Speaking of flying, the show goes by so fast, I need more time.
Here are some items I promised you today!
If your principal isn't the kind of personality to pull this off, get a group of parents or older kids in the school to lead the way.
Check out the dance! Get ready to do some "chair dancing"!
A quick online search for Borderline Personality Disorder will give Mom and Dad a lot of information. Here is the link to the National Institute of Mental Health for valid information.
Parents need to contact the police and have a sit down with someone at the station who can read the texts her son has received from her. They should be able to give them some guidance.
Also, seeking out a therapist who works with those with BPD is likely to be helpful. If you have no resources, look at the county psychological association's website to see professionals who have expertise in this area.
Until some of this settles out, he's not to date or go out socially or she may become even more destabilized. Install a motion-sensitive surveillance system outside your home to protect your home.
My experience is that this situation will escalate out of control if serious steps are not taken.
Parents of soon-to-be-college students need to have an emphatic talk about the steps to take if a casual acquaintance suddenly becomes way too attached. It's a warning sign.
You might want to check into the Ferber Method which typically starts at age 5 months. It's not a "cry it out" method.
I understand that friends are important, but high school usually breaks up the social crowd and if he goes on to be unemployable because of his illiteracy, which is the fight you want to have...learn to read and maybe have to make new friends or face a lifetime of humiliation? It's on you, Momma.
Here's how to learn more about Lindamood-Bell and here's a resource in case you need to find an attorney or advocate to learn about your son's educational rights to get a Free and Appropriate Public Education.
Ever heard of the 1936 film called Reefer Madness? It was so over the top that it actually ended up encouraging smoking pot.
Pot, obviously, has cannabinoids, but so does the body. Endocannabinoids are naturally occurring cannabinoids in the body. It is manufactured by nerve cells and are critical to the wiring of the brain both before birth and during the teen years. They have major roles in memory and movement and in regulating sleep, appetite, emotions and memory. Overloading this system by adding more cannabinoids may be harmful during a time when the teen brain is rewiring itself.
Here are the highlights of the discussion:
1. Though some of the research has turned in mixed results, the consensus is that marijuana is not healthy for the ever-changing adolescent brain. Do you want to roll the dice? Can you live with the consequences?
2. As little as 1 or 2 episodes of smoking pot results in increased brain volume which is not good.
3. You'd think that a heavier brain is a better brain, but not this time.
4. During early-to-mid adolescence, the brain is actually killing off parts of itself in a process called pruning. When pruning happens, connections that are redundant are killed off to make the brain's functioning more streamlined and efficient.
5. In teens who have smoked pot even once, there is an enlargement in the grey matter which is the part of the brain that contains most of the neuronal (brain cells) cell bodies. The grey matter includes regions of the brain involved in muscle control, and sensory functions such as seeing and hearing, as well as memory skills, emotions, speech, decision making, and self-control which means that it's kinda important.
6, Smoking marijuana may trigger psychosis in a brain that is vulnerable to such disturbances. Be careful if your family has a history of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders.
7. On tests of memory, learning new information, reasoning activities, processing information and advanced problem solving, those teens who smoked pot scored at levels typically seen in kids with lead exposure. They had serious drops in their cognitive/thinking ability.
8. Impairments were observed in attention, learning and decision making days after the high wears off.
9. Abstaining from smoking for 25 days allows the brain to recover most functions.
10. The endocannabinoid system in the teen brain is immature. Adding more cannabinoids to the sensitive brain by smoking pot disrupts its work when wiring the teenage brain for adulthood.
11. In the teen brain, the endocannabinoid system is responsible for cognitive ability (thinking), the stress response, emotional control and helping to regulate other parts of the brain.
12. Repeated exposures to pot makes the teen brain more sensitive to developing deficits.
13. Heavy users (generally smoking 5 of the 7 days for most weeks or more than 2500 times in their lives) causes damage to the white matter of the brain resulting in deficits when the brain cells are communicating with each other.
14. Legalization, in the minds of many teens, equates to "safety".
15. Legal in 23 states.
16. THC, the active ingredient in pot, is not risk-free. No safe levels have been established.
17. Long-term physical effects for adults include serious issues with periodontal disease.
18. Keep your kids away from pot for as long as you can as the risks for starting young are more significant than when starting at older ages.
See you next week on the radio!
Claudia
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