The Web
address of this article is
https://sfhelp.org/gwc/news/teen_death.htm
Updated
April 11, 2015
Clicking underlined links here will open a
new window. Other links will open an informational popup,
so please turn off your
browser's popup blocker or allow popups from this nonprofit Web site.
If your playback device doesn't support Javascript, the popups may not display.
Follow underlined links after
finishing this article to avoid getting lost.
This study suggests that a significant number of modern American teens
have been raised by
adults. See my comments after the article. The hilights are mine. - Peter Gerlach, MSW
+ + +
CHICAGO – A surprising number of teenagers — nearly 15 percent — think
they're going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts
and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.
The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges
conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior because
they think they're invulnerable to harm. Instead,
a sizable number of
teens may take chances "because they feel hopeless and figure that not
much is at stake," said study author Dr. Iris Borowsky, a researcher at
the University of Minnesota.
That behavior threatens to turn their fatalism into a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Over seven years, kids who thought they would die early were
seven time more likely than optimistic kids to be subsequently diagnosed
with AIDS. They also were more likely to attempt suicide and get in
fights resulting in serious injuries.
Borowsky said the magnitude of kids with a negative outlook was
eye-opening.
Adolescence is "a time of great opportunity and for such a large
minority of youth to feel like they don't have a long life ahead of them
was surprising," she said.
The study suggests a new way doctors could detect kids likely to engage
in unsafe behavior and potentially help prevent it, said Dr. Jonathan
Klein, a University of Rochester adolescent health expert who was not
involved in the research.
"Asking about this sense of fatalism is probably a pretty important
component of one of the ways we can figure out who those kids at greater
risk are," he said.
The study appears in the July issue of
Pediatrics,
released Monday.
Scientists once widely believed that teenagers take risks because they
underestimate bad consequences and figure "it can't happen to me," the
study authors say. The new research bolsters evidence refuting that
thinking.
Cornell University professor Valerie Reyna said the new study presents
"an even stronger case against the invulnerability idea."
"It's extremely important to talk about how perception of risk
influences risk-taking behavior," said Reyna, who has done similar
research.
Fatalistic kids weren't more
likely than others to die during the seven-year study; there were
relatively few deaths, 94 out of more than 20,000 teens.
The researchers analyzed data from a nationally representative survey of
kids in grades 7 to 12 who were interviewed three times between 1995 and
2002. Of 20,594 teens interviewed in the first round, 14.7 per-cent said
they thought they had a good chance of dying before age 35. Subsequent
interviews found these
fatalistic kids engaged in more risky behavior than more optimistic
kids.
The study suggests some kids overestimate their risks for harm; however,
it also provides evidence that some kids may have good reason for being
fatalistic.
Native Americans, blacks and
low-income teens — kids who are disproportionately exposed to violence
and hardship — were much more likely than whites to believe they'd die
young.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc..
.
Comments
The findings of this study appear to support a central premise in this
non-profit Web site: that psychologically-wounded, unaware parents
tend to raise troubled (pessimistic, impulsive, self-neglectful) kids.
Note that the study (or at least this news article) doesn't explore
why this is,
or suggest what to do about it
The report doesn't examine the teens' parents' attitude about
life and/or death. My opinion as
a veteran family therapist is that the real issue behind teen
pessimism and risky behavior is their parents
psychological
and
from their ancestors.
For
perspective, consider these
research results about "risky
families."
I suspect that a related result of this unseen inheritance is teens and
parents' attitudes of self-neglect - i.e. not valuing
their own psychological, physical, and spiritual health and well-being.
Other research suggest this attitude is
widespread in typical living Americans, which implies how common
psychological wounds and unawareness are.
The self-improvement
in this Web site exists to
alert
people to the
of the lethal [wounds + unawareness] cycle, and to suggest how to
the cycle.
Pause, breathe, and
reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you needed? If
not, what
you need? Who's
these questions - your
or
For
more perspective, see this research on
teen depression, and this
sample of real teens' questions and attitudes posted recently on
Yahoo.
