4 Troubled Teens Blog

Gwenn Schurgin O’Keefe, a pediatrician and mother of two, knows that her children have been bullied -- and that they're not alone. Conservative figures estimate that 25 percent of kids are physically bullied at some point, and as many as 42 percent endure cyberbullying -- being harassed via the Internet or cell phones.

In an article for Gatehouse News Service, Dr. O'Keefe urged parents and other caregivers to make sure that they are paying attention to children who are -- or are at risk of -- being bullied:

What we fail to realize as parents it that kids don't categorize situations as we do. Situations we view as "not bad" or "mild" are still incredibly painful. In fact, in the case of bullying, it all hurts, and it's extremely challenging to categorize it.

We can look back after the fact in some cases, such as the tragic suicide death of Phoebe Phoenix of South Hadley High School in South Hadley, Mass., and recognize how intense that was with nothing being done.

However, all bullying is intense and does escalate. That means we have to pay attention to each and every report of bullying and stop it before it gets to the point of no return for the victim and before they feel so helpless that he or she reaches for some extreme cry for help ... Those extreme cries for help mean that the system and adults within that system have let that child down and failed to protect that child.

Labels: parental_involvement, bullying, cyberbullying

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The percentage of teenagers reporting that they experienced bullying, assaults, and other forms of victimization dropped between 2003 and 2008, according to a new study funded by the United States Department of Justice. The researchers believe that anti-bullying programs in schools were behind the decreases.

• Dr. David Finkelhor and his colleagues at the University of New Hampshire's Crimes against Children Research Center went through surveys filled out by children ages 2 to 17 years old in 2003 and again in 2008.
  
• The researcher found that the percent of children reporting bullying went from 22 percent to 15 percent, and the rate of those reporting assaults declined from 45 percent to 38 percent in that period.
  
• The study found declines in sexual assaults and emotional abuse by caretakers, but slight increases in robberies targeting children, children witnessing violence among family members, and dating violence.

The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program has been used in several thousand American schools. The program involves training staff members to deal with bullying immediately when they observe it. Much of decline in bullying occurred in low income schools using such programs.

"The decline is not happening everywhere," said Marlene Snyder of Clemson University's Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life and director of development for Olweus. "It is in schools where adults really understand how detrimental this conduct can be and have made a conscious effort to bring the numbers down."

The Finkelhor study appeared in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Labels: bullying, prevention, awareness

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A major study of 8,500 Irish children found that 40 percent have been bullied in the past year, and most of their parents do not know about it.

The nine-year-old children are part of a new study called Growing Up in Ireland. The study found that while most Irish children like school live with both parents and are healthy, almost one in four is overweight. The authors of the study are advising parents to be more concerned about weight issues and bullying.

Labels: bullying

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A new study from Australia finds that teenagers believe there are differences between being popular and being well-liked.

• Dr. Stephanie Hawke interviewed 200 teenagers, asking them what it means to be popular and how popular kids act.
• The teens told Dr. Hawke that popular teens were likely to be bullies who engage in risk-taking behaviors, such as sex and teen drug use.
• On the other hand, well-liked teenagers were described as people who were true to themselves.
• Being popular was related to what group you associated with, rather than how you were as a person.

The good news from the study was that as children in their late teens tended to find a balance between popularity and being well-liked.

By age 17 or so, Dr. Hawke said, teens develop their own sense of self rather than just going with the flow.

Labels: bullying, research, peers, drug_use, popular

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Juvenile stalking is a form of bullying, according to a new study in the British Journal of Psychology.

Although the popular perception is that young people stalk someone because they were rejected in love, this scenario accounted for only two percent of the cases in the study done at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Dr. Rosemary Purcell studied 299 restraining orders that had been posted against young people, and found that the majority of stalkers were bullying their victims. More than 35 percent of the stalkers were females, and 75 percent of the victims had been threatened.

Juvenile stalking is characterized by direct, intense, overt threatening," Dr. Purcell wrote, adding that the behavior incorporates "violent forms of pursuit all too often."

Bullying has been associated with a variety of social, emotional, and developmental disorders, and can be damaging both to victims and perpetrators.

Labels: bullying, stalking

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Members of the public were encouraged to voice their opinions at a recent public meeting about new bullying legislation in Florida. Named the Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up for All Students Act, the policy was passed earlier this year by the Florida legislature.

"Creator of the legislation, Cape Coral mother and teacher Debbie Johnston, spent the last three years lobbying for the act. She first proposed it after her son, Jeffery, committed suicide in 2005 following years of bullying and ridicule at the hands of other students."

Many Florida school districts already have anti-bullying policies, but this new act would require those policies to be updated. One of the changes enables witnesses to report incidents of bullying. The Act also includes policies for dealing with cyberbullying - a type of harassment that takes place online, through social networking sites and instant messaging services. Source: Cape Coral Daily Breeze

Labels: bullying, suicide, harassment

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

More than one-third of children ages 10-18 in a new study report that they bully their friends "at moderate levels." However, over 40% told researchers from Queen's and York University they never bully anyone.

Researchers studying over 870 children found that bullying seems to drop off as children get into high school. Less than 10% admitted to "consistently high levels of bullying from elementary to the end of high school." The majority stopped when they entered high school.

