Seventeen-year-old Kaleb Langdale had a choice. He could give an alligator his arm, or he could risk losing his life. He did the smart thing. The teenager swimming with friends in a Florida river let the gator take his arm.
I don't know this kid from Adam, but my chest is swelling with pride for him right now. Somewhere along the way, Kaleb's parents managed to do the unthinkable: they taught a teenager that some risks aren't worth taking.
I mean that sincerely. These parents, and their son, deserve a lot of credit here. Take the average teenager, put them in the same situation, and there's a high chance that the outcome would have been different.
Risk taking is literally wired into the teenage brain. Scientists studying young adults have found they're extra sensitive to "rewarding signals" that surge through the brain when something good happens unexpectedly. They've used their discovery to explain why kids do foolish things, with the hope of a big payout.
But knowing that it's natural for kids to do dumb things doesn't make it any easier for us, the parents, to deal with it. If anything, it's harder knowing that you really can't be that angry with your kid because they're fighting their brain chemistry to do the right thing. So we end up repeating ourselves over and over and over again, and hope it sticks.
With Kaleb, it did.
When the alligator attacked, Kaleb's sister explains that he "put both feet on the alligator’s head and pushed and pretty much took his own arm off before the alligator could." This enabled him to escape to the surface and scream for help, which came in the form of the other swimmers. They kept pressure on the wound until rescue workers arrived, and Kaleb is alive, albeit missing a limb.
Maybe we can't teach our kids not to take any risks (and really, would you want to kill all their fun in life?), but this kid is a shining example that teaching them to take good ones can pay off. The alligator may have his arm, but this teenager is alive!
What's the craziest risk your teenager has taken and what did you do?
Image via wwarby/Flickr
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Comments 5
Swiming with gators isn't the birghtest move, but he clearly is a calm collected kid. To have that kind of presence of mind in that situation is invaluable and a level head in a crisis is one of the best qualities to have!
Thing is in Floridian gators can be any where. Pools, the side of the road, any where.
What a brave kid.
That is why I have always instilled into my kids what I have always believed in, if you cant see whats in the water or at the bottom, you dont go in! We only swim in pools, never in lakes, I once stepped on a piece of wire that someone had thrown into the lake, it went through the bottom of my foot and poked out through the top, ever since its been crystal clear pools for us! I just dont take any chances. Too many germs and bacteria growing in the lakes and rivers, at least in a pool it is treated regularly and your chances of picking something up bacterial wise is a lot less and after losing a husband to a bacterial infection im very big on only being in treated water that I can see whats in it.