Born to Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks, and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe

by Jess Shatkin

Overview

A groundbreaking, research-based guide that sheds new light on why young people make dangerous choices--and offers solutions that work

Texting while driving. Binge-drinking. Unprotected sex. There are plenty of reasons for parents to worry about getting a late-night call about their teen. But most of the advice parents and educators hear about teens is outdated and unscientific--and simply doesn't work.

Acclaimed adolescent psychiatrist and educator Jess Shatkin brings more than two decades' worth of research and clinical experience to the subject, along with cutting-edge findings from brain science, evolutionary psychology, game theory, and other disciplines -- plus a widely curious mind and the perspective of a concerned dad himself. 

Using science and stories, fresh analogies, clinical anecdotes, and research-based observations, Shatkin explains:

* Why "scared straight," adult logic, and draconian punishment don't work 

* Why the teen brain is "born to be wild"--shaped by evolution to explore and take risks

* The surprising role of brain development, hormones, peer pressure, screen time, and other key factors

* What parents and teachers can do--in everyday interactions, teachable moments, and specially chosen activities and outings--to work with teens' need for risk, rewards and social acceptance, not against it.

“Presents new research, as well as insights as a clinician and a father….This book is a clear argument to stop putting ourselves in our children’s shoes, and to try putting ourselves in their minds, instead.”
–The Washington Post  

“With stories (personal and professional), neuroscience and cognition, psychology and clinical experience Dr. Shatkin offers an abundance of understandable, engaging and actionable information. He explains why and shows how. We can reduce risk in the adolescents we love and teach, but only if we know to how to do so and then do it. Born To Be Wild shows us the way to succeed.”
--Psychology Today

Winner, National Parenting Product Award 2017

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101993422
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/03/2017
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Nationally recognized child and adolescent psychiatrist Jess P. Shatkin, M.D., M.P.H., is one of the country's foremost voices in child and adolescent mental health. He serves as Vice Chair for Education at the Child Study Center at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital of New York at NYU Langone and Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine. He has been featured in top print, radio, TV, and Internet outlets, including the New York Times, Good Morning America, Parade, New York Magazine, Health Day, CBS Evening News, New York Daily News, Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. In addition, for the past eight years Dr. Shatkin has been the host of "About Our Kids," a two-hour call-in radio show broadcast live on SiriusXM's Doctor Radio. He lives in New York City with his wife and two teenage children.

Read an Excerpt

The Adolescent Paradox

Adolescents are stronger than they will ever be again in their lives. Theirimmune response is at its peak. They tolerate extremes of heat and coldbetter than those older and younger. They heal from physical injury more quickly. But their likelihood of getting sick increases greatly andtheir death rates rise enormously during the teen years, particularlyfor males. Whereas the mortality rate of girls triples between the ages of twelve and nineteen, for boys that rate increases more than six timesduring these same years. Beginning at age twelve, in fact, the death rate in boys increases at a rate of more than 30 percent per year, while the rate for females increases nearly 20 percent per year. And death rates continue to grow still higher as our teens reach their early twenties. This paradox of having greater physical ability yet greater vulnerability occurs because of the behaviors, emotions, and patterns of thinking in which adolescents and young adults engage.

There is no disputing that adolescents take outlandish risks. In theUnited States, accidents, suicide, and homicide are responsible for over 85 percent of the deaths among those aged fifteen to twenty-four. Suicideis the second leading cause and alone accounts for 20 percent of deaths in this age range, more than cancer, heart disease, congenital anomalies, stroke, flu and pneumonia, HIV, and chronic respiratory disease combined.

And what about crime? After the age of thirty, people rarely commit serious crimes. Violent crimes are predominantly committed by young people, and adults who violate the law were almost always teens who violated the law. As our population of young people grows, like after a baby boom, so does the amount of crime. As a public health educator, then medical student and resident in psychiatry, I was taught that adolescents engage in high-risk behavior because they believe they’re invincible. Why else would they get into so many motor vehicle accidents, have so many unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, and use alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes? Invincibility sure seems like a highly plausible theory. But as we now know, invincibility just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Despite our efforts at educating youth about the risks they face, explaining to them time and again that they are, in fact, vulnerable, we’ve seen minimal to no change in the rates of binge drinking and drunk driving, condom use, obesity, bicycle and motorcycle helmet use, bullying, and so forth among teens over the past two decades. In fact, we’ve seen an increase in suicide and marijuana use; and although cigarette use is down slightly—likely due to the price of cigarettes, which has increased at twice the rate of inflation—e‑cigarette use has more than quadrupled in the past four years.

