vermont state senator and a fierce gun rights advocate.

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https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=141164708

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Under most laws, young people are recognized as adults at age 18. But emerging science about brain development suggests that most people don't reach full maturity until the age 25. Guest host Tony Cox discusses the research and its implications with Sandra Aamodt, neuroscientist and co-author of the book Welcome to Your Child's Brain.

TONY COX, HOST:

I'm Tony Cox and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Michel Martin is away. We'd like to spend this part of the program talking about the passage from childhood to adulthood and how that may be tougher for one distinct group of young people.

Most of the privileges and responsibilities of adulthood are legally granted by the age of 18. That's when you can vote, enlist in the military, move out on your own, but is that the true age of maturity? A growing body of science says, no. That critical parts of the brain involved in decision-making are not fully developed until years later at age 25 or so.

In a moment, we'll hear about how child advocates are hoping to use this research to change the laws about their foster care. But first, to learn more about adolescent brain development and maturity, we are joined now by neuroscientist, Sandra Aamodt. She is the coauthor of the book, "Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College."

Sandra, welcome to the program. It's nice to have you.

DR. SANDRA AAMODT: It's nice to be here.

COX: Is this idea that the brains of 18 year olds aren't fully developed a matter of settled science?

AAMODT: Yes. The car rental companies got to it first, but neuroscientists have caught up and brain scans show clearly that the brain is not fully finished developing until about age 25.

COX: To not be too clinical in the spin that we put on this, what parts of the brain are we talking about and what changes happen between the ages of 18 and, let's say, 25?

AAMODT: So the changes that happen between 18 and 25 are a continuation of the process that starts around puberty, and 18 year olds are about halfway through that process. Their prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed. That's the part of the brain that helps you to inhibit impulses and to plan and organize your behavior to reach a goal.

And the other part of the brain that is different in adolescence is that the brain's reward system becomes highly active right around the time of puberty and then gradually goes back to an adult level, which it reaches around age 25 and that makes adolescents and young adults more interested in entering uncertain situations to seek out and try to find whether there might be a possibility of gaining something from those situations.

COX: So this is important. Are the physiological changes in the brain, in terms of the development of young people, as significant and impactful as the cultural changes and environmental changes that they go through vis-a-vis peer pressure things of that sort?

AAMODT: Well, actually, one of the side effects of these changes in the reward system is that adolescents and young adults become much more sensitive to peer pressure than they were earlier or will be as adults.

So, for instance, a 20 year old is 50 percent more likely to do something risky if two friends are watching than if he's alone.

COX: Is there a difference between males and females with regard to their brain development, particularly in this age category?

AAMODT: Females' brains develop about on average two years earlier than male brains, so you're more likely to have a late developing male brain than female.

COX: So when females say they're smarter than guys, it really is true?

AAMODT: Especially around about the age of 15 or so. Yes.

COX: What does this mean? In a minute, we're going to be hearing from some advocates who think that the foster care system needs to be changed, in that in some states, when you reach the age of 18, you are booted out of foster care and their argument is based on some of the research that you are now citing that these young people are not really ready for the adult world.

What is the impact for someone who lives in a foster care kind of setting as far as their brain development is concerned?

AAMODT: One of the things that deprived childhood causes is problems with prefrontal cortex function, so somebody who has had an unstable home life is more likely to have trouble with planning and organizing behavior and with inhabiting impulses than somebody who has had a stable life.

COX: Would you say, based on the research that you are now citing, that it would make more sense to have the legal age become 25 instead of 18 or 21 in some cases?

AAMODT: I think it makes sense to have different ages for different functions. Obviously some 18 year olds are competent to go out into the world and handle things by themselves and some of them aren't. It would be nice if we had a little more flexibility to distinguish the two in the legal system.

COX: Final thing is, if these age limits are not adjusted to take into account the effect that the research has shown, what is the price - if I can put it that way - that society will end up paying down the road? I know that's a pretty large question. But another way of saying it is how important is it for us to address this and do something about it now?

AAMODT: Many of the costs of adolescents are actually - what we think of as the costs of adolescence, the risks of crime and car accidents and all the crazy things that adolescents do are actually more issues with young adults, people in the 18 to 25 age range, largely because they have more opportunities to get into these kinds of trouble because they have less parental supervision than the younger adolescents do.

COX: Sandra Aamodt is a neuroscientist and the co-author of "Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College." She joined us from Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, California.

Sandra, thank you very much.

AAMODT: Thank you.

Copyright © 2011 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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Brain Maturity Extends Well Beyond Teen Years

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Under most laws, young people are recognized as adults at age 18. But emerging science about brain development suggests that most people don't reach full maturity until the age 25. Guest host Tony Cox discusses the research and its implications with Sandra Aamodt, neuroscientist and co-author of the book Welcome to Your Child's Brain.

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Quote 1: "That critical parts of the brain involved in decision-making are not fully developed until years later at age 25 or so." (Cox)
Quote 2: "Obviously some 18 year olds are competent to go out into the world and handle things by themselves and some of them aren't." (Aamodt)

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My thoughts on this article:
This article links to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian when they mention that children are unique and should be deserving of protection. However, in the book Junior is shown to not be protected when he gets bullied by his reservation mates and at his new school Reardan. The article mentions that kids have no say in laws passed, which in turn some children like Junior will never get their voice heard and nothing will change regarding his experiences.

This article links to BOOK THAT WE READ THIS YEAR HERE because/with the example of/when CHARACTER DID THIS.

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My thoughts on this article:
This article links to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian when they explain the difficulties that some children have becoming an adult compared to other children, which includes someone like Junior in the book when he explains that American Indians are supposed to stay in their reservation and not achieve anything for their future.

This article links to BOOK THAT WE READ THIS YEAR HERE because/with the example of/when CHARACTER DID THIS.

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My thoughts on this article:

This article links to BOOK THAT WE READ THIS YEAR HERE because/with the example of/when CHARACTER DID THIS.