Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Last week I heard a mother talk about teens who text and drive. There were tears in her voice as she told why she cared so much about this issue. Her seventeen-year-old daughter, Alex, was killed in a rollover accident on her way to school. Alex was texting while driving. (You can learn more about this family’s story here.)

The staggering stats:

• Texting while driving causes 25% of all accidents, totaling 1.6 million crashes and resulting in 333,000 injuries per year.

• Texting delays a driver’s reaction time as much as having a blood alcohol concentration of .16 – double the legal limit of .08. And a driver who is texting is 6 times more likely than a drunk driver to be in an accident.

• Teens admit they regularly text while driving. In a recent CDC national survey of more than 15,000 high school students, 1 in 3 said that they had texted or emailed while driving. In a just released survey by State Farm, the numbers were even higher – 57% of teens with driver’s licenses admitted to texting while driving.

• Distracted driving deaths are most common in teens. Every day, texting while driving causes 11 teen deaths.

Obviously, this isn’t just a teen issue. Many adults text while driving too, and, like teens, adults also lose focus on the road when they do. But because of their inexperience at driving, teens are already more susceptible to accidents than adults. Texting and the growing menu of similar distractions make the number of teen deaths and life-altering accidents staggering – heartbreakingly so.

We must help our teens make wiser, safer decisions. And to do this, we’re going to have to deal with both a myth and a habit.

The myth about multitasking:

Teens tend to view texting while driving as simply doing two things at once. And most of them pride themselves on their ability to multitask. But while most teens (and many adults) like to think they can multitask, cognitive research suggests that when people think they are doing two things at once, what they’re really doing is switching very rapidly from one task to another. That means the brain has to pick and choose what to ignore and what to pay attention to as it shifts back and forth.

Neuroscientists liken the process to a spotlight moving from one task to another with the transitions being neither instant nor smooth. In fact, studies have shown that texting takes a driver’s focus off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds – enough time to travel the entire length of a football field at 55 mph. Obviously, teens (and adults) who text while driving aren’t always going to get all the information they need to stay safe.

The texting habit:

Texting is a habit, and it’s a hard habit to break – especially for teens. Neuro-imaging studies indicate that the instant gratification of texting and getting a text in reply floods the brain’s pleasure center with dopamine. This feel-good neurotransmitter rewards teens for texting – often within seconds – sending the message, “That feels GOOD! Do it again!” and causing them to text even more. Thus, once started, it becomes harder and harder to stop.

Plus, research has shown that small messages that don’t fully satisfy – like those sent in texts – are the most addictive. What’s more, dopamine is stimulated by unpredictability. And unpredictable is exactly what texts are all about. We don’t know exactly when they’ll come or who will send them.

And then there are the Pavlovian cues. These are small, specific signals that a reward is on the way – like the ringtone indicating that a text has arrived. And these cues set off the dopamine system. Thus, the ringtone adds to the addictive effect of texting and makes it virtually impossible for teens to ignore an incoming message.

Truth be told, the habit-forming quality of texting affects both teens and adults, but teens are affected more. That’s because habits are learned. And with their brains still developing, teens tend to learn faster and better than we adults do, making the breaking of the texting habit that much more difficult for them.

The next post will explore what parents can do to debunk the multitasking myth and help their teens break the habit of texting while driving.

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When our kids become teens it’s time to give up our role as their managers and start parenting like proactive consultants. To be successful at our new job, we need to stay connected to our teens. Because if they are to learn how to make good decisions and do the right thing, they need our input more than ever.

Sounds easy enough. But there’s a catch. Teens see their job as extending away from us and getting to do what they want to do. And because their brains are wired to reward risk taking and to underestimate bad consequences, for them, getting to do what they want to do really boils down to dealing with us, their parents.

How we respond to this challenge depends on the parenting style we use. Whether we take a micromanaging boss, a permissive friend, or a proactive consultant approach, our parenting style forms the mostly unconscious stance we take when we interact with our teens. And as the curfew example below shows, our stance affects how our teens think and act in response.

