Teens and Risk

Welcome back to the A Quantum Leap Tutoring blog!  Twice a week we bring you a topic of interest and great links here at the blog.  Meanwhile, A Quantum Leap Tutoring is here for all your tutoring needs - all subjects, all levels - throughout the state of Florida.

Over the last few weeks we discussed the bullying epidemic - what's going on and why, and how parents can help both victims and perpetrators of bullying (sometimes just by recognizing that one person can be both!).

In our most recent entry, we mentioned that the adolescent brain is specially wired to find peer approval extremely rewarding.  This ties into a related topic - risk-taking in general during the teen years.

It's a commonly-mentioned fact that teens' brains just aren't done developing - the prefrontal cortex, which helps with decision-making, just isn't where it will be in adults, impairing decision-making for adolescents through their early 20s.  Slate.com did a great series of articles earlier this year - Part 1 on February 4, 2010 and Part 2 on February 5, 2010 - describing exactly what this means.

Part 1 breaks down the current research, explaining that it's not that teens are unable to assess risk - or that sitting your teenager down and explaining the risk rationally, in a way that would possibly deter an adult from doing the same thing after thinking through the options, will actually help much.  In fact, it appears that even when teens completely intellectually understand the risks involved in a course of action, the impulse to seek peer approval and new experiences makes risk taking seem completely reasonable, negating any number of hours of lectures and well-meaning advice from parents, teachers, etc.

Part 2 ponders the question of where to go from that nerve-wracking finding, as a parent.  The general conclusion - though the full article is absolutely worth reading, as it is full of great thought-provoking commentary and brings a small amount much-needed humor to an otherwise worrying subject matter - is that it's all about just getting teens through the worst of it intact.

The good news is that while the teens in general are high-risk years, there are higher-risk times than others.  The "worst" of it is around 15-16.  Friends can be bad influences - you know that as a parent, and the research backs that up.  Keeping your kids safe by knowing what they're up to and who they're spending their time with is absolutely the best strategy.  Chances are there will still be some decisions you wish they hadn't made over the years, but keeping an eye on them, staying engaged, communicating, and encouraging your child to take up a hobby all do great things for reducing their risk.

Along these notes, on Thursday we'll talk about mistakes... and how to deal when your child makes them.  See you then!