4 Troubled Teens Blog

Two new studies found that teenagers are engaging in increasing levels of sexually experimental behavior, and that girls are catching up to boys in this area.

The first study, which was based on a survey of 1,280 young people, looked at technology and sexual behaviors. One in five teenagers said they have sent or posted nude or semi-nude pictures or videos of themselves, usually to romantic partners. Among survey respondents between the ages of 20 and 26, 33 percent had posted such pictures and 50 percent had received them.

Girls posted or sent more sexual pictures than boys did. The numbers were 22 percent of teen girls compared to 20 percent of teen boys, and 36 percent of young adult women compared to 31 percent of the men. More than half of the teen girls cited "pressure from a male" as a reason to send out sexual pictures of themselves, but only 18 percent of the boys answered that way. The most common reason given to send the pictures was to be "fun and flirtatious."

Three-fourths of the teens were aware that "sending suggestive content can have serious negative consequences."

The study was sponsored by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy and CosmoGirl magazine.

A major new study from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research found that anal sex among young people is increasing, particularly among teens who do not use condoms.

Within this study, males who in the practice were more likely to be homosexual, bisexual or undecided, whereas the females were more likely to have been coerced into sex, to have two or more partners, and to be living with a sexual partner.

Teen sex expert Judy Kuriansky, a professor at Columbia University, warned that teens engage in anal sex to avoid AIDS or pregnancy; however, the problem is that they can contract AIDS and other health problems in this way.

Commenting on the Hasbro study, Dr. Kuriansky remarked that girls are now experimenting with sexual practices in the same way boys always have.

Labels: sex, risky_behaviors

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Watching violence on television and in movies and video games is linked to violent behaviors in teenagers, according to a new study from Rutgers University.

Dr. Paul Boxer and his colleagues surveyed 820 teens, parents and teachers. Half of the teens were juvenile offenders in detention centers. Participants reported about their favorite TV shows, movies and video games starting at age seven. Those who preferred the more violent fares were more likely to engage in violent behaviors as teenagers.

The researchers took into consideration other factors such as academic failures, emotional problems, and exposure to real-life violence when they calculated their results.

"Even in conjunction with other factors, our research shows that media violence does enhance violent behavior," Dr. Boxer said. "On average, adolescents who were not exposed to violent media are not as prone to violent behavior. There can be very little doubt that exposure to violence in the media has a consistent and substantial impact on aggressive behaviors."

This study appeared in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Labels: violence, behavioral_issues, influences

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A study from the University of Chicago indicates that teenagers with histories of violent behavior get pleasure from watching others suffer.

"They're not only indifferent to pain - they love it," said Dr. Benjamin Lahey, lead author of the study.

Dr. Lahey and his colleagues used MRI scans to monitor brain activity of sixteen boys, ages 16 to 18 years old. Half had histories of aggression and violence, such as using weapons, stealing or starting fights, and the other half did not. Both groups watched videos of one person inflicting pain on another while they were hooked up to the brain scanning devices. The amgydala and ventral striati (the two parts of the brain linked to feelings of reward) of the aggressive teens became very active when they watched the videos. The differences between the two groups were significant, Dr. Lahey said, but he noted that the study was small.

Dr. Lahey said these results mean that the aggressive teens "experience seeing pain in others as exciting, fun and pleasurable." He and his colleagues had been expecting to find that aggressive teens were cold and indifferent to the pain of others, and not that they enjoy watching it.

This study appeared on the website of the journal Biological Psychology.

Labels: violence, mental_health, ethics

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A landmark "Roots of Youth Violence" study that was conducted in Ontario, Canada, found that mental health issues affect youth violence far more than most people realize.

"'Folks are saying, "The young kids are just hyperactive and they need some more exercise." But many of them are traumatized...' [said Alvin Curling]."

Curling and his associate, retired Ontario chief justice Roy McMurtry, submitted 29 recommendations - many of them having to do with mental health issues - along with their report. Source: The Toronto Star

Labels: violence, mental_health

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Teens have a new way to injure themselves: "self-embedding disorder."

Previously recognized forms of self-injury included cutting, burning, pulling out hair, breaking bones or swallowing dangerous substances. The new way is to embed a foreign object, such as a nail or paper clip, into one's body.

At the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, Dr. William Shiels, chief of radiology at the Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, presented the first research on self-embedding, noting that radiologists are often the ones who detect the disorder.

Shiels's study involved ten teenagers who had jammed more than 50 objects - including metal staples, metal paper clips, a lead pencil, crayons, stones, glass and wood - into their arms, ankles, feet, and hands. One girl embedded a six-inch paper clip into her arm.