Teen: There’s a party I want to go to on Saturday night. It’s going to be awesome!

Parent: You know the rules – parents have to be home and you have to call in if your plans change.

Teen: That’s fine. But the party is after the game. So can I stay out until 1:00?

Micromanaging Boss Stance

Parent: What?! 1:00 in the morning? That’s after the city curfew! Absolutely not!!

Permissive Friend Stance

Parent: I don’t know, sweetie. That’s pretty late. Let me think about it.

Teen: C’mon. This is a big deal. Everybody is going. And I really want to go. Pleeeeease!

Parent: All right, I’ll let you go. But you’ve got to promise me that you’ll come straight home after the party.

Proactive Consultant Stance

Parent: I don’t know, sweetie. That’s pretty late.

Teen: C’mon. I’m a good kid. You know I almost always get home by my 11:30 curfew.

Parent: That’s true. But there are reasons why you have an 11:30 curfew – most of them having to do with your safety.

Teen: Yeah, but remember the couple times you’ve let me stay out past my curfew? I handled everything just fine. I think I’ve earned this by following the rules and being responsible.

Parent: I’m willing to think about it. But if I let you stay out that late, I still need to be a responsible parent. And 1:00 is after the city curfew. So what are you willing to do to assure me that you’ll stay safe and follow the law if I let you stay out that late?

Teen: How ‘bout this? I’ll check in at 11:30 just so you’ll know I’m okay. Then instead of driving home after the party, I’ll get a ride with Sam – he always gets picked up by one of his parents. That way I won’t be breaking the city curfew law. And I’ll even come home two hours early on Friday night so you won’t have to stay up late on both nights.

C’mon. You know that’s a pretty good deal for you. And I won’t mess-up. I promise.

When we fear that they will go in the wrong direction, it’s natural to respond by trying to hold on to them tighter. When we worry, all of our instincts tell us to become a micromanaging boss. We give lots of warnings, lectures, and restrictions. Under this regime, teens learn that to get to do what they want, they have to outwardly acquiesce and then sneak and lie to get around us. And if they run into problems, they’ll be reluctant to seek our input. Instead, they’ll have only their own instincts (and those of their like-minded friends) to guide them.

Sometimes, to avoid becoming a micromanaging boss or to steer clear of all the battles, we overcompensate. We so value the close connections that we’ve established with our teens that we turn into a permissive friend. We become reluctant to set and enforce limits, putting few demands on our teens’ behavior and giving them more freedom than they’re ready for. Under this system, teens learn that if they pester us long enough, we’ll say yes to just about anything they want to do. And if something does go wrong, they don’t get a chance to learn from their mistakes. Instead, they let us worry about the consequences. After all, we let them do it – not because they’d earned the privilege with their past behavior but just because they really wanted to.

Neither the micromanaging boss nor the permissive friend styles of parenting get the level of control right. Micromanaging bosses stay involved but act like they own the controls with their default set on no. Permissive friends stay connected but surrender control entirely, saying yes even when the answer should be no.

Proactive consultants stay connected to their teens and gradually relinquish control as their teens earn more freedom choice-by-choice and deed-by-deed. When proactive consultants have to say no, they shift the conversation to why. By sharing their reasons for saying no, these parents let their teens see how their brains work. And by sharing their concerns they are helping to train their teens’ brains.

Parenting like a proactive consultant is a lot of work. It is much easier to be a micromanaging boss or a permissive friend. But a huge body of research says the effort is worth it. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that teens with parents who act like proactive consultants are at an advantage. These teens are more open to their parents’ influence. They get a better chance to hone planning, negotiating, and problem solving skills. This adds to the teens’ self-assurance and ability to withstand stress and negative influences. And these teens learn that past behavior matters – something that all kids need to learn.

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