Post 11 - (free writing) Contemplation and Questions)

This blog post is going to be a piece of writing in which I contemplate and question the stigmas of risk taking and possible reasons that those stigmas are now slowly disappearing rather than writing a college essay or news analysis.

For a long time I have wondered why risk-taking is looked down upon in the eyes of adults. It is not as if adults just showed up on the face of this earth; they were once children too who went through what we as teens are going through today. Is it because adults did things in their time that they do not want us experiencing or going through? But how is that fair? Do we as teens not have the right to make our own mistakes or have our own experiences? If they themselves turned out alright, for the most of it, then it should be alright for us to take risks. No? If our parents consumed alcohol at the age of seventeen and got a little drunk at a friend’s party, then why is it not alright for us to experience the same? There is no doubt that teens do not think of the consequences of their actions as well as some adults do. It is also an undisputable fact that some teens to get carried away sometimes and do not realize how risky some of the things they do are. But is completely alienating teens from things such as alcohol and marijuana necessarily a good thing? Won’t it just make teens more curious and cause them to “experiment” with those very things in unsafe conditions?

I think, if adults truly want to help teens not become druggies or alcoholics, they should stop hyping such things up. Constantly reminding, pestering, and threatening kids to stay away from drugs and alcohol, I think, is extremely counter-productive because the biggest effect it has is that it increases the hype and thrill of doing those very things. If such things were to be treated as commonplace, as everyday things, then not only would children not get the thrill of taking a risk (which is what most adults think that kids are after, and which is what most kids are actually after when they do consume drugs) they would also not have that particular incentive to do drugs. For example, if we as a society were to treat drugs the same way we treat a couch, an insignificant household item which no one really pays attention to because no one has ever created a big deal about how amazing their experience of sitting on a couch was, then would we even consider taking the time out of our limited and busy days to waste it on smoking or drinking? The example of alcohol and drugs is just one specific example of how, because of the constant nagging of adults to not do such things, teens get curious and excited and do exactly what the adults told them not to! On a broader scope, if adults really believe that risk taking is all bad (which it is not) then all they have to do is bring down the hype of risk taking by not nagging teen not to take risks.

Another thing that has been at the back of my mind for a while is that why is risk taking, something that can be applied to any and every aspect of life, portrayed via the media as doing drugs, consuming alcohol, and jumping of cliffs? Risk taking is relative to the person taking the risk. One can take academic risks just as much as another can take physical risks. One can grow from academic risks just as much as another can grow from physical risks. So why does the media portray risk taking as such a negative thing? Although recent scientific developments and findings in the field of impulsive behavior and risk taking are slowly breaking the stigma around risk taking, it still seems as though the shift is going rather slowly due to the influence of the media. Furthermore and contrary to popular belief in the minds of most adults, taking risks is not bad for one’s health. Healthy risks can greatly help in the whole development of a growing teen. And yes, going sky-diving and getting up in front of a number people to give a speech are pretty much the same sort of risk depending on the people you talk you.

In conclusion I would just like to state that taking healthy and thought out risks can be extremely rewarding for a growing teen. The sense of accomplishment from overcoming a risk is one of the best feelings a child can experience, especially if the risk meant a great deal to the teen. But if there are particular risks, which there are, that adults really do not want teens to be taking, then all they need to do is stop treating the risk as a risk and start treating it as a common, everyday experience. This would take out the thrill factor of going against the rules and doing something exceptional and kids would not want to take thrill-less risks.

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