Most of the teens suffered from mental disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder, and Dr. Shiels warned that self-embedding can be a form of suicidal ideation that mandates immediate attention. "Parents often do not see the behavior evolving," he said. "Parents need to recognize the problem and get their child into therapy quickly."

Labels: self-harm, cutting, self_injury

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Almost one-third of U.S. high school students admit to shoplifting, and 64 percent say they cheat on tests. Yet 93 percent are "happy with their ethics and character."

A survey of 29,270 students from randomly selected high schools found that cheating in school is extremely common and on the increase. Almost 40 percent of students admitted to cheating more than two times in the past year on a test, and 38 percent said they used the Internet to plagiarize. Almost half the boys and 36 percent of girls reported lying to save money; almost a quarter stole something from a parent or relative in the past year, and 20 percent stole from a friend.

Nevertheless, 77 percent told researchers from the Josephson Institute in Los Angeles that "When it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people."

Mel Riddle, associate director the National Association of Secondary School Principals, believes today's young people are under more pressure to perform because of increased competition.

"They have opportunities their predecessors didn't have [to cheat]," he said. "The temptation is greater."

Labels: ethics, stealing, cheating

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Almost half of young adults have mental disorders - and most do not seek treatment for their problems - according to a new government study published in the December 2008 edition of Archives of General Psychiatry.

Researchers used data that was collected on 5,000 people ages 19 to 25 years old who participated in the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. They compared the participants' answers to criteria for mental illnesses as listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is used by doctors to diagnose mental illness.

Among college students in the study, 20 percent had alcohol abuse or dependency and 18 percent exhibited symptoms consistent with personality disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive, anti-social, and paranoid disorders. Eleven percent had depression, bipolar or other mood disorders. About 46 percent of college students had at least one psychiatric problem, as did 48 percent of non-college students.

Non-college students were more likely to seek treatment for alcohol and drug dependency, but treatment levels for both groups were low. The study found that fewer than 25 percent of the college students got treatment for mental problems. One recommendation was to create more university programs to screen for mental illnesses and provide interventions.

Labels: mental_health, mental_illness

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The state of Nebraska is changing its "safe haven" law to apply to infants only.

Nebraska was the last U.S. state to pass a law allowing parents or caretakers to abandon children to state custody by dropping them off at certain designated places. However, the Nebraska law refers to "child" instead of "newborn."

Consequently, some parents have dropped off teenagers, many of whom are violent or out of control. Some parents and caretakers have come to Nebraska from other states, including Iowa and Michigan, to turn over their children. One single parent abandoned nine children under age 18.

The Nebraska situation has prompted a debate about the adequacy of services that are available to stressed-out families and troubled teens.

Labels: safe_haven, parents, abandonment

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A study from Tufts University and the Universite de Montreal found that teens from poor neighborhoods are four times more likely to attempt suicide than are those from more affluent areas.

"We observed that community adversity could amplify a young person's vulnerability to consider suicide," wrote study author Eric LaCrosse.

The researchers also found other risk factors in poor teens, including hyperactivity, impulsivity, depression, substance abuse, family history of suicide, low levels of social support, and negative life events such as the death of a parent or a painful romantic break-up.

The research team surveyed 2779 teens in early adolescence and then again at ages 18 or 19 years old, asking them questions such as, "During the past year, did you seriously think about attempting suicide? If so, how many times did you attempt suicide in the past year?"

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages ten to 24 years old. According to guidelines from the Mayo Clinic, signs of suicide in teenagers are depression, low energy and motivation, anger or rage, oversensitivity to criticism, poor grades, decreased concentration, changes in sleep or eating habits, restlessness, talking about death, cessation of regular activities, and withdrawal from friends and family.

This study appeared in the journal Psychological Medicine.

Labels: suicide, depression, poverty

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Young men who have childhood histories of physical abuse are four and a half times more likely than non-abused boys to use sexually coercive behavior against females. However, the majority of young men with such histories do not exploit girls in this way.

Sexually coercive behavior includes pressuring, persuading, insisting, manipulating, lying, or using physical force to force a partner to have sex when she does not want to.

Professor Erin Casey and her colleagues at the University of Washington studied 5650 men, all of whom participated in three interviews from ages 16 to 22 years old. All participants were heterosexual and had experienced sexual intercourse at least once.

Only 5.6 percent of the participants reported using sexual coercion against a female. However, this group was much more likely to report a childhood history of sexual or physical abuse.

