Prioritize decision‑making practice over constant control: kids learn safety by making choices, reflecting, and adjusting with you—not by being perpetually monitored. The counterintuitive move is to widen guided experience rather than shrink their world by default; surveillance and long groundings can interrupt risk opportunities without building judgment. The formula “experience plus conversation” explains why: when you pair real events with BRIEF debriefs, you convert mistakes into durable learning. The trade‑off is real—sometimes you must “shut it down” to protect—but treating control as the primary tool denies adolescents the repetitions they need to internalize values and assess risk, and it corrodes trust that you will need when stakes rise.