Sep 23, 2017 3 min read

Teenagers.

Oh, how they have frightened us.

They’ve been unbridled juvenile delinquents, misunderstood, hormone-crazed, cruel and alienated in movies ranging over the decades from “Blackboard Jungle” and “Rebel Without a Cause” to “The Breakfast Club” and “Mean Girls.”

Their operatic emotions have been the subject of hundreds of songs.

Heck, even Shakespeare examined the tempestuous souls of teenagers and their impetuosity in “Romeo and Juliet” in the late 1500s.

It’s the passage through life that many parents fret the most about – when their kids are taking their first tentative steps out of the nest and establishing their own identities, but perhaps don’t yet have the foresight or sense to stay out of trouble.

While many teens have been able to navigate the passage between 13 and 19 without major incident, some end up becoming pregnant, or they dabble in drugs, drink too much, get in auto accidents, neglect their studies or otherwise throw a monkey wrench into their lives.

It has traditionally been a time of white-hot rebellion.

But maybe not so much anymore.

According to a study published last week in the journal Child Development, teens are increasingly not indulging in the things that have caused their parents and guardians to furrow their brows. Compared with teenagers of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the teenagers of the 2010s are not drinking as much as their parents, not having as much sex, not doing as much driving and, for that matter, not even dating as much.

According to Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the study’s lead author, contemporary teenagers are “taking longer to engage in both the pleasures and responsibilities of adulthood.

The whole developmental pathway has slowed down.” Twenge added that today’s 18-year-olds are more like 15-year-olds once were.

The study found that, among other things, only 67 percent of today’s high school seniors have consumed alcohol, down from a high of 93 percent; 55 percent have a paying job, where 76 percent once did; and 63 percent have dated, dropping from 86 percent.

This can, in a sense, be viewed as fantastic news, and certainly so for moms and dads who otherwise would be waiting up at 2 a.m. for their rambunctious progeny to come home from God only knows what kind of misadventure.

But we might want to hold the applause.

Teenagers are apparently less disorderly than they once were because they have absorbed the worries of their parents about their futures, particularly when it comes to getting into the right college or getting the right job.

So-called “helicopter parenting,” where mom or dad are just a phone call or text message away, and they meticulously plan for and intervene on behalf of their children, has also played a part, Twenge explained. The lure of the internet and its bottomless well of diversion is also a culprit.

Twenge wrote, “…Teens who don’t work, drive or go out much in high school (are) probably less likely to get into an accident, but they may also arrive at college or the workplace less prepared to make decisions on their own.”

So, sure, we should be glad that teenagers are less apt to stumble into mischief than they once were. But we should also worry that they could end up being less able to stand on their own two feet.