What other factors besides invincibility might be at play? Maybe adolescents are irrational and lack good decision-making capacity or they seek strong emotions and new sensations. Maybe at times. But we now know that the causes of risky behavior go far beyond that. Adolescents are engineered for risk-taking behavior, and everything from their brains to their hormones to their peer relationships works to encourage and maintain a high-risk approach to just about everything.

Shakespeare had it right. Teens and young adults get into a whole lot of mischief and engage in some pretty risky behaviors. Curiously, they even think that the chance of getting hurt from these behaviors is higher than it really is. So why would they put themselves in harm’s way by taking dangerous risks like having unprotected sex if they believe that the chances of “getting wenches with child” or HIV transmission are so high? They clearly don’t think they’re invincible, as repeated experiments have shown. Something else must be going on.

This book is about that something else. What lies within the pages that follow will challenge everything you think you know about why tweens, teens, and young adults make decisions every day that result in pregnancy, addiction, accidental injury, and death. The factors that matter are hidden deep within our brains and evolutionary history and are strongly influenced by our peer relationships and life experiences.The science is there, and this book is your escort. Once you understand what influences adolescents to make risky decisions, you will know why much of what we do to try to protect kids isn’t working. You’ll also have a much better idea of what we should be doing to help keep them safe.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 Not Invincible (or, What Adolescents Really Think About Risk) 1

Chapter 2 Achtung, Baby! (or, What Doesn't Keep Our Kids Safe) 23

Chapter 3 From Railways to Neural Pathways (or, What You Need to Know about the Adolescent Brain) 38

Chapter 4 It Turns Out That Youth Is Not Wasted on the Young (or, Why Adolescence Is Crucial to Evolution) 63

Chapter 5 Picked Last for Kickball (or, The Real Skinny on Peer Pressure) 89

Chapter 6 One Lump or Two? (or, How We Make Decisions) 117

Chapter 7 Getting to Gist (or, How Mature Decision Makers Confront Risk) 135

Chapter 8 Not for the Faint of Heart (or, What Parents Can Do to Reduce Risk Taking) 158

Chapter 9 The Hidden Curriculum (or, What Schools Can Do to Reduce Risk Taking) 194

Chapter 10 The Big Picture (or, What Society Can Do to Reduce Risk Taking) 225

Final Note 249

Selected Bibliography 251

Acknowledgments 285

Index 289

About the Author 301

Editorial Reviews

Adolescence is a risky time of life.  Enter Jess Shatkin, a consummate and experienced professional whose fresh insights and practical advice move our understanding into the 21st century. Born to Be Wild is a game-changer.” 
 —Madeline Levine, Ph.D., author of The Price of Privilege and Teach Your Children Well
 
 
“From the opening paragraph, it’s crystal clear that you’re embarking on a fascinating ride helmed by a masterful storyteller. Born to Be Wild should be in the hands of every parent. It will not only help you raise resilient teens but also save lives.”
  —Michele Borba Ed.D., Educational Psychologist and author of UnSelfie


“From Socrates to Shakespeare, adults have always worried about young people. We fear and envy them too, but now with Born to Be Wild, we finally have a chance to understand them. Grounded in a lifetime of clinical judgment and compassion, this scientifically riveting and ultimately hopeful account will help adolescents and their families to survive and thrive.” 
—Erika Christakis, bestselling author of The Importance of Being Little
 
 
“Born to be Wild treats adolescents and their brains with respect and affection, bringing science and also sympathy to bear on neurologic processes and social pressures to help all of us—parents, teachers, clinicians— understand the ways that adolescents make their choices and decisions, and how we can help them choose wisely and safely. This book should be on your shelf if you live with or work with adolescents. It will help you understand the people you love and your own development as well.”
 —Perri Klass, MD, Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics, New York University
 

