<p>while I am not a believer of letting kids be completely unsupervised on trips while in high school, I am a beleiver in allowing a bit of room to develop their own judgement.
My younger daughter has attended residential camp since she was 8 and frankly, the camp counselors are not much older than the kids. ( I know cause my older daughter was riding staff there) There are lots of opportunities to be relatively independent.
My oldest even had a trip in middle school where the students planned their route and brought their own supplies for winter backpacking trip on the olympic peninsula ( it was not a coincidence that this was called the lord of the flies trip) Teachers hung way back- had their own food and tents and didn’t interfere- even when tents collapsed in the rain and they couldn’t get a fire going.
a lot also depends on personality- once I was 17 I was out of the house, and there had been little my mother could have told me before I left, and even less once I did go.
I have two girls who are relatively level headed although the oldest one is less risk taking and that generally makes up for her lapses in judgement.
THe younger one thrives on what she percieves as controlled risk- snowboarding, surfing,rockclimbing, opportunities to get an adrenaline rush but where she more or less has control.
I think that is what kids are looking for. Something that is exciting and different. It doesn’t have to involve sex or drinking, but they don’t seem to see opportunities for challenge that don’t involve those things.
It is pretty easy to get some liquor and a lot more involved to go get a mountain bike and find some trails to go down. Also some of these activities can involve pain as well as physical effort- most of us aren’t big on pain- myself I would rather have a nice mojito :)</p>