A Student’s Perspective on Teen Recklessness

Elena Lyons-Macatee, Reporter

Reckless behavior has always been a deeply rooted part of adolescence. Recklessness, as well as being exciting, can help reveal things about life that one couldn’t learn from a book. Impulsive decisions are what make us human, and by all means can be celebrated.

The problem in most cases is that, as teenagers, our impulses haven’t been constricted through experience enough to be under the command of rational thought. Frances E. Jensen, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School says, “The teenage brain is not just an adult brain with fewer miles on it, it’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them.” That’s why dealing with teenage recklessness is often left up to parents.

However, it’s more useful to teach teenagers how to protect themselves. Parents can try to keep their kids away from danger but they can only control what they see, and no adult sees all of their kid’s life. Besides, it has been proven that children with over-involved parents can be at risk for behavioral and emotional problems. “Research of teens with overprotective parents,” explains Kirsten Li-Barber, assistant professor of psychology at High Point University in North Carolina, “has found they are more anxious, less socially skilled, have poorer coping skills and higher rates of depression. In addition, they don’t transition to college well.”

Teenagers tend not to have as much experience as the adults in their lives simply due to the age gap and some are aware of that – some can recognize that they don’t have enough experience to trust their instincts but still don’t want to rely on adults to tell them their limits. In order to make the transition towards independence, it’s imperative to learn how to trust yourself in those socially and emotionally charged moments.

Whenever I’ve done reckless things that I wasn’t supposed to be doing, the questions “Am I leaving evidence? Do I seem suspect?” have been the most prominent things in my mind. But realistically, I wasn’t really in danger of getting caught and I spent so much time worrying about it that I never considered the question I should have been asking myself: “Can I get hurt doing this?”

Now, I don’t think that rattling off graphic examples of teenagers doing dumb things and getting hurt is really an effective teaching device. Instead, I like to remember the bottom lines from all the health videos I’ve been shown. It only takes using a lot of substances once to become addicted, and for other substances, using them once makes you more likely to use them again. It also only takes having unprotected sex once to contract an STI, and having sex without birth control (if necessary) will eventually end in pregnancy.

Additionally, in a recent study where rats were exposed to alcohol, some brain cells recovered but some remained “disabled.” Frances E. Jensen chimes in again saying, “We make the point that what you did on the weekend is still with you during that test on Thursday. You’ve been trying to study with a self-induced learning disability.”  

There are a lot of ways to become responsible for personal safety, but it can be difficult to find one that works. Reminding yourself to pause and reflect is similar to reminding yourself of homework or an appointment. The hardest part is forcing awareness upon yourself out of nowhere. Once you feel that you have started to lose some control over a situation, practice hesitating. Taking even a second to slow down is all you need to remember that, while feeling a little out of control can be fun, you are still responsible for how your night will go. Once you remember that you still have a responsibility, do a pass through of whatever introspective security checkpoint you decide on. The idea is to allow your rational brain to infiltrate a situation once you have ventured into unfamiliar territory. Some tried and true methods include: