Colman Noctor

ease off on the accelerator because it's reactive and getting used to applying the brakes.

And that is its development of what's called a prefrontal cortex, which is this ability of being more analytical, being able to assess things, having more kind of forethought and being able to think ahead a little bit.

Adolescents very much live in the moment and they're supposed to because they're not adults yet, you know.

It helps our ability to be, again, more critical thinkers around things, maybe assess the options.

So, you know, you don't want your child to not be a risk taker.

Your end goal is that they're a good risk assessor, you know, that they're able to, because these opportunities will come.

There'll be friends who'll say, we're going drinking in the park.

And they have to make a call on that.

And that brings us to another kind of influence on risk.

One of the biggest influence on risk is the peer group.

Do you know what I mean?

So to put it this way, I remember speaking to a young person and they would describe, I prefer to break my leg than be socially excluded.

Do you know what I mean?

The exclusion of social pain is much more intensely felt than...

the presence of physical pain, if that makes any sense.

So if there's a risk being taken by a group and you choose not to do that, that will come at a big social cost.

Do you know what I mean?

And so if everyone's going drinking in the park and I don't really want to do it, to stand up to that and say, I'm not going, there's a high social risk to not following the crowd, if that makes any sense, or not going with the peer pressure.

It's the biggest motivator.

I've worked in groups of teenagers.