[BurleyBulletin] July 1, 2006: PTO Meeting, 8th Grade Dance Donations & Pictures

Sat Jul 1 14:30:35 EDT 2006

The Burley Bulletin
July 1, 2006

Inside This Issue

*        Summer PTO Meeting
*        8th Grade Dance Donations
*        8th Grade Dance Pictures
*        Understanding the Adolescent Brain
*        Mark Your Calendar...
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Summer PTO Meeting
The Burley PTO will meet on July 20th at 11:00 A.M. at The Hardware Store
Restaurant on the Downtown Mall.  They will be discussing the following
items at this working lunch:
*         Identifying new board members and filling vacant positions
*         Planning the Fall Fundraiser
*         Planning PTO activities for Back to School Night and Orientation
*         Budgeting for a Matching Technology Grant and for School Planners
Any interested parents are welcome to attend this meeting (especially
parents of rising 6th graders), please just contact Andrea Trank, PTO
President, to let her know you are coming so that she can make a
reservation.  She can be reached at atrank at k12albemarle.org
<mailto:atrank at k12albemarle.org>  or at 296-7165.
8th Grade Dance Donations
The 8th Grade Dance was a magical night made possible by the hard efforts of
the numerous members of the dance committee.  Hopefully, many 8th grade
parents came down and took a look at the “Whole New World” the cafeteria was
transformed into that evening – if you didn’t you really missed a sight!
There was the Sultan’s Tent, a replica of the Taj Mahal, an Arabian
Marketplace, lots of food and drink, a photographer, plus every member of
the 8th grade class received a commemorative T-shirt.  However, that magical
evening came at a price and even with generous donations from many parents
we are still $300 short.  If you didn’t provide a donation for the dance (or
you wish to add to your donation) you may still do so by making a check out
to Burley Middle School (put 9th Grade Dance on the Memo line) and mailing
it to:
Burley Middle School
8th Grade Dance
901 Rose Hill Dr.
Charlottesville, VA 22???
If you have any questions you can contact Janice Archer at 971-3693 or
dajaweb at ntelos.net <mailto:dajaweb at ntelos.net> .  Thank you!
8th Grade Dance Pictures
Many of the pictures taken at the 8th grade dance are still available in the
school office for parents to pick up.  If you are not sure if your child had
a picture done, you can call the office at 295-5101.  In addition you can
order extra copies, enlargements and check out and purchase the candid
photos taken during the dance at the following website:
www.artech.photoreflect.com <http://www.artech.photoreflect.com/>
If you have any trouble with the website, contact Shelley Payne at 984-6862
or shp33 at alumni.virginia.edu <mailto:shp33 at alumni.virginia.edu> .
Understanding the Adolescent Brain
June 26, 2006

