Adolescence is a period when teenagers may be experimenting with risky or rule-breaking behaviors such as skipping school, drinking, lying, or staying out past their curfew. When parents find out, their natural response is often to warn their child: Continue with the behavior and you’ll incur stricter rules, less freedom, and the loss of privileges. But why do some teens heed the warnings while others become even more defiant? A team of US and Israeli researchers discovered that the way teenagers receive their parents’ warnings depends less on the message itself and more on whether they see their parents as genuinely living up their own purported values. Yet to stop the risky behavior one more thing is esssential — parents must try to understand their child's feelings and reasoning and engange in “perspective taking.”