RISK ANALYSIS

Expert says parents should guide teens by explaining consequences of
dangerous behavior and offering choices

Like many an expert before her, Dr. Lynn Ponton is taking her whack at
conventional wisdom about parenting. In this case, the veteran University
of California child psychiatrist believes adults need to rethink their
notions about adolescence as a hormone-soaked, rebellious binge.

The teen years are not naturally a time of danger but of normal, even
healthy risk-taking, Ponton contends after 25 years counseling adolescents
and raising two teenagers of her own. Most remarkable, she says that teens
not only need adults in their lives, they want adults to help them evaluate
risk -- rebutting a new, controversial theory that genetics and peers, not
parenting, influence children most.

Adolescents need to take risks to test their identities and abilities,
Ponton says. But rather than hormone-driven -- and therefore uncontrollable
- -- their behavior can be directed in positive ways.

``The problem is that our culture has come to believe that adolescence is
naturally a tumultuous time, and this has blurred the lines between normal,
exploratory behavior and behavior that is dangerous,'' Ponton writes in her
book, ``The Romance of Risk: Why Teenagers Do the Things They Do'' (Basic
Books). ``When we assume that all risk-taking is bad, we fail to recognize
both the very real dangers some risks pose, and the tremendous benefits
that others can yield.''

Ponton's book arrives at a time when parents and experts are trying to
fathom what makes teenagers take the seemingly unwarranted risks they do.
It offers solutions that some parents may not have considered -- or that
may make them uncomfortable.

Parents, she says, need to steer kids from negative risks -- experimenting
with drugs, gangs or sex -- toward positive ones such as sports, performing
arts and volunteer work, though she acknowledges that doing so takes time,
creativity, compromise and sometimes the help of an adult who's not the
parent.

Teenagers, meanwhile, need the opportunity to make their own decisions
about certain risks. Parents can help by providing limits, lots of
information about difficult subjects, including drug use and sex, and by
demonstrating good risk-taking behavior themselves, she says.

Redefining Role

That means gradually shifting parents from the role of ``benevolent
dictator to that of consultant.''

In random interviews with South Bay teens -- from student leaders to kids
on probation -- many echoed Ponton's ideas almost verbatim. And none had
even heard of her book.

``My parents don't tell me, `No.' They give me reasons why I shouldn't do
something, and if I do it, it will still be my choice,'' says Krisena
McIntire, a junior at Kennedy High School in Fremont who is into drama,
softball and community service. ``I can't say I haven't done anything I
wasn't supposed to. But it has a positive effect because I do have trust in
my parents. I don't have to sneak around behind their back.''

The idea of teenage rebellion, Ponton says, was born in the writings of
early 20th century academics, including colleagues of Sigmund Freud, as
well as his daughter, Anna. It was cemented in the 1960s -- a tumultuous
era that Ponton says had more to do with the political climate than
adolescent development -- and is constantly reinforced today by media
images of disenfranchised teens.

But current thinking is beginning to view risk-taking as not solely
harmful, she says, citing recent studies showing that 80 percent of
adolescents -- including urban youth -- negotiate teen years with little
difficulty.

In her book, Ponton uses 13 case studies from her own psychiatry practice
at UC-San Francisco to present risk-taking in a more positive light. The
irony, however, is that the teenagers in these cases exhibit extremely
dangerous risk-taking, including running away, self-starvation,
self-mutilation and alcoholism. One teen becomes a mother at 13; another
batters his mother after seeing his father do the same; inviting most
readers to dismiss the examples as irrelevant to their own kids.

At the same time, some adults in the case studies seem oblivious to the
obvious -- such as the father who finds a garbage bag full of empty beer
cans and believes his 17-year-old son's explanation that he and his friends
collected them while cleaning up the neighborhood.

In retrospect, Ponton says, she would include examples of more everyday
kinds of kids. She uses negative examples, she says, to show the confusion
that has developed around teenage behavior to the point that people
consider self-mutilation or alcohol abuse ``normal.'' Still, she draws
positive advice from negative examples for parents raising all kinds of
teenagers.

Krisena's mother, Debbie Espinola, never read Ponton's book or sought her
advice. But Espinola developed an open parenting style based on her own
lack of information as a teenager.

``If I knew the pros and cons, I would have made decisions differently,''
Espinola says. ``I open everything up to (Krisena) and help her do what she
wants to do.''

That includes talking openly about sex, which Espinola admits was
difficult. But she also asked her daughter to consider, ``Is sex worth your
life?'' given the risks of pregnancy and HIV. Krisena says because she had
a lot of information about risks surrounding sex, she chose abstinence and
joined CATS -- Concerned About Teen Sexuality -- a drama troupe that
performs skits about abstinence.

That's what Ponton would call positive risk-taking around teen sexuality.
She offers a list of alternatives, like the one Krisena chose, to risky
behavior:

Dangerous dieting, Ponton recommends encouraging teens to learn about their
own nutritional needs and help with buying and preparing food.

Drugs, alcohol, speeding and other thrill-seeking activities she suggests
supervised extreme sports, such as whitewater rafting and rock-climbing.

Gangs and the excitement of the streets, she offers volunteer work with the
homeless or groups tackling other urban issues.

Quynh Le, a junior at Silver Creek High School in San Jose, says there's a
lot of pressure at school to take drugs. But for him, skateboarding is a
better way to be an ``outlaw.'' His parents worry he'll get injured, and he
knows that's a risk. But he says there's nothing better than the feeling of
landing a trick he's practiced all day.

``It's more fun skating than smoking weed, and weed is illegal. Why not
have fun without my mom getting mad at me?'' he asks. ``I decided that
myself. But it was based on what my parents taught me, morals and all that.''

Ponton believes that teaching teens how to weigh risk is the most
challenging and important ingredient of parenting.

``To take risks successfully, an adolescent should be able to weigh the
dangers and benefits of a particular situation, and know how his or her own
strengths, weaknesses and biases may affect the consequences, all of which
help build self-confidence,'' she writes.

Peer Influence

Ponton's ideas clash with those in another book, ``The Nurture Assumption:
Why Kids Turn Out the Way They Do'' (Free Press, 1998). Written by Judith
Harris, a New Jersey researcher, it contends that parents have little
influence over their children's outcome.

Ponton argues that parents are essential to the process. But she often
finds parents of teenagers work at extremes -- either trying to be too
controlling or abdicating responsibility altogether.

``You need to punish kids. Not beat on them, but have discipline. And if
you're going to punish kids, you need to do it early,'' says Glenn Tucker,
a senior at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale.

Ponton notes that sometimes an outside adult -- aunt, uncle, teacher, coach
- -- can play the role teenagers need. Parents don't use this option enough
when their children tune them out, she says.

Tony Bonetti, a Sunnyvale senior, was drinking, smoking, cutting class and
didn't respond when his parents grounded him. But his 11th-grade history
teacher recognized his potential and signed him up for a leadership class,
despite his poor grades and attendance. In one school year, he turned the
situation around.

``She showed me what I was capable of,'' he says of the teacher. ``She
helped me check myself and how what I was doing was affecting me, my family
and my future.''

Last but not least, Ponton says parents must demonstrate healthy
risk-taking for their children, and talk about the risks they have taken
that didn't work out. If negative risk-taking is allowed to go unchecked,
she says, it can move quickly from experimentation to a lifestyle.

``The key to healthy risk-taking is good communication,'' Ponton says.
``The great thing about teens is that they'll really listen, if they don't
think you're lecturing.''

Checked-by: derek rea