Teenagers of every generation have a limited capacity to appreciate what changes the passage of time can bring, simply because they haven't experienced much time passing.

This limited capacity is nowhere more evident than in the problem thousands of parents face everyday in dealing with their teenagers and tattoos. Teenagers cannot be held to blame if they are constantly bombarded with images of tattooed rock, movie, and sports stars, and want to grab a bit of cool for themselves.

But teenagers getting tattoos, with or without parental permission, can lead to some serious unhappiness down the road, which is exactly where teenagers are incapable of looking. Most teenagers are not good at setting priorities, so they don't realize that priorities change, and often with surprising regularity.

Teenagers with tattoos obtained because they wanted to belong to, or stand out from, the school crowd are almost certain to regret their decision when the school crowd is dispersed to the four winds and the tattoo is still shining forth. Many tattoo artists recognize this aspect of the teenagers and tattoos relationship, and will refuse to give teens tattoos.

Another factor which tattoo artists have to consider is that teenagers, even at sixteen and seventeen, have not fully matured and their physical contours may have some significant changes still ahead.

No person walking the Earth truly has the carries same shape from their late teens into their late twenties, and the tattoo which was perfectly placed in adolescence can be an embarrassment a decade later.

If you are a parent facing the teenagers and tattoos dilemma, there are a few strategies you can employ in trying to guide you child to a realistic understanding of what getting a a tattoo can mean. You may not win the debate, but at least your child will not be returning in a decade or two asking, “How COULD you let me do that?”

First, make sure your child understands the risks involved in getting a tattoo, by asking him or her to explain them to you and indicate how he or she intends to avoid them.

They include everything from the sanitation of the tattoo parlor, to the preparedness of the tattoo artist to deal with excessive bleeding, to aftercare of the tattoo to prevent infection.

If that doesn't scare your teenager just a little bit, ask him or her to estimate what a tattoo will cost, and where the money will come from. Hopefully having to earn the money will take long enough for the desire to be tattooed to subside.

Finally, explain to your teenager that you are reluctant for the tattoo to happen because you are afraid that after just six months the “cool” factor will be history. See if you can arrange a compromise by having you teen show you the must have tattoo design, and if he or she still thinks it's a must have after six months, you'll agree.

The odds are excellent that even if your teen still wants a tattoo after that amount of time, it will be an entirely different tattoo. And you can simply ask “Are you sure you won't change your mind again?”

Even though your teen will hate the waiting, you will have avoided a confrontation, and either helped find a tattoo he or she can truly live with, or helped your teen learn to live very well without any tattoo at all.