Opinion: What's Wrong With Extreme Teens Like Abby Sunderland?

(June 11) -- Over my coffee this morning, I found myself engrossed in the tale of Ben, 17, and his harrowing boat journey.

Setting off by himself, he intended to travel several hundred miles. But then he got caught in a squall that tore his sails to pieces. After spending a night soaked on the deck, he managed to get ashore, where he then faced a 50-mile walk to the nearest town. Exhaustion soon overtook him, but he found a rowboat. So he hopped in, rowed late into the night, got lost and then had to make a fire out of an old fence to keep warm in the cold October air.

I know what you're thinking. Another extreme teen.

They're everywhere these days, like 16-year-old Abby Sunderland, who recently ran into trouble as she attempted to sail around the world solo, or 13-year-old Jordan Romero, who climbed Mount Everest. Articles about them tend to contain the requisite quotes from concerned child development experts. "How young is too young?" a recent "20/20" episode asked. We wonder what their parents are thinking.

But I know Ben turned out OK. Indeed, he went on to live a rather fascinating life as a signer (last name: Franklin) of the Declaration of Independence.

That journey Ben Franklin made at age 17 was hardly even crazy for him. By then, he'd already worked several years in his brother's print shop, had gotten his brother briefly imprisoned for some of the political pieces he'd written and eventually decided to run away to try to set himself up in business.

Yes, this was the 1700s, but a 17-year-old then had been on the planet just as long as a 17-year-old now. What's changed is that we've started treating the teen years as an extension of childhood rather than a proving ground for adulthood.

We've forgotten that teens are capable of far more than we give them credit for, and that for most of human history, people were getting married and having families and setting themselves up in careers (or "trades" as they called them in Franklin's day) before they turned 20.

These days? Well, teens watch a lot of TV. Many hours per day, in fact. We should keep this in mind when we fret that extreme teens aren't having a "normal" childhood. Yes, there are risks to attempting adventurous feats.

But perhaps the biggest risk is that these young people will discover that the rest of life won't match up to these adventures. Or maybe today's extreme teens will turn out like Ben Franklin, and life will be just as interesting -- and, given all Franklin did, that would be great for the rest of us.

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