"The higher the frequency of childhood abuse, the more likely a young adult was to engage in sexually coercive behaviors," Dr. Casey said, emphasizing that 55 percent of the men who had been abused did not grow up to use sexually coercive behaviors. She found no link between alcohol problems and sexually coercion.

This study appeared on the ScienceDaily website.

Labels: sex, boys, abuse

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A professor at Yeshiva University has put together a profile of the typical school shooter in his new book, Ceremonial Violence.

According to Dr. Jonathan Fast, the typical student who goes on a shooting rampage at a school is a male in a rural, evangelistic community who has a high-achieving brother or sister.

• The typical shooter suffers from "malignant narcissism," depression and paranoia, and has a severe learning disability.


• He spends part of his school day in a "resource room" with other disturbed children, and feels like "damaged goods."


• He appears impulsive and overly dramatic, and demonstrates little feeling toward others.


• He may have tried to date girls, but was always rejected.


• He has one or two friends at most.


• He is likely to dress in black and wear piercings.


• Part of his plan is to kill himself after the rampage.

Dr. Fast believes that while some parents are able to recognize danger signs of mental illness in their children and get them into therapy, most cases result in the child becoming sicker and sicker. Though he believes that reform schools and boot camps only teach teens to become adult criminals, he writes that therapeutic boarding schools can help many of these boys, even at the "eleventh hour."

Labels: violence, angry, juvenile_crime

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The United States government may have wasted $1 billion in anti-drug ads, according to a new study from the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication. The researchers also said that the ad campaign may have encouraged some students to use marijuana.

Professor Robert Hornik, author of the report, said that his team was expecting to find that the ad campaign worked, but they could find no evidence of that.

"Despite extensive funding, governmental agency support, the employment of professional advertising and public relations firms, and consultation with subject-matter experts, the evidence from the evaluation suggests that the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign had no favorable effects on youths' behavior, and it may even have had an unintended and undesirable effect on drug cognitions and use," Hornik said.

As for marijuana, teens who saw the ads may have come to believe that since so many of their peers were using marijuana, they should use it too.

Congress paid for and mandated the report on the National Youth Anti-Drug Media campaign, which came out of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and was supervised by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The ads were first used in 1998, and targeted youth ages 12 to 18 through television commercials, websites, movie ads, and other media outlets.

The Annenberg research team polled over 8,000 teenagers in four rounds of interviews. Some of the teens who reported the most exposure to the ads were also more likely to have begun using marijuana.

Spokespeople for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy took issue with the conclusions of the Annenberg report, calling the campaign "a striking success," and noting that drug use among teens has dropped off significantly since 1998.

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Teen pregnancies are on the increase in the United States, and are costing the nation about $7.6 billion a year, according to a report from the University of Delaware.

Saul Hoffman, the author of the report, said the $7.6 billion figure might be low, although it includes increased social services required by families of unwed teens and lost revenue in taxes. Less than 40 percent of teen mothers earn high school diplomas, and their children are more likely to end up in foster care or prison.

The teen birthrate increased by three percent between 2005 and 2006. Figures for 2007-2008 are unavailable, but experts believe the rate will continue to increase, after declining steadily since 1990.

Labels: pregnancy

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When my oldest daughter turned 4, I threw her a birthday party complete with a pony, a visit from a clown who did face painting, and loads of those cute little plastic jugs of non-nutritious juice I believe were called "hugs." My daughter is now 17 and the bashes she goes to often have a bit more than Kool Aid for partygoers to chug.

Last weekend, my daughter attended a party where some of the attendees got a bit too enthusiastic with the libations. She left the party early. I know this because my middle child told me there was drinking at the party - something my oldest didn't share with me. However, my middle child tattletale also told me that my oldest left the party early because she didn't want to be associated with what she called the "stupid drinkers." I couldn't help thinking to myself, in a little sing-song voice, "I've got the good kid."

Something, somewhere along the line that I said to my oldest, obviously near perfect, daughter must have struck a chord. Perhaps it's the fact that I rarely drink myself. Now, I'm not a teetotaler, but I don't crack one open after a long day's work, either. I've got a four-pack of wine coolers in the refrigerator that have been there since last New Year's Eve (I was going to have one then opted for the Seven-Up punch with green sherbet instead). The kids know they're there and every now and then I threaten to down all of them when the kids are driving me nuts. I never do, though.

Perhaps it's the fact that, in general, I think "the stuff tastes nasty." That's what I say when the kids ask me about alcohol in general. I hate beer. The stuff tastes nasty. Mixed drinks? Blech! Better than beer, but you can still taste the alcohol. Give me a virgin cocktail any day. I have a friend who loves beer. She drinks it all the time. I've asked her how she can stand the stuff. She says it's an acquired taste. She hated it at first, too.

