 Do you feel pressured to make risky choices by friends?  Do you rush into decisions?  Do you think it is uncool to try things in a safe manner?  Are dangerous risks more exciting?  Do they feel more like you?  Do you make dangerous choices to show others  Does it feel as though it's happening "in a dream" when you make dangerous choices?

 Teenagers take risks as a normal part of growing up.  Risk-taking is the tool an adolescent uses to define and develop his or her identity, and healthy risk-taking is a valuable experience

 You are beginning to think about your place in the world, the type of relationships you want to have and how you are going to live your life. So how far do you go?  Pushing your limits is one thing, but involving yourself in activities that can endanger your life is a different story.

 Healthy Vs Unhealthy Risks

 Tend to have a positive impact on an adolescent's development include: ◦ participation is sports ◦ the development of artistic and creative abilities, volunteer activities, travel, running for school office ◦ making new friends, constructive contributions to the family or community, and others. ◦ Inherent in all of these activities is the possibility of failure.

 can be dangerous for adolescents include:  drinking, smoking, drug use,  reckless driving  unsafe sexual activity,  disordered eating  self-mutilation  running away,

 a teen may genuinely try to take a healthy risk that evolves into more dangerous behavior.  For example, many adolescent girls fail to recognize the trap of dieting and fall into a pattern of disordered eating, sometimes even developing a full eating disorder.

 One in five deaths each year is caused by prolonged smoking.  Smoking and secondhand smoke kill more people than AIDS, alcohol and drug abuse, car crashes, murders, suicides and fires combined.  One in three adolescents/young adults who are "just experimenting" end up being addicted by the time they are 20 years old.  Every cigarette you smoke takes away seven minutes of your life.

 Cancer -- Cancer of the lungs, mouth, throat, esophagus and more.  Frequent colds.  Chronic bronchitis .Emphysema.  Stroke.  Heart disease

 Sobering Facts...Recent statistics on college campuses nation wide show that alcohol is involved in:  About 65 percent of all violent behavior.  Almost 50 percent of all physical injuries.  About 30 percent of all emotional difficulties among students.  Almost 30 percent of all academic problems.

 More than three out every four deaths in youth between the ages of 10 and 20 are caused by unintentional injuries (60 percent), homicides and suicides (40 percent).

 At least one adolescent (10 to 19 years old) dies of an injury every hour of every day; about 15,000 die each year. Males are more likely than females to die from injury.  Injuries kill more adolescents than all diseases combined .For every injury death, there are about 41 injury hospitalizations and 1,100 cases treated in emergency departments.