The psychology of a dare

Posted: 24 Apr 2010 09:42 PM PDT

And he won't be the last, according to area counselors and psychologists. Teens are hard-wired to take dares and engage in risky behavior, and trying to stop them is like trying to unwind the evolution of the human brain.

But parents can help, they said, by opening channels of communication, using tragedies like last week's to start discussions, and learning about what's going on in the heads of their growing teens.

"Can we completely eliminate risks? No. Will it happen again? Yes. But it's a proactive stance on what's happening," said Dr. Lou Aymard, a psychologist and the founding director of The Parenting Center at Anne Arundel Community College.

The drowning happened Tuesday afternoon, when 15-year-old Edward Daniel Knudsen Jr. was dared by friends to swim across the Patuxent River near Waysons Corner. Strong currents carried him downstream and, despite rescue attempts by friends, he didn't survive.

The school was devastated.

"It's a very small, tightknit community, and this can shake you to your foundation," said Debbie Wooleyhand, a pupil personnel worker who counseled students at Southern last week. "That's what the kids were doing, turning to each other."

In health class, county schools teach students to combat bullying and say no to risky behaviors like drinking, drugs and sex, said Lucia Martin, acting coordinator of counseling for county schools. They also complete a lesson in eighth and ninth grades called "Breaking the Silence," about how to tell an adult when something dangerous is going on.

But much of that instruction is given to children when they're younger.

"At the elementary level we do a lot with resisting peer pressure," Martin said. "You hope you've provided them with the skills to say no and make good decisions by the time they get into high school."

Pressure's on

Chris Casey, president of the Chesapeake Regional Association of Student Councils and a senior at Chesapeake High School, said typical dares among his friends include eating gross foods and running a mile after chugging a gallon of water.

"I think it's to prove who's tougher, like a rite of passage," Casey said. "That's pretty much all it is. There's no intellectual reason for it."

Girls challenge each other, too, although they come up with dares that are less physical and more social, said Garwai Vuong, a senior at Severna Park High School and treasurer of CRASC.

"Girls pressure each other to do emotional stuff, like asking a guy out or pressuring someone to say a secret that shouldn't have been said," Vuong said.

Both students said they've never heard of a dare as dangerous as swimming across a river.

The problem with teens is that while they are beginning to look and sound like adults, their brains are still unfinished, psychologists said. The human brain doesn't reach full maturity until the second decade of life, and a teen's prefrontal cortex - the part that gives people control and inhibition - is particularly behind.

The metaphor Aymard gives students in his psychology classes is that a teen is like a Toyota Prius: While the midbrain structures are hot with emotions and arousal, the part that slows impulsive behavior isn't there yet.

"You've got this engine that's running at full steam in the teenage brain, but you have no brakes," Aymard said. "Any reasonable human being can look back at their teen years and say, 'I can't believe I did that. It was so silly, so stupid, so dangerous.' But that's the teen brain. It's hot for risky behavior."

Brain science

Knowing what's going on inside the teenage mind can help parents better understand where their children are coming from and why they make such seemingly stupid decisions sometimes, Aymard said. That's why the community college's free classes on "Parenting the Middle School Child" begin with a lesson on the human brain, he said.

Such lessons can help parents prevent their teens from taking dares and risks. Another way to help is to keep the channels of communication open so that when trouble is brewing, teens trust their parents enough to talk about it.

"The critical piece is not the adolescent's reaction to you," said Matt Yeazel, head of the psychology department at Anne Arundel Community College. "They may say, 'I don't want to talk to you, I'm fine.' But it's about having the discussion. You address the issue, giving them respect and credibility for their point of view. Even when that point of view doesn't make a lot of sense, that's how you open up conversations."

Karin Anstendig-Mosk, a psychologist in Severna Park who works with teens, added that parents of teens who are prone to thrill-seeking can try to channel that energy into safer activities, like competitive extreme sports.

Parents should also inject some reality into the dangerous stunts teens watch on television, Anstendig-Mosk said.

"One of the hallmarks of adolescence is a sense of immortality," she said. "Then there's lots of media that promote stunts on TV. They see the person doing the stunt, but they don't see the ambulances and the medics standing by."

And when something like Tuesday's drowning happens, that's a chance to have a discussion.

"Talking about these things with your child is very important," Anstendig-Mosk said. "If I had a teenager, I'd be talking about what happened to this boy."

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Psychology

Sunday, April 25, 2010