Risky behaviors are disproportionately responsible for mortality and morbidity among adolescents. This work synthesizes research on the influence of parent-child attachment relationships on adolescents engagement in hazardous activities in order to elucidate factors that may be influential in preventing harmful behaviors throughout this stage of development. The author also proposes that self-esteem, presumed to be largely formed within the attachment relationship and transmitted into later stages of life via internal working models, may be a mechanism through which parent-child relationships...