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"  It was like a warning from the future. At a recent wedding, the father of a 20-something and a 19-year-old was telling me his theory about kids and the ridiculous things they sometimes do. &amp;quot;I call it the Stupid Curve,&amp;quot; he explained. &amp;quot;If you chart a child&amp;#039;s behavior from about age 10 through 20 or so, you&amp;#039;ll see a sharp rise in stupid activities before it levels off in adulthood...hopefully.&amp;quot; He had witnessed the peak of his son&amp;#039;s Stupid Curve, where else, but on YouTube. His teenaged son had been filmed jumping off a 60-foot high rock into a reservoir. That&amp;#039;s like leaping from a six-story high building, or more than twice the height of the average house. Damn you, Spiderman, for making it look so easy. The dad reported that his son&amp;#039;s friends churned up the water to lessen his blow. Better to break the surface than your feet. That&amp;#039;s smart thinking on the Stupid Curve. Amazingly, he was unharmed. Suddenly, I felt a little flush. I imagined my own sons teetering atop a rock - and then I pictured myself, back in my own Stupid Curve days. Only the rock overlooking Lake George was about 20 feet high, and my best friend was warning me to &amp;quot;jump out first, or you&amp;#039;ll scrape your back on the rock all the way down.&amp;quot; Amazingly, we were unharmed. Soon, all my Stupid Curve activities flashed before my eyes. Fast cars. Frat houses. Fireworks. A toga in the streets of Boston - in February. I don&amp;#039;t want to go into the details as I&amp;#039;m highly Googlable, and my kids have just reached the start of their own Stupid Curves. Why provide them with the cheat sheet? A few days after the wedding, I witnessed how the Stupid Curve starts its upward ascent. A tween in the back of my moving car unbuckled his seat belt for the third - and last - time. Even though I&amp;#039;d warned him to stay buckled twice before. Even though he&amp;#039;d previously been in a car accident while unbuckled and, if it hadn&amp;#039;t been for his shoulders hitting the front seats, he would have flown through the windshield head first. I pulled the car over and refused to drive until he buckled himself back in. I haven&amp;#039;t heard from him since I dropped him off at his house. A week later, yet another child unbuckled his seatbelt in the back of my moving car. I hit the brakes, and asked him how it felt to slide off his seat. &amp;quot;That was fun!&amp;quot; he replied, not exactly the response I was going for. &amp;quot;Why did you take off your seat belt?&amp;quot; I asked. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re almost there,&amp;quot; he answered, as though this made perfect sense. &amp;quot;So, do all these cars around us know that you&amp;#039;re almost home, and therefore, shouldn&amp;#039;t hit us?&amp;quot; I asked. He didn&amp;#039;t answer. His brother scolded him until he re-buckled his seatbelt, and I brought them home. Since then, he&amp;#039;s been sure to buckle his belt in my mini-van, but I have no idea what he&amp;#039;s doing in other people&amp;#039;s cars. At my house, the Stupid Curve is also starting its ascent. After watching the TV show &amp;quot;Wipeout,&amp;quot; with his grandparents, my nine-year-old decided to set up an obstacle course in our front yard involving a skateboard, a large cardboard tube, some plastic cones and two overturned garbage cans. &amp;quot;Mom! It&amp;#039;s just like &amp;#039;Wipeout&amp;#039;!&amp;quot; he shouted as he leaped over the cans. I noticed his helmet, kneepads and wrist guards, and sighed in relief. &amp;quot;Careful,&amp;quot; I warned. That Stupid Curve can be steep. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a22247/your-tween-and-the-stupid-curve/>