What if your troubled teenager comes from a tough neighborhood? As a concerned parent, you can only shelter your teenager so much. It can be dangerous out there, and knowing that your teenager may get into a brawl that could put his/her life at risk can be a very scary thing to think about.

           
His body suddenly twists, struggling to get away from the onset of flying bullets. But one can see that it’s too late to even try. He’s a goner. With one final jerk, his body lies limp on the ground, a splotch of red marking the bullet. Despite the hysterics of loved ones beside him, the mark of red on his shirt grows and grows, seemingly engulfing him mercilessly just as death itself would. It swallows him up, and what remains is the stain of blood on the couch.

Any troubled teenager coming from a tough neighborhood could have ended up just like this, what with the consuming violence and impoverished state of the neighborhood. And yet not all of them do. Despite similar external factors, the internal factors of each teenager play a big part in determining their individual fates. Each teenager, as an individual in the neighborhood, is put to the test of using one’s freedom to make choices responsibly. A great many do fail. But they have the choice to either step out of a car and pick a fight which may be the end of their life or turn their back on worthless violence and just keep on driving. Every time that a teenager chooses to keep on driving a hopeful light of responsibility and acceptance of one’s actions as truly his own emerges.