I guess the problem is that I just don't understand consuming something that you hate long enough for it to become palatable. I mean, if you hate Brussels sprouts, you don't keep eating them, do you? Especially if they make you hurl, like beer. I actually like Brussels sprouts, but my position on beer is probably pretty clear. It's not like work, where you have to do it whether you like it or not. Drinking is a completely unnecessary pursuit.

As early as my kids began to query me about how alcohol tastes and how it makes you feel, I was completely honest with them as is my, sometimes lamented, habit. I told them that the stuff tastes nasty. They asked me, of course, if I tried beer. I said that I had and that ... well ... the stuff tastes nasty. I never made it through an entire cup ('cause beer is served in plastic cups at a keg party).

Once, the day after a party that my boyfriend threw, there was beer left in the keg and his friends came over to suck up a little hair of the dog the morning after. It was a super hot day and they all kept saying how "refreshing" that ice cold beer was. Well, like a nice tall glass of iced tea, I started downing that plastic cup (I believe it was one of those blue "solo" brand cups) of cold, "refreshing" beer. Argh! The stuff tasted nasty!

As far as telling my kids how alcohol makes you feel, I don't talk about ever being drunk. Sure, I've been drunk. Done some pretty stupid things, too. However, I don't think my kids need to know that and I don't feel the need to regale them with stories of Mommy's drunken displays of idiocy. Chances are they'll find out for themselves one day. I do say things like, "sure, 'cause barfing in public is a lot of fun" and "wow, how awesome that hair holding has now become a sign of true friendship," and "what a blast to make an idiot out of yourself in front of perfect strangers."

Look, my kids have heard the usual propaganda about underage drinking. However, they've also heard some honest, real-life talk about alcohol from a no-holds-barred kind of parent. Since my ex-husband, their father, has remarried a woman who is an alcoholic, I know it's not his stellar influence that has swayed them (unless he has taught them what not to do by example). I can only assume that, somewhere, sometime, at some point, I must have done something right. As a parent, that's good news!

Labels: peers, drinking, alcoholism

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Religious teens are less likely to use drugs, according to a study that was published in the Journal of Drug Issues.

The researchers found that individual religiosity is linked to a lowered likelihood of using alcohol or smoking, and decreases a teen's chances of using marijuana by half. However, religiosity did not affect cocaine or heroin abuse.

Researchers from Brigham Young University looked at answers to two questions that were posed to more than 14,000 teens: How often do you attend church? and How important is religion to you?

"Previously it was thought that if someone grew up in a religious community and went to church, then the community's religious strength would make a difference," said Professor Stephen Bahr, co-author of the study. "We basically found that was not the case. Individual religiosity is what makes the difference."

Labels: drug_use, influences, religion

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Does your child hate to read - even though he enjoyed reading when he was in the primary grades? If so, you may want to schedule a vision test. Your child may have a common problem that can be corrected with eye training exercises, according to a new government study.

The study found that one in twenty students has "convergence insufficiency," which means their eyes do not focus correctly when they read. The problem usually does not show up until a student graduates from picture books and large type fonts such as the ones that are used in books for primary grades.

Students with this vision problem see fine print as blurry or doubled, which in turn causes them to develop headaches and eyestrain from reading. They typically tell their parents or teachers, "I hate to read," or "I can't concentrate on the pages."

Eye doctors can diagnose convergence insufficiency through vision tests, and can then prescribe a series of simple exercises to help the child learn to focus on print. A study of 220 people ages 9 to 20 found that 75 percent of those who did the exercises in their eye doctors' offices improved their reading performances.

Labels: schools, eyesight, reading

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The recent death of a Massachusetts teenager is a painful reminder of the dangers of teen drinking. The 17-year-old was found in the woods a few days after she'd gone missing from a Friday night teenage party.

"[Richard] Gallagher said the brains of adolescents are different from adults and they... progress from a 'little high' to 'very drunk' rapidly... Teenagers can quickly drink, get alcohol poisoning, pass out and get hurt or killed."

Sadly, despite all the warnings, few teens believe they're at risk when they drink, which means occurrences of underage drinking continue at alarmingly high rates. To counter this behavior, experts advise parents to talk to their teens about the dangers of drinking, and to set clear rules about alcohol. Source: The Sun Sentinel (MA)

Labels: risky_behaviors, drinking, alcohol_poisoning

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