their fears about their teenager's risk-taking: "What is it? What does
it mean? What can I do?" Despite working hard to understand
teens, parents are bewildered, concerned, and frightened.

In my work two things have remained absolutely clear over the
years: adolescents are going to take risks, and most parents of ado-
lescents are terrified about this. In 1995, when the Carnegie Insti-
tute published its findings on youth and risk, its report suggested
that American youths today are at greater risk because they take
more risks and are exposed to even more opportunities for danger-
ous risks than at any other time in American history. ¹ The report
called attention to an important and neglected issue, but it also sent
a message to the culture -- to parents, educators, politicians, policy
makers, sociologists, psychologists, health care professionals, proba-
tion officers, juvenile justice system workers, officers of the courts,
police officers, and to all those who work with and/or care about
young people: there is something inherently dangerous about being
an adolescent. If the dangers to adolescents are inevitable, then
there is nothing any of us can do but hold our collective breath and
pray as the children we love and care for approach this treacherous
time. But how much of this fear is justified? How dangerous is ado-
lescence? What are the appropriate areas for concern, and what are
the commonly held myths and misconceptions?

American culture is defined at least in part by risk-taking -- west-
ward expansion and the settling of the western frontier were all
about risk, and the successful pursuit of the American Dream virtu-
ally requires taking risks. We are not a culture that has ever been in-
formed by the idea of carefully assessing risks before taking them;
after all, risk assessment seeks to limit a certain kind of unbridled
behavior and so runs counter to many of our myths about ourselves
and our history. Had the settlers known what kinds of dangers
awaited them in the terrain ahead, would they have been able or
willing to move forward? Today our media promote risk-taking for
young people almost as sport, and it is no accident that our society
has the highest percentages of risk-taking among adolescents; teens

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