One of the first things you might associate with teenagers is their risk-taking behavior. And most of the time, those associations are negative. Right? That’s because we are deluged with stories of troubled youth whose risk-taking actions got out of hand —sometimes with tragic results. But what if there was a flip-side to youth risk-taking? A side that would make us encourage teenagers to stretch their comfort zones? In a recent article, What Happy People Do Differently, posi

by Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD, Roots of Action When teens speak, do people listen? Natalie, age 18, described her role model as a person with “a clear sense of what is important to her, putting forth the effort to improve and create things that will make a difference.” When Samira, also 18, feels “lazy, tired, or just plain annoyed,” she thinks of her role model and “is motivated to start working again.” Natalie and Samira were part of my research study on how young people de