Let's Be Fair

I think a lot about this teen driving business and, as a psychologist with a lot of experience dealing with youth, I think a lot about how teenagers are different from adults. But, lately, I've thought more about how adults are similar to teenagers, and vice versa.

I do firmly believe that we have a tendency in America to demonize teenagers and to think that they have all kinds of problems ("these kids today") when a hard look at evidence often suggests that teenagers are by no means a more problem-plagued generation than that of their parents. Actually, in many respects, they are less problematic than their parents' generation.

Even some of the statistics about teenagers and the risks they take while driving are complicated and probably should not be understood as due to teenagers being more inherently prone to risk-taking behavior than adults. By and large, I tend to think of lack of experience as being the main problem here, not some basic characteristic, like recklessness, that teenagers are supposed to have.

Another way of thinking about it is that it is wrong to look at teenage drivers as having the market cornered on reckless driving--or just plain bad driving. We all have seen, if we are honest, all kinds of egregious examples of boneheaded driving behavior on the part of adults. We see adult drivers speed, run traffic lights, eat, put on make-up, talk on their cell phones (often as they run through traffic lights), and sometimes do all of the above. They know better.

My main issue is that, via our culture, we encourage a kind of lust to drive in each other, and in our teenagers, and then we generally allow people to drive independently before they have enough experience. It's possible that we also license people too early.

We all want to do what we reasonably can to prevent our kids from being hurt or injured in car wrecks or causing others to be hurt or injured. Of course, we can't eliminate the risk.

It calls for some sensible parenting. That can be done while maintaining a calm, non-hysterical, firm position. That's what we try to encourage with this website.

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