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Your analogy is somewhat flawed because wearing a seatbelt is wise advice for both safe and unsafe driving. A closer analogy is if I, as mom, tell my kids “Don’t wander around at night, but if you do go, wear a jacket.” What’s the kid going to hear? As long as I wear a jacket, I can go. They believe I have given permission to wander around so long as they take certain precautions. And it is this wholesale acceptance by the so-called adults of the world that kids will have sex regardless which is destroying these kids. Pregnancies and sexual diseases, while tragic, are not the worse result of this acceptance. Rather it is the destruction of these kids’ ability to create meaningful, lifelong commitments to each other that will cripple this society and the generations to come.

Sorry for discussing things for which I don’t have time to find links, but I read a lot of science mags on the net and just have to bring up this one study in support of your cogent comment.

The study was about whether it was effective to explain things to teenagers or just to tell them what to do (don’t do it).

In a surprise (to the researchers), the study—which, IIRC, was quite well-designed (a large number of adolescents, etc.)-—clearly found that when parents went into elaborate explanations all that did was give the kids more bases on which to rationalize their behavior.

For example, when parents said “don’t drive fast because you could crash,” most kids then went through an analysis: how likely is it that I will crash? If I crash, how likely is it that it would be a bad accident? Etc. etc.

Then most kids, being kids, concluded that it was very unlikely that anything untoward would happen, so, having dismissed their parent’s *reasoning,* then they felt it was okay to disobey the rule altogether.

IOW, the study clearly found that kids felt that if the proffered reasoning wasn’t (in their minds) supportable, then they weren’t doing anything wrong by disregarding the rule. They linked the explanation for the rule and the rule together, and if the explanation (in their minds) didn’t hold up, then the rule didn’t either.

In the study, when parents said “don’t do it”—for example, don’t exceed the speed limit-—with no explanation, there was nothing for the kids to “argue” with in their minds and nothing they could use to rationalize breaking the rule. They were faced with either obeying their parents or disobeying their parents and many more kids ended up obeying.

Most parents probably haven’t thought about this phenomenon in exactly these terms, but I’d bet most would agree with this study and go “ah ha!”

That’s a long way to say your point is spot on. First, they do hear “as long as I wear a jacket, I can go.”

Secondly, and even more consequential in this context, they also tend to think, “do I really need a jacket? How cold is it really? What’s the worst that can happen if I don’t wear a jacket? (Kids’ answer: nothing.) Mom doesn’t want me to get cold, but I won’t get cold or it won’t matter if I get a little cold, or Mom thinks I’ll get sick if I get cold, but I won’t get sick, so that won’t bother Mom in the end. Etc. etc. Therefore, I can go AND not wear a jacket.”

“Just say no” actually was the way to go!