“Yes, it’s incisive, engaging and beautifully written. Yes, it’s well grounded in the science and provides practical, clear and thoughtful advice. But what I found most outstanding, at an emotional level, is that this book brought me back to myself as a teenager, reliving a state of mind I had almost forgotten—and it gave me a clearer notion of what was actually going on inside my brain.”
  —Harold Alan Pincus, M.D., Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University
 
 
“Why is age twenty-six the new eighteen? Why do adults make the best decisions using the least information? This fascinating and illuminating book will help you understand and influence your teenager, and yourself.”
—Wendy Mogel, Ph.D., bestselling author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee 
 
 
“In this extremely accessible volume, Dr. Shatkin makes sense of humorous, irrational, curious or dangerous adolescent behaviors. Based on a more accurate understanding of how teenagers think and feel, parents and other adults who interact with teens are provided with more effective approaches to deal with adolescent risk taking.”
 —Gregory K. Fritz, MD, President, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
 
 
“Refreshingly honest, empathic, and written with a clarity that can help parents, educators and health professionals accept and understand why risk-taking is often part of teen behavior.”
 —Robie H. Harris, author of It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health
 

 “This book by one of America’s leading child psychiatrists is a must read for anyone working with or raising adolescents. It demystifies this too-often baffling period of life and most importantly shares what we can all do as parents, teachers, and society at large to help turn our adolescents away from unsafe risks and toward a safe and healthy future.”
—Dave Levin, KIPP Co-Founder
 
 
“Skillfully integrating the latest scientific findings with expert clinical acumen, Dr. Shatkin has done a masterful job of capturing the complexities and contradictions that define the teenage years.   Anyone who has teens, knows teens, works with teens, or even was a teen needs to read this book!”  
—John Piacentini, Ph.D., ABPP, Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA
 
 
“Take what you know about your teenager and risk-taking and chuck it out the window. (Carefully, because you’re an adult.) While giving you research-based tools to curbing the truly dangerous activities teenagers engage in, Born to be Wild is also a joyous celebration of teenagers and their sometimes-inexplicable impulsiveness. Born to Be Wild is smart, funny, and deeply comforting.” 
—Judith Newman, author of To Siri With Love:  A Mother, Her Autistic Son, and The Kindness of Machines
 
 
“Born to Be Wild is for everyone who wants to develop the tools to connect better with adolescents – parents, teachers, policy makers, and, in my case, writer-performers.”
—Ilana Glazer, comedian, co-creator and star of Broad City
 

“This book is brilliantly written, incredibly informative, and presented in a comfortable down-to-earth manner. It is definitely going to be my new go-to referral reading for parents, educators, and therapists who will better understand why kids do the darndest things.”
—Dr Laura Schlessinger, Marriage and Family Therapist, SiriusXM Radio host

 
“Jess Shatkin’s book is a must-read….With colorful personal stories, he weaves a brilliant, highly readable and scientifically grounded analysis of the paradox of adolescence. Without a doubt, parents, teachers, policymakers, and anyone who wants to better understand themselves, their children or the younger generation will benefit from reading this book.”
 —Kathleen M. Pike PhD, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Global Mental Health Program at Columbia University Medical Center
 
 
“Crafted with medical and scientific toughmindedness, empathy and compassion by one of the world’s experts in adolescent emotional and behavioral development...Born to Be Wild should be required reading for anyone who has or plans to have a child.”
 —James J. Hudziak, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, Pediatrics and Communication Sciences, University of Vermont College of Medicine and Medical Center
 

“Born to Be Wild is an insightful exploration of the adolescent mind. Shatkin's clinical insights, backed by emerging scientific data and ideas, will be valuable for parents and teachers, and maybe even the adolescents in their lives.”
—Joseph LeDoux, author of Anxious
 
