Adolescent Growth and the Management of More Risk-Taking

Carl Pickhardt Ph. D.

As adolescence increases exposure to older experiences, it also increases interest in taking older risks:

• For stimulation,
• For testing limits,
• For satisfying curiosity,
• For conforming with peers,
• For momentary thrill of excitement.

The unfolding process of growing up is always risky; by "risk," I mean encountering a new experience or engaging in a new activity that can cause possible harm.

The Risk Question

"To try or not to try?" This is the constant adolescent question. "If I try, I could mess up; if I don't try, I could miss out."

It's emotionally complicated. Is it worse to decide to try, make an unsuccessful effort, and experience failure; or is it worse to decide not to try, later wish you had, and feel regret?

Which feels worse: "I wish I hadn't" or "I wish I had"?

Risk-taking is partly a temperamental issue. That is, there is the conservative adolescent who doesn't want to try what might not work out well, and there is the reckless adolescent who can't resist a dare. From what I've seen, some teenagers are more risk-averse and cautious, and some are more risk-prone and adventurous.

For parents, this is not an issue of "'right" or "wrong." This is a matter of learning to work with the young person they have been given—sometimes encouraging the risk-averse, and always educating the risk-prone.

Worst Risks

First, consider eight dire risks of adolescence that parents worry about, which they often wish their teenager would worry more about. To each of these risks, parents can speak:

1. Social violence: talking about when grievance and anger provoke aggression. The adolescent might explain: “Everyone was feeling hostile, and so I was, too.” Parents can say: “Don’t let the feelings of others determine your own.”
2. Accidental injury: talking about when the unanticipated does surprising hurt. The adolescent might explain: “I was too busy having fun to pay attention.” Parents can say: “You must keep watching out for yourself.”
3. School failure: talking about when educational loss limits future opportunity. The adolescent might explain: “Playing instead of studying got me further behind.” Parents can say: “Work is hard to do, but life gets harder when you don’t.”
4. Illegal activities: talking about when violations result in social punishment. The adolescent might explain: “I thought I could break the rules and not get caught.” Parents can say: “You don’t have to like the law, but you do need to respect it”
5. Sexual misadventures: talking about when intimacy inflicts personal harm. The adolescent might explain: “It just felt good at the moment, so I didn’t think about the bad.” Parents can say: “The rules for having sex are mutual safety and consent.”
6. Daring behavior: talking about the lure of excitement risks personal safety. The adolescent might explain: “It was the temptation of danger that I couldn’t resist.” Parents can say: “Thrill-seeking is not a good director.”
7. Suicidal despondency: talking about when depression turns self-destructive. The adolescent might explain: “As I felt worse and worse, I couldn’t see another way out.” Parents can say: “When feelings get worse is a time to get help.”
8. Substance use: talking about how drugs lessen safe and sober decision-making. The adolescent might explain: “It felt so good I didn’t think about bad possibilities.” Parents can say: “Drugs encourage in-the-moment thinking.”

Parents need to speak to these risks—for example, explaining how when you eliminate the last of these risks (alcohol and other drug use), you dramatically reduce the incidence of the other seven. Adolescence is already a risky passage, experimenting with older experiences to grow. So tell your teenager: “A sober path through adolescence is safest of all.”

While most adolescent risk-taking is outside of parental surveillance and beyond parental control, granting a lot of freedoms is still up to them. So how are parents to decide when to allow their teenager more risk of personal freedom? What grounds might they have for thinking she or he is ready?

Allowing Risk-Taking

When it comes to conditions for allowing more risks of freedom—like driving, dating, and doing other more grownup things—consider evaluating her or his relationship with parents. How the young person acts in relationship to you offers some indication of how she or he will conduct themselves out in the larger world.

So, resort to evidence-based parenting—holding the young person to personal account by keeping to what I call terms of “the freedom contract.” Six provisions of this contract with parents are

• Availability: willing to discuss concerns of parents when the need arises.
• Believability: giving adequate and accurate information to parents.
• Predictability: keeping promises and agreements with parents.
• Responsibility: following basic rules for conduct made by parents.
• Mutuality: living on two-way terms of family cooperation with parents.
• Civility: communicating concerns with courtesy and respect with parents.

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Let adolescent freedom for more personal choice depend on satisfying these basic provisions. When youthful conduct does not, parents can declare that there is some discussion and some earning that needs to be done. “When you live up to our terms of effective self-management at home, we are more likely to consider allowing the risks of more social freedom that you request.”

Of course, most adolescent risk-taking occurs outside of parental surveillance, but at least parents can recommend the protection of mindful risk-taking.

Mindful Risk-Taking

To maintain mindful risk-taking, you have to keep yourself under constant surveillance over what is happening, what did happen, and what is likely to happen, using the combined focus of these three time perspectives to support informed decision-making. This requires keeping full-time awareness.

1. Pay attention to the present. Concentrate and focus on the moment: “What is happening now?” You can’t moderate risk unless you monitor risk as it immediately unfolds. This is attentive responsibility. So you look around.
2. Learn from past occurrences. Remember what experience has taught: “Has this happened before?” You can’t reduce risk unless you are wiser from actions you have taken. This is reflective responsibility. So you look back.
3. Anticipate future possibilities. Consider probable costs and complexities: “Might this happen sometime later?” You can’t prevent risk unless you can foresee possible outcomes. This is predictive responsibility. So you look ahead.

One definition of maturity is the growing capacity to consult all three attentions before acting. A rising risk of adolescence is the tyranny of now - - when a young person denies past experience, indulges present impulse, and ignores future probability to her or his cost.

Risking for Good

Of course, risking is not simply about being mindful of dangers; it is also about daring to play the game of life for the chance of getting what you want. So, parents can also talk about the value of positive risk-taking.

They might suggest

• If you don’t play for what you want, you’re not likely to win what you want;
• If you do play, you will sometimes lose, despite your best efforts;
• If you do lose, you can learn from the experience of trying;
• If it hurts to fail, it hurts worse not to have tried at all;
• If you failed at first, maybe you can try again;
• If you don’t win every time, that’s life;
• If you keep trying, that’s self-respect;
• If you try, you believe in yourself;
• If you keep trying, you can hope;
• If you hope, you’ll keep trying;
• So play for what you want.

In the great risky game of life, we are gamblers all.