By Allison Johnson, M.Ed., Program Consultant
AADAC Youth Services Centre - Calgary

Time for a pop quiz! A teenager engages in one or more of the following activities. Which ones involve risk-taking?

1. Riding a bike without a helmet.
2. Illicit drug use.
3. Creating a web site for the school.

The answer, of course, is "all of the above".

We tend to look at adolescence as a time of strife and turmoil, with parents and teens squaring off in opposite corners. Adolescent behaviour is often labelled contrary, defiant, rebellious, and occasionally just plain dangerous. Sometimes it can be. There's no question that some antics can set a parent's hair on end, but understanding that this behaviour has a function can help tremendously.

Wait a second, you say. Strange clothing, moody self-absorption, and listening to that awful music serve a purpose? Absolutely. The purpose is founded in risk-taking, an essential step in the journey from child to adult. For the first time, adolescents are beginning to wonder about other value systems and other ways of doing things, and about experiences beyond what you can show them. Cognitively, they are now able to fully explore the question "who am I?", and they begin playing a psychological and emotional game of "dress up". They are able to poke holes in the grey area surrounding your exhortations to do something "because I said so." Their bodies and feelings are changing. They turn away from the family in their search for hints and clues as to how to be. They are now boldly going where no adolescent (and certainly not you, of course) has gone before.

Essentially, it's impossible to prevent teens from taking risks; it's what adolescence is all about. That said, there is a difference between the sort of behaviour that begets a healthy adult and the sort that doesn't. There are activities that challenge the intellect, the emotions, and the notions of personal capacity and boundary setting. There's the risk of failure, or of making a mistake. There are challenges to the questions of "am I competent? Am I capable?" There's the figuring out of where one ends and another person begins, and how to balance one's obligation to the self with obligations to others and to society. All of these require taking risks -- the risk of being wrong, the risk of being ridiculed, the risk of finding out that something is beyond your grasp, the risk of going for the goal anyway, in spite of the possibility of failure. All of these endeavours are healthy. Experience, good and bad, helps to define us as mature human beings, and one cannot bestow it upon another. It must be encountered directly.

The other types of risks, the ones that are physically, emotionally, or psychologically dangerous, are the ones we most frequently warn teenagers about. Failure to use protective gear, use of alcohol or illicit drugs, breaching social, moral, and legal boundaries -- the list goes on. Hazardous behaviour often becomes the focus of prohibition campaigns of one sort or another, but simple prohibition does little on its own. The danger in simply forbidding unhealthy risk-taking occurs when nothing viable is offered to replace it, rendering the forbidden act all the more attractive to some teens. Crossing the line into risky territory may have less to do with rebellion per se than the need to fulfil the developmental imperative, which teens will do in any way they can.

The key, then, is to acknowledge the need to take risks and to provide healthy opportunities. It's probably easier to think of alternatives if the word "risk" is replaced by the word "challenge". Ask yourself these questions: can the adolescent in your life test out untried abilities in a supportive setting? Do the adults in your community provide youth with opportunities to contribute something of value, something that tests their competence, their ability to work independently and take on responsibility? Kids of an athletic bent may find their appetite whetted by sports - particularly those carrying a frisson of peril - where the danger of injury is there but reduced through well-established safety measures. Other teens may find their boundaries stretched by community service, or mastering a more knowledge-based area, such as web site design. Adults can help immeasurably by exhibiting a willingness to learn new things and test their own boundaries, too. After all, why should the kids have all the fun?

It goes without saying that adolescents still need adult guidance. As much as teens would sometimes like adults to disappear entirely, most will acknowledge the ongoing importance of parents, teachers, and adult leaders. The trick is in finding a balance between guiding and supporting a teen's effort to challenge him or herself, without getting in the way. It requires that adults allow some mistakes to be made, even when the adult can clearly see the impending "crash-and-burn" from a mile off. By all means, offer opinions and give advice, but do so with the knowledge that your experience might be ignored. That's normal. The adolescents' job is to learn for themselves, and who knows, they may be able to teach you a thing or two in the process. Debriefing an experience with the teen later, whether the effort was successful or not, will also help them to integrate the experience and provide new tools to use on the next occasion. It will also give them the clear message that you are there for them, regardless of the outcome of their efforts.

It's understandably tempting to fear the consequences of adolescent exploration, but the exploration itself is not what's problematic. Where and what a teen chooses to delve into, and in what manner, can make the difference between a healthy and confident young adult and one whose journey leaves them compromised in some way. It can be a time of some anxiety, but also a time of great reward as you watch your sons and daughters launch themselves into healthy and productive adulthood.

[First printed in Alberta Parent Quarterly magazine, Spring, 2000 issue. NOTE: Not published yet as of February 22, 2000.]