 
“Dr. Shatkin shares with us the stalagmites and the stalactites of the young human brain and body and casts this untamable dragon onto a light table, ties it down, and helps us to see right through ourselves and smack into the 'ever forming' brain of youth...this book tempts us to feel that we can save our children's lives…so let’s do that. Read this book.”
—Elizabeth Streb, Director/Choreographer 
 
 
“Wise, thought provoking and full of heart, Born to be Wild gives us an essential road map for understanding adolescent behavior, priming us, as parents, teachers, and role models, how to guide and keep our children safe as they navigate the demanding terrain of adolescence.”
—Mark Wolynn, author of It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle 
 

"Face facts, says Dr. Jess Shatkin: Kids take risks even though they know it is risky! They do so because their brains are wired that way—an evolutionary mandate, as he so wonderfully describes. But the battle with youth is not lost if you know what to do and say. This smart, engaging book by a great child psychiatrist and educator will show you how.”
—Lloyd I. Sederer, MD, Chief Medical Officer, New York State Office of Mental Health
 
 
“In his new book, Shatkin has expertly met three challenging and important goals: He has presented an engaging and accessible overview of adolescent psychology, he has given us a fascinating glimpse into adolescent thinking about risk, and he has distilled a series of excellent and practical suggestions for parents, schools and policy makers for how to keep our teens healthy and safe. This is a highly valuable contribution.”
—Victor Schwartz, MD, Chief Medical Officer, The Jed Foundation
 

 “Shatkin’s readable style, complete research, and useful case studies all combine cohesively to help parents sort out what’s normal, what’s a stage, and what’s cause for greater concern...Recommended.”
—Library Journal
 

From the Publisher

06/15/2017
Adolescent psychiatrist Shatkin (child psychiatry & pediatrics, New York Univ. Sch. of Medicine) argues that our understanding of teen risk-taking behavior is completely wrong, having resulted in programs that simply don't work (think D.A.R.E.). Essentially, according to the author, we are fighting evolution, which has selected adolescents, whose brains and hormones all scream and encourage risk at every turn, to embrace a certain amount of danger in life. All is not lost, however, because teens do respond to positivity and immediate rewards. In other words, Shatkin suggests that instead of saying, "If you don't study hard, you won't get into a good college," try, "Study hard in school so that you can apply to any college you like." The author makes a strong case for not only understanding a teen's "natural state" but also for intervening in situations in which mental illness or instability are at play, advocating for increased mental health services in schools. For example, one reason anxiety and depression skyrocket during adolescence is the "relative hyperactivity of the amygdala, which induces fear, and the relative passivity of the prefrontral cortex, which exerts emotional control." Shatkin's readable style, complete research, and useful case studies all combine cohesively to help parents sort out what's normal, what's a stage, and what's cause for greater concern. VERDICT Recommended for both public and academic collections.

Library Journal

The author, an adolescent psychiatrist with a public health degree, writes and narrates with extraordinary clarity. With his natural cadence and confident tone, he sounds earnest and personal but never too eager to persuade. Most remarkable is the way his writing weaves well-paced personal stories with the observations and research that make up the bulk of the audio’s broad-based and satisfying payload. He says that instead of trying to change an adolescent’s desire to explore and take risks, we can help them acquire the essential skills of being effective in their endeavors and regulating their emotions. His perspective on these matters sounds at once informed, empowering, and calming. With his audible wisdom making this an easy audio to hear and absorb, it’s a must-listen for parents who are struggling in any way with their teenagers. T.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2018 - AudioFile

The author, an adolescent psychiatrist with a public health degree, writes and narrates with extraordinary clarity. With his natural cadence and confident tone, he sounds earnest and personal but never too eager to persuade. Most remarkable is the way his writing weaves well-paced personal stories with the observations and research that make up the bulk of the audio’s broad-based and satisfying payload. He says that instead of trying to change an adolescent’s desire to explore and take risks, we can help them acquire the essential skills of being effective in their endeavors and regulating their emotions. His perspective on these matters sounds at once informed, empowering, and calming. With his audible wisdom making this an easy audio to hear and absorb, it’s a must-listen for parents who are struggling in any way with their teenagers. T.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2018 - AudioFile