Every once in a while a Scout does something so stunningly foolish and reckless we stop and ask; “He’s such an intelligent kid, why did he do something so stupid?”

Emerging brain development research explains the sometimes stunningly bad choices adolescents make. Understanding how the developing adolescent brain works will help us help our Scouts avoid risky behavior and address the consequences of bad choices when they occur.

**Why do they act this way?**No matter how many times you have heard it repeated teenagers do not perceive themselves to be invulnerable. Researchers tell us that teenagers make poor choices about risk because they have not developed that part of the brain that provides for a  working understanding of the good or bad consequences of a given action.

It’s surprising to learn that teenagers often over estimate risk. They sometimes choose poorly because  they tend to weight benefits more heavily than risks.

For example let’s imagine we’re standing on a six foot platform with a ladder to the ground. It may be riskier to jump down but we’ll get down much quicker than taking the ladder. As an adult I would weigh taking the ladder as a sure thing, I’ll be on the ground safely. It will take a few seconds longer but I may hurt myself if I jump.

To a teenager the benefit of getting down quicker becomes so heavily weighted in the equation that it outweighs the risk. So he jumps.

Poor risk assessment is compounded by four other factors:

  • Teens are much more motivated by the promise of rewards then they are discouraged by the threat of punishment.
  • Teen brains don’t sort out mixed signals very well.
  • Teens are actively looking for experiences that create intense feelings- thrills, sensations, excitement, novelty and tend to react more strongly to emotional situations.
  • Teens are  heavily influenced  rewards of admiration and notoriety from their peers.

If we accept the idea that poor decision making is actually a natural part of a larger developmental process we can begin to understand that our Scouts are not simply choosing to act poorly; they have not yet developed the full capacity to process information in a way that leads to better decisions.

If this is so we can treat bad decisions not as a moral or ethical failure in the same way we don’t treat falling off a bike as a moral or ethical failure. We can’t hold people accountable for skills they do not yet possess. This is not to say that we protect Scouts from all the consequences of bad decision making, consequences are part of the learning process too.

In part two we’ll discuss how we can help Scouts deal with risky situations.