The Romance of Risk : Why Teenagers Do the Things They Do

An expert in adolescent psychiatry draws on her experiences with fifteen troubled adolescents to explain the natural tendency of teenagers toward risk-taking, showing parents how they can redirect destructive risk-taking into healthy channels. Tour."

YA?An important book for teens, their parents, educators, and anyone else associated with the sometimes unfathomable adolescent years. Beginning with an explanation of healthy versus destructive behavior, Ponton makes it clear that taking risks is an important part of the developmental process. However, unhealthy or self-destructive risk taking is another matter, and teens must understand the causes of these behaviors in order to change them. In a series of case studies, the author/psychiatrist introduces teens she has counseled who exhibit a variety of dangerous behaviors, including running away, unprotected sex, self-mutilation, eating disorders, pregnancy, and bullying. Issues involved in the mother-son and father-daughter relationships are clearly explored. Divorce war dilemmas and their possible effects on a teen's actions are explained. The importance of familial influence, of the provision of healthy role models and open communication lines is ably demonstrated. Although adults will find this an illuminating book, it will appeal to YAs as well. It is readable, the case studies use teens that come from various backgrounds and have different abilities, and the behaviors are clearly explained. Many adolescents are likely to find a deeper understanding of their own actions or those of their friends. Notes for each chapter provides access to additional reading on the subjects covered and the complete index makes research on a particular issue easy.?Carol DeAngelo, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A provocative, well-documented assessment of adolescence as a time of risk-taking. Ponton (Psychiatry/Univ. of California, San Francisco) challenges the prevailing notion that adolescence is naturally a turbulent time for both teens and their parents. Adolescence, she contends, is a time of risk-taking, most of which is positive and healthy. In fact, 80 percent of young people manage this developmental period without significant difficulties, engaging in the kinds of risks which allow them to develop their potential as they mature. It's the remaining 20 percent that is the focus of Ponton's book. Ponton presents the case histories of 15 troubled adolescents from her clinical practice who were unable to navigate their teen years without taking unhealthy risks. The teens are a diverse group, ranging from an inner-city mother who fears that she will once again become pregnant to the daughter of a surgeon who has begun cutting herself in a desperate attempt to signal that she needs help. Although the factors that trigger unhealthy risk-taking are as varied as the risk-takers, a number of patterns emerge. Parents who are so deeply involved in their own daily struggles that they have neither the time nor energy to communicate with their children often put them at risk, as do those parents who become overly involved with their teens and view them as buddies. With divorce so prevalent, too many parents treat their children as peers rather than as youngsters in need of parental guidance. Teens need, insists Ponton, adults to guide them in making choices and to provide them with constructive opportunities to engage in healthy risk-taking. Adults, too, must be constantly on guard against negative risk behavior. Worthwhile reading for parents and teachers, and for professionals who come in contact with teens. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ponton, a San Francisco psychiatrist who specializes in treating adolescents, asserts that risk taking is a normal and even essential part of the teenage years. Unfortunately, when positive risks aren't modeled by a teen's family or peer group, negative and dangerous risk taking is often the result. Ponton describes several case studies of adolescents who have opted for dangerous risks such as running away, taking drugs, having unprotected intercourse, getting involved in gang activity, and even raping and terrorizing other teens. All the case studies presented go into detail about the family or social dynamics that have contributed to the teen's negative risk taking. Despite a de facto fictionalization?Ponton has changed all identifying characteristics, added made-up dialog, and sometimes morphed two or more people's stories together?the author has put together a work that delves deeply into why teens take dangerous risks. Not really a parenting book so much as a work of analysis, this is suitable for medium and larger public libraries.?Pamela A. Matthews, Univ. of Maryland Lib., Baltimore
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.