Teens aren't invincible
One of the hottest dvds is the mixed martial arts movie Never Back Down, which is about high school kids who pound the crap out of each other on the mats and on the street. It's like The Karate Kid – except it's not nearly as good and it's much more violent.
The message of this ultimate-fighting film -"Fighting is not the answer" – gets lost in all the rib-cracking and eye-gouging. (Mixed martial arts, mixed messages?) But these kids don't need a life lesson. They're invincible. And like these ultimate-fighter wannabes, our children think they're invincible, says a new study published in this month's issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Dr. Najma Ahmed, assistant director of trauma at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and an author of the study, said young people think they're indestructible. "They really think that because they're young that they could survive anything, that young people don't die in hospitals. It's only old people that die in hospital, even if you're in an accident," the surgeon said.
In Never Back Down, one of the boys is pulverized by an ultimate fighter who's also a bully. But that's OK, too, because the victim ends up in hospital on a comfy gurney. Though his nose is broken and his ribs are cracked, the patient whoops it up as he uses his cellphone to watch, in live time, his buddy avenge his beating – by beating on the bad guy.
The study, which looked at attitudes among more than 260 Toronto high school students, found that young people are oblivious to the risk of accidents, especially motor vehicle ones. Young people, the study found, think that medical intervention would surely save them from death or disability. The study looked at the responses of 15- to 17-year olds before and after attending a one-day injury prevention program at the hospital, called ThinkFirst Injury Prevention Strategy for Youth, or TIPSY. The program includes viewing patients in the trauma intensive care unit and meeting a teen who has suffered a life-altering injury.
Ahmed said when teens met with a peer who had a brain injury or was paralysed from an accident, they realized that not all teens are superheroes. Some get hurt. Some die.
Not all high school students will get the opportunity to take part in a program like TIPSY, so, as adults, it's our job to make sure we get it through our teenagers' heads that they are more porcelain than steel and we must lead by example. When we drink, we take taxis and we do not share beverages with our under-19 children. Nor do we buy them beer and let them drink in our basements under the mistaken belief that it's OK for them to booze it up in our homes because they're safe there. Adults are clueless about the debauchery that's spawned in a dark basement when alcohol is introduced.
Because it's from Hollywood, Never Back Down has a happy ending. After the rival foes beat each other until they're almost unconscious, they end up back at high school together, where they give each other a smile and a knowing nod to signal that life is OK. Wonder if they're smirking because they know real life is nothing like this.
Too bad our kids don't.
Editorial
18 August 2008
