Teenagers...

They act with little thought about the consequences of their actions, temporarily believing they're immortal and invincible:

• "I won't crash my car when doing 93 mph in a 55 mph zone!"

• "I won't get pregnant or acquire an STD!"

• "I won't overdose on drugs or ingest a lethal dose of alcohol!"

• "I won't get caught when I cheat, steal or lie!"

• "I can slack off in school and still get into college and snag a high-paying job!"

Their only thoughts are of today. They're completely mesmerized by the transient, material world. Image is everything. The future is a foreign concept, a far-off place, a distant land that doesn't affect their here-and-now. Life is a daily crisis characterized by storms and stress. There are far too many other worries—violence, grades, parents, fitting in—to even think about the future or what it might bring.

This twisted rationale has guided adults' thoughts about adolescents for decades, giving them reason to dismiss kids' silent cries for help as standard, teenage output. This mantra is easy to believe because it confirms what we suspect is true about the teen years based on our observations and experiences, and it does contain some elements of truth.

Teens do routinely take risks, but then ours is a culture of risk-takers. How else would you describe a people who crossed a vast ocean in small vessels to settle a new land they'd never seen? Or those who packed up all their worldly possessions in wagons to head west through the wilderness, willing to face unknown perils? Is it really any wonder that American society has the highest percentage of risk-taking teens? However, the overwhelming majority of these teens don't engage in patterns of risky behavior or experience a turbulent adolescence.

While younger teens give little conscious thought to their futures, this cannot be said of high school students, who are obsessively planning for life after graduation. More than 90 percent of seniors expect to attend college, and more than 70 percent anticipate working at professional levels. Their preoccupation with school, homework and grades isn't driven by the desire to be the best as an end in itself; rather, it represents their belief that they must do well if they expect to become successful and have comfortable lives in the future.

The future impacts and influences all teens, whether they recognize its hold on their lives. It is the silent motivator for most of their actions. Their thoughts and worries about violence, grades, parents and fitting in are essentially thoughts and worries about the future. Their actions, even their risk-taking, are propelled by their fears of an uncertain future.

Fear is a primary emotion related to avoidance behavior; it's a response to something a person perceives as threatening. Childhood fears are typically easy for adults to identify and reduce or even eradicate completely. How many times have parents had to prove to their children that monsters don't live in the closet or under the bed? While a bedtime ritual of peaking under the bed, searching through the closet and leaving a light on might persist for a time, children eventually grow out of these fears as their abilities to reason develop and they learn to trust their parents' judgment.