Childhood is all about learning lessons. When you’re a baby, you put everything in your mouth so you learn a lesson about what you should and shouldn’t put in your mouth. When you’re a kid, you break everything possible to learn about what breaks easily and what doesn’t. When you’re a teenager, you do all manner of stupid stuff with the hope that you’ll learn not to do as much stupid stuff when you get older. We’re learning all the time by trying and failing. It’s the human way. If we never made mistakes, then we wouldn’t ever learn anything. 

You may know in the back of your mind not to trust gas station sushi, but you won’t know for sure to avoid it until you’ve had a bad experience with it yourself. We humans are experiential learners. This is especially true when we’re in adolescence. It’s a ripe time for all of that.