Stephen Wallace: There are clear pathways to prevent young people from engaging in underage drinking, other drug use, bullying, violence, early intimate sexual behavior, and suicide. And they really go back to the whole idea that conversations with young people that are open and honest and direct, express expectations, perhaps detail consequences are vitally important conversations to be having. It’s also really important that we identify risk factors that we could look at. Things like changes in sleep, changes in grades, changes friends or a lack of friends, loss of interest in things that kids used to like doing, all of those could be red flags that can spur more conversation about potential risk. In my research, we’ve been able to develop 3 Psychographic Profiles, Risk Profiles, of young people. The first group we call Avoiders. Avoiders are kids who tend to avoid risk behaviors. The middle group called the Experimenters. These are kids who are either experimenting with risk behaviors or prone to experimentation. The third group we call Repeaters. These are kids who regularly engage in risk behaviors. Parents often might want to know which category is my kid following to. My response would be, you probably have a better idea than I do. And a lot of it is driven by their relationship with their child. Kids who reports having close relationship with their parents, open conversation with their parents, kids who say they spend time with their parents are much more likely to be Avoiders or risk behavior than they are likely to be Repeaters of rick behavior. Avoiders need our support and our congratulations and our ongoing approval of the choices that they’re making. Experimenters need that constant conversation and those constant reminders of what our expectations are for them. And Repeaters require, probably a little bit more than mom and dad could provide. They need some professional intervention.