"You're out of town, and your presumably responsible teenage son decides to take out the sports car, meets a woman who turns out to be a prostitute, brings her back to his family home, and proceeds to have a giant party, only for her pimp to show up and take all his family's possessions for what he claimed were unpaid profits."
"During adolescence, the emotional center of the brain is highly activated and primed to seek novelty, excitement, and new experiences. Teens need this neurological wiring to help them move beyond the familiar landscape of family and into the larger, unknown world. More and more, however, I'm hearing from parents who are worried about something different: their teen's lack of interest in spreading their wings or exercising their independence muscles."
"A 2023 CDC Youth Risk Behavior Report found that some adolescent risk-taking behaviors, such as drinking, sex, and driving, have decreased compared to previous decades. There may be some good news here. But do these trends also point to something more concerning? Without opportunities to take risks, it becomes harder to learn new things, mature, and gradually assume greater independence."
Adolescents often present as audacious, reckless, and invincible because the emotional center of the brain becomes highly activated and primed to seek novelty, excitement, and new experiences. That neurological wiring supports movement beyond family into wider social environments and enables practice of independence skills. Recent data show decreases in some risky behaviors—drinking, sex, and driving—compared to past decades, but reduced risk-taking may limit opportunities to learn, mature, and gradually assume independence. Parents remain important resources to guide teens, provide developmentally appropriate opportunities to take risks, and help them learn from trials and errors.
Read at Psychology Today
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