Researching the role of emotions within my life I came across the following. Quite old but relevant I think. I quite like the notion of parents as exterior brain functions (it fits in well with the rebellion stage of teenagers) as in:

In many ways, parents can be conceptualized as 'external frontal lobes' for their children, helping to interpret environmental demands, and construct and execute appropriate responses. Given the behavioral consequences of having an immature frontal cortex, parents subsume a number of frontal functions by instructing their children in the absence of their own abstract reasoning. Parents attempt to maintain control of where and with whom a child goes in order to minimize behavioral transgressions in the absence of the child’s ability to make good decisions. Importantly, parents also provide feedback that allows the child to modify their behavior.

http://www.theteenbrain.com/about/publications/pdfs/2006-Baird-Morality.pdf (short)

However, it also might be instructive to see how Level 2 could operate (p10, up till about 10-years-of-age) to see how different prepubertal minds might work compared to teenagers and hence their abilities for full consent.


Moth


ps. A few more books you won't want to read since I will mention them are (some not exactly new either):

'Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman - controversial at least, but many of you seem to be as much in need of help here as I was and still am in my understanding of the role of emotions in my life.

http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-10th-Anniversary-Matter/dp/055338371X

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence


'The Stranger in The Mirror' by Marlene Steinberg and Maxine Schnall - has some interesting stuff, particularly on the effects of child-abuse and also on 'alien abductions'.

http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Mirror-Marlene-Steinberg/dp/customer-reviews/0060954876


For some light reading, how about:

'The Origin of Consciousness in The Breakdown of The Bicameral Mind' by Julian Jaynes.

(Recommended by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy), who also liked to read Tolstoy too)

http://www.darkermatter.com/issue1/douglas_adams.php


Or how about 'Stumbling On Happiness' by Daniel Gilbert (which I stumbled upon in the library), a professor of pyschology elucidating much of the latest knowledge we have about the way our minds work. Very entertaining style of writing too, mostly.

http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400042666

(you needn't read all 108 reviews!)


pps. For all of those a little 'Rind-the-bend' and insist on this as proof of pedophilia in the general population. Just a few thoughts. It is generally agreed that we are genetically predisposed to find babies attractive - presumably for their own survival. This seems to include the baby features (large eyes and baby facial arrangements) and also the facial symmetry that seems to underlie all our notions of beauty. Emotions can be confused - we don't 'think' emotions, we feel them, and so we have to describe them subsequently in relation to other emotions and thoughts. Basic emotions are relatively easy to describe - happiness, sadness, etc. but this is not so easy for other more complex emotions. Perhaps when we feel this attraction to babies - and perhaps by extension to the young in general we misinterpret our emotions and attraction to them as being sexual. Research has shown that arousal can be misinterpreted so that fear may be seen as lust for example (example in Gilbert's book), how much easier would it be for a child to misinterpret their feelings than an adult? Judging by the number of you who have atypical environments in your youth, this has a better chance of being causative than any genetic influence.