By Michael Craig Miller, M.D.
Harvard Medical School
This article is from the Aetna InteliHealth Website at
http://www.intelihealth.com
It's a good thing parents get 12 years to bond with their children before
they become teenagers. Otherwise they might not be so motivated to help them
grow into adults.
Teens are often annoying, demanding, moody, gloomy, and defiant. If their
reckless behavior doesn't kill them, it may scare their parents to death.
And parents are partially justified in being scared: it's a time when rates
of addiction and mental disorders spike, along with the risk of accidental
death, suicide, and homicide.
A Messy Transition
Child development specialists say this angst-producing time may be a
necessary—though messy—phase for adolescents to go through. The bond between
parents and children can be so strong that we might never let go if we
didn't live through a time that makes separation look pretty good.
It's an adolescent's job to become independent, explore limits, take risks,
break rules, and rebel against the older generation. Powerful sexual
impulses and romantic feelings emerge, too. Adolescents are keen to discover
the world and create their own culture to replace the status quo.
This is also a time of contradiction. Though teenagers may trash their
parents, they still need adult support and protection.
Intellect or Emotion?
Regardless of the purpose of these behaviors, knowing something about the
biology behind them may help everyone deal with this time more comfortably.
It's not that teens lack smarts. By age 15 or 16, adolescents do about as
well as adults on tests of intellectual ability. But because they are far
from being fully developed emotionally, they often forget to think. The
thrill of driving fast, the adventure of diving into unknown waters, and the
excitement of sex overwhelm their judgment.
Peer pressure is powerful, too. Teenagers can adamantly tell you they would
never get into a car with a drunk driver, but come Saturday night, it may be
embarrassing not to go along with their friends. Gang violence, reckless
driving, and drinking get worse in groups. Unlike adults, adolescents take
more chances when friends are watching.
How the Teen Brain Becomes an Adult Brain
These differences between adolescents and adults have a basis in brain
development. Throughout childhood, the brain undergoes dramatic changes.
Nerve cells grow and they develop more connections. A substance called
myelin covers the cells, increasing the speed of nerve signals about
100-fold. Finally, "pruning" occurs, which eliminates connections that are
not needed. This makes communication more efficient from nerve to nerve,
from circuit to circuit, and between the right and left sides of the brain.
Nerve connections evolve throughout life, but the biggest changes occur from
birth to the early 20s. Each brain region undergoes the growing and pruning
process at different times. Basic functions (the ability to smell, see or
move) mature first. The areas responsible for more advanced tasks mature
later. For example, the part of the brain that controls vision (the visual
cortex) starts its burst of growth when a baby is 4 months old. By
preschool, it has been pruned to its adult level. In contrast, the reasoning
part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) starts its growth spurt at age 3
or 4, and most pruning doesn't occur until middle or late adolescence. Among
the last connections to mature are those between the prefrontal cortex and
the "emotional" part of the brain (limbic system). Emotional learning and
self-regulation depend on these links.
A circuit of particular interest is the one that links the reasoning parts
of the brain to the brain's reward system. The weakness of this connection
during adolescence may explain why teens are particularly prone to the power
of addictive substances and romantic love. For example, adolescents become
addicted to nicotine faster and at lower doses than adults do. And brain
scans show that the brains of teenagers are much more sensitive to novel
experiences compared to adult brains.
Hormones are at work, too. The adolescent brain pours out stress hormones,
sex hormones, and growth hormone, which in turn influence brain development.
Testosterone production goes up 10-fold in adolescent boys. Sex hormones act
in parts of the brain that are important for the regulation of arousal and
mood.
Helping an Adolescent Grow Up
A fundamental aim for adolescents and the adults in their lives is to
tolerate the inevitable exasperation on both sides. Research supports using
a parenting style that avoids extremes of punishment and permissiveness,
though it's difficult to define those terms in practice.
The adolescent—and his or her brain—need the opportunity to be independent,
but at times they need structure, too. Here are a few guidelines to get you
started.
*         Be warm but not lax.
*         Be firm but not harsh.
*         Accept the adolescent's increasing need for independence.
*         Avoid trying to control what you have limited power to control.
*         Show, don't tell. If teens see you being loving, generous,
industrious, and sincerely committed (to people, work and hobbies), it will
mean more than a lecture.
*         Focus your attention on the riskiest behavior: any combination of
drinking and driving, drug use that impairs judgment and might put them at
grave risk, irresponsible sexual activity (especially leading to illness or
an unwanted pregnancy).
You can't avoid the turbulence that is a normal part of biological growth.
So don't try. Instead, understand how the adolescent brain evolves and
create conditions where that brain can grow into the best it can be! You
might find it is more fun and the relationship with the teens in your life
may become more satisfying.
Michael Craig Miller, M.D., is the Editor in Chief of the Harvard Mental
Health Letter. He is also associate physician at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. He has
been practicing psychiatry for more than 25 years and teaches in the Harvard
Longwood Psychiatry Residency Program.
____________________________________________________________________________
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Mark Your Calendar...
*         Thursday, July 20, 11:00 A.M., PTO Meeting, Hardware Store
Restaurant
*         Monday, August 21, First Day of School
____________________________________________________________________________
_________________

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