ometimes I wonder if I’ll make it through the teenage years with two boys. Calgon, take me away…
Just when you’re thanking your lucky stars that you survived the toddler years, you blink and your active baby boy has become a teenager. As I’m sure other parents would attest, the teenage years make the “terrible twos” look like, well, child’s play.
On almost a daily basis, my girlfriends email me tragic stories of teenage boys doing stupid things, like the Georgia teen who drowned just hours after his high school graduation when his friends tied him to a shopping cart and pushed into a lake as part of a game.
Part of the problem is that the developing teenage brain is hardwired for risk. According to Dr. Amir Levine, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Columbia University, the expansion of grey matter in the adolescent brain stimulates neural pathways that make a young person more willing to try new things.