Teenage Rebellion: How it Ensures Long-Term Survival

Parents often struggle to understand their kids once they reach their teenage years. This is partly because when teenagers reach puberty, their bodies are sending them biological indicators that they will no longer be able to rely on their parents for their continued survival. Instead, they will need to rely on their larger community.

This is why friends have such a heavy influence on teenagers’ behavior. It’s also why their parents’ influences on their behaviors are starting to wane. Teenagers are learning that they need to take the opinions of others into consideration in order to survive long term.

During this time, teenagers are also biologically geared to engage in more risky behavior. In fact, teenagers are better at determining the likelihood that something bad will happen if they engage in risky behaviors than adults are. Again, this makes sense in terms of long-term survival. If you are unwilling to take risks socially in order to gain the approval of your peers, it works against your chances at long-term survival.

At the same time, teenagers have a difficult time weighing the worst possible outcomes against the potential rewards. A good analogy is the game of Russian Roulette. A teenager might recognize that there is only a 1 in 6 chance that they might shoot themselves and that there is a high chance that they might win a lot of money if they play. What they may fail to take into account, and what parents will often emphasize, is, “BUT YOU COULD SHOOT YOURSELF!”

These different worldviews are why parents and teenagers often have a difficult time understanding one another. Teenagers are considering the potential rewards of engaging in high risk behaviors in order to gain their peers’ approval and ensure their long-term survival. Parents are considering the worst possible outcomes of these high risk behaviors to the exclusion of all else.

These different views are also often the source of conflict. If parents feel that an activity could result in a poor outcome, they might be inclined to tell their kids no. If teenagers see that the likelihood of a poor outcome is low, but that the likelihood of social acceptance is high, they may determine that defying their parents is better for their long-term survival and engage in the activity behind their parents’ backs.

This is not to say that teenagers should be allowed to engage in any activity that results in social acceptance. On the contrary, teenagers can benefit from their parents’ more pragmatic outlook. That said, parents need to recognize that teenagers need some space to engage in the high risk game of social experimentation.

What’s important is for parents to help their teenagers find ways to engage in risky behaviors as safely as possible. For example, if your teenagers are sexually active, make sure that they have ready access to birth control. If your teenagers want to go to a party at a friend’s house, coordinate with the friend’s parents to make sure that the party is supervised. If your teens are going out on a date, ask them to call if they’re planning to be out later than a particular time. These sorts of interventions can give teens the chance to experiment socially, while at the same time giving parents the assurance they need that their teens are taking risks safely.