Colman Noctor

Yeah, and your development doesn't stop at 18.

You know, on your 18th birthday, you develop well into your 20s.

Do you know what I mean?

And I would say even childhood is shrinking on one side, but adolescence is stretching on the other.

You know, we're seeing children older, younger when it comes to 10, 11, 12, but we're seeing older young adults kind of younger when it comes to 18, 19, 20.

So you have to kind of factor that in.

But I love the example of child development and include up to about 25 with this.

It's like popcorn kernels.

If you put popcorn in the microwave under exactly the same conditions, the popcorn will all pop at different times.

And when you're eating your popcorn, you don't know which one popped first and which one popped second.

Do you know what I mean?

It's all the same.

So that idea of, you know, some children will be meandering through the Leaving Cert, but they might hit their groove around 2021 and find that some might be super organized and prepared and coming at this, but might find that their maturity struggles maybe in the college life independence scenario.

So while it develops at different rates, it can also have, it's again, maturity isn't an equal opportunities employer.

It can be, it can be mature in one sense and not others, you know.

Yeah, that's a real problem.

I think over the last 10 or 15 years, we're seeing adolescents as an apprenticeship for adulthood and everything that they do has to have some function and pay off and dividend.

And you're doing this because you'll get points in your leave and you'll get this and this will stand to you when you're going to college.

There's very little kind of doing stuff for the crack or for fun or just for the sake of it.

Why?