Invitation to Psychology

ChapTer 3 Development Over the Life Span 111

them as “all gasoline, no brakes” oversimplifies their
development (Casey & Caudle, 2013).
In June, 2012, the Supreme Court issued its rul-
ing in the Miller case: laws requiring youths convicted
of murder to be sentenced to die in prison, it said,
violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and
unusual punishment. Currently in the united States,
about 2,500 inmates are serving life sentences for
crimes committed when they were juveniles, more
than 2,000 of them because of the mandatory sen-
tencing the court has now barred. The problem with
mandatory sentences, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in
her opinion, is that every teenager receives the same
sentence regardless of his or her chronological age
(17 is not 14), background (stable home or abusive
one), or psychological maturity. Mandatory sentenc-
ing means that judges cannot consider the teenager’s
family environment, no matter how brutal it might be.
However, four members of the court were not
persuaded by this argument. Justice Samuel Alito, in
a separate dissent, complained that the ruling meant
that “[e]ven a 17 1/2-year-old who kills many people
in a murderous rampage would have to be given a
chance to persuade the courts that he should be
released into society in only a few years. The punish-
ment should be up to the courts and the possibility of
leniency, he wrote, but the Constitution has nothing to
say about it.
Where do you stand on this issue? Should
adolescence be a mitigating factor in sentencing
decisions? Both sides in this debate realize that

teenagers differ in their degree of maturity, compe-

tence, and reasoning abilities and the environments

in which they were raised. Evan Miller’s sister, you’ll

recall, described their family as having been neglect-

ful and dysfunctional. But they differ on how and

whether to weigh such factors in criminal cases. Is

the responsibility of teenagers diminished by the

fact that adolescence in our culture has grown longer

and longer over time? As we saw, cultures differ in

the roles and expectations that guide young people’s

behavior. In cultures that require adolescents to do

adult work and take on other adult responsibilities,

the idea that teenagers are mentally immature might

seem odd.

We also saw that adult development is pro-

foundly shaped by economic opportunities,

demographic changes, and sweeping social events—

large-scale factors that can cause a marked dis-

connect between how people are raised and what

becomes of them later in life. And we saw that

many children are resilient and can be rescued from

childhoods like Evan’s, childhoods of cruelty and

neglect, if they get into better environments and are

supported by concerned adults. Given that evidence,

is it “cruel and unusual” to assume that all juvenile

offenders are a “lost cause,” and condemn them to

life in prison?

At what point does a person become fully respon-

sible for his or her harmful actions? Is adolescence

literally a state of diminished responsibility, and if so,

how should the courts treat teenage offenders?

Bringing up Baby

Every year or so another best-selling book ar-

rives to tell parents they’ve been doing it all

wrong. Countless books have advised parents

to treat their children in specific, if contra-

dictory, ways: Pick them up, don’t pick them

up; respond when they cry, don’t respond

when they cry; let them sleep with you, never

let them sleep with you; be affectionate, be

stern; be highly sensitive to their every need

so they will securely attach to you, don’t over-

react to their every mood or complaint or you

will spoil them. Be a Chinese “tiger mother”;

no, wait, be a laid-back French mother. A bil-

lion-dollar industry has emerged to calm (and

inflame) parental worries, offering expensive

strollers, toys, “fetal education” techniques,

and baby sign-language programs—all to cre-

ate the perfect child (Paul, 2008).

No need to panic. Critical thinkers can

call on two lines of evidence, described in

this chapter, to protect themselves from the

guilt-mongers and marketers. One is that ba-

bies and young children thrive under a wide

variety of child-rearing methods. The second

is that babies bring their own temperaments

and other genetic predispositions to the mat-

ter of how best to raise them.

Well, then, how should you treat your

children? Should you be strict or lenient,

powerful or permissive? Should you require

them to stop having tantrums, to clean up

their rooms, to be polite? Should you say,

“Oh, nothing I do will matter, anyway,” or “If

I don’t get 100 percent compliance on every

order, this kid is going to boot camp”? Child

development research does suggest general

principles that can help parents find that

middle way and foster their children’s confi-

dence and helpfulness:

Set high expectations that are appropriate to

the child’s age and temperament, and teach

the child how to meet them. Some parents

make few demands on their children, either

unintentionally or because they believe a

parent should not impose standards. Others

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