Comments on: Many Teens Think They'll Die Young

Study: Teenagers Engage In Risky Behavior Because They Feel "Not Much Is At Stake"

[pepperwood2]

Many Teens Think They'll Die Young - Study: Teenagers Engage In Risky Behavior Because They Feel "Not Much Is At Stake".

I have to agree with them. I'm going to make a prediction that we are all going to end up like Elvis sooner or later.

[onesword]

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.
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This statment in itself lets you know that they are terrified.

[pomette-2009]

I am a teacher too now, and I try to "be there" for my students; most of them, have ideals and dreams; they work hard and want to succeed. But they have also been hurt, are fragile, have little self esteem and are reluctant to trust themselves and others. Telling them, like darthcheney123, that they are "lazy parasites" doesn't help! Sometimes they are afraid to accept the help offered to them and I find it heart breaking to see all that potential in peril

[couldcarealess]

Ok everyone - why don't all of us visit a Children's Hospital with terminally ill children and ask if they would like to die young? Better yet go to a slaughterhouse or an animal shelter where the dog is shaking because the lethal needle is heading towards it's ass - don't romanticize this crap - I have suffered from depression for years - and when the "bull ****" smoke clears - living life before the last breath is not such a bad thing.

[onesword]

People do not give them reasons to live or to make them feel that they are a valuable asset. Everything they do or will do is wrong. Today's youth feel worthless and do not see the reasons why they should live beyond their teenage life. Teenagers goes through a emotional roller coaster. If no one pays any attention to them they will crash. Because life still have surprises waiting on them around every corner.

[borg99]

Kids have always talked that line of crud. We talked the same way in the 1960s-70s during the drug scene. The young secretly believe they're immortal, and so deep down they really don't see their behavior as risky.

Most of them survive to middle age, however, and it's then that their youthful bravado comes back to haunt them. A buddy of mine, very successful, recently died at 49 from a disease picked up from needles during his druggie days. Whatever he really thought about life as a kid, he was very unhappy to leave it -- and his wife and young children -- when his adolescent indifference caught up with him.

[aChangeOfIdeas]

by darthcheney123 June 29, 2009 1:19 PM PDT
Sincere, honest, whole, dreams, ideals - in a TEENAGER???? LOL!

I was a high school teacher too. All teenagers care about is drugs, gangs, and getting pregnant. A little rap music and violent smutty TV to help them through the day.

--- well, I guess I'm glad I don't teach at your school! Most of my students are exactly that... and our school is in the bottom 10% of the state in test scores and the poverty level is high, so it's not just the demographics. I see some of their attitudes disintegrate as they approach graduation, and I agree with Pomette-2009 that they see the hypocrisy in the adults around them (and in popular culture) and eventually adult life is no longer as rosy as it had seemed for some of them.

[pomette-2009]

I am a teacher too now, and I try to "be there" for my students; most of them, have ideals and dreams; they work hard and want to succeed. But they have also been hurt, are fragile, have little self esteem and are reluctant to trust themselves and others. Telling them, like darthcheney123, that they are "lazy parasites" doesn't help! Sometimes they are afraid to accept the help offered to them and I find it heart breaking to see all that potential in peril

[cs4466]

Naw, they figure the world is populated by idiots like darthcheney and that's depressing to any sane person.

[ianlou]

Does this explain why so many teens and young adults I run into have no urge to go to college or leave the nest or get a job?

[Turbidite]

A popular quote, originally said by the character Nick Romano, as played by John Derek in the 1949 movie Knock on Any Door