Psychology professor Wendy Craig, lead author of the study, found that young bullies had conflicts with their parents and peers, and lacked a sense of right and wrong. They tended to pick friends who were bullies, too.

Dr. Craig and her colleagues are trying to design programs for this small, high-risk group, in order to prevent "a career path of bullying that leads to numerous criminal and relationship problems in adolescence and adulthood."

This study appears in the journal Child Development.

A private boarding school may offer the kind of structured environment a bully, or a victim of bullying, needs. Find one at Boarding Schools Info.

Labels: relationships, bullying, criminals

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Bullying in America's schools is more common than many parents would believe. A recent study found that 9 out of 10 elementary students reported being bullied, and 6 our 10 reported bullying a fellow student. Many children feel they can't talk about their situation, and so, they suffer in silence.

"But the danger of not talking about bullies or the victims of bullying is extreme, especially with the increasing use of violence to settle school-aged grudges. The fury once expressed by words and fists has manifested itself with a 15-year-old girl fatally stabbed on a Cleveland street, an alienated loner striding into school with weapons drawn, and an honor-roll student who left a seven-page suicide note saying he was killing himself because classmates who called him names like gay or faggot were unrelenting."

Though some may be tempted to brush off bullying as a "rite of passage", an increasing number of educators are speaking out - saying that the type and frequency of bullying is getting worse. Parents need to make sure their kids know it's ok to tell someone if they're being bullying and that it's not ok to pick on other kids for any reason.

Students with learning disabilities are often picked on; attending a school where everyone has some form of learning disorder or another can help. Learn more at LearningDisabilitiesInfo.com.

Labels: violence, bullying, victims

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About one-third of the teenagers who spend time online say they have been victims of cyberbullying, according to a new study. However, two-thirds of the teens reported that most bullying occurs off-line. Girls and those who use social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook were more likely to be bullied than other online users. The study, by the Pew Institute and the American Life Project, involved phone interviews with 866 children ages 12 to 17 years.

Learn more about online bullying and find help for parents of troubled teens at ByParents-ForParents.com.

Labels: bullying, social_networking, online_safety

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Teens who are bullies or victims of bullying are likely to be depressed and at higher risk for suicide, according to a new study from Columbia University.

Dr. Madelyn Gould, professor of Clinical Epidemiology in Psychiatry at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons, said that depression, not bullying, causes people to commit suicide, but there is a clear association between bullying, depression, and suicidal thoughts and attempts. 

• Nearly one in three victims of bullies are depressed, and 11 percent have suicidal thoughts. 
• About 19 percent of those who participate in bullying told Dr. Gould and her colleagues that they experience depression, and 8 percent have had suicidal thoughts.
•  Among students who are not involved in bullying incidents, only 7 percent report depression and 3 percent have suicidal thoughts.
•  Boys have twice the rate of bullying incidents than girls do.

Dr. Gould advises parents to tell their children not to react to bullies, because the bully's goal is to incite reactions from his victims.

"Defend yourself, not by getting into a fight, but by showing that you have resilience," she said.  "Find other friends, join other groups, find another social network that is not going to do that to you."  She also noted that her newest unpublished studies show that the majority of those who were bullied in high school are not suicidal, depressed or at risk for suicide as adults.
 

Labels: bullying

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments

Massachusetts recently passed a law designed to crack down on bullying in schools. 

Under the new ruling, teachers must report bullying incidents to principals. The law prohibits bullying on school property and cyberbullying.

An 11-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl killed themselves after being bullied by their Massachusetts classmates.
 

Labels: bullying, schools

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment

Children who bully other children may actually suffer from social anxiety, but it presents as hostility and not shyness, according to new studies from George Mason University and the Netherlands.

• Professors Todd Kashdan and Patrick McKnight of George Mason found that one in five people suffering from social anxiety reported elevated levels of aggression.
• The Dutch researchers from the University of Groningen questioned 481 children ages 9 to 12 years old about how much they liked their classmates, and which ones were bullies or victims of bullies.
• The researchers found that bullies wanted the approval of their same-sex classmates, and that they divided children of the same sex into potential targets or sources of affection. They are actually using bullying as a means to gain friendships.

"Bullies are very strategic in their behaviors," said Dutch researcher Rene Veenstra. "They are looking for attention and affection from their peer group."

"For people with social anxiety," the George Mason researchers wrote, "it may seem like a reasonable strategy to attack and reject other people before those people get a chance to do the same to them."

Labels: bullying

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment

Is your child a bully? If asked directly about their kids’ behavior, few parents would readily admit that anything’s wrong. But in surveys, more than 70 percent of teenagers say they’ve been bullied at school. Someone’s doing it. Could it be your child?

“The family is Ground Zero for learning about emotional responses and relationships. If a parent consistently yells or uses verbal threats, emotional blackmail or physical violence to manipulate family members, that’s what the child learns. And that learned aggression is likely to come to school with him/her.” [Source: More Marin (CA)]

Similarly, if your child is demanding, aggressive or otherwise unkind at home, chances are she’s like that at school, too. Be careful, however, not to label your child as a “bad kid”. Address his negative behaviors, but make sure he knows that you believe he can be a better person.

 

Labels: bullying, awareness

Posted By: Stefanie Hamilton 1 Comment

A new study out of Finland has found that teens who engage in cyberbullying, and the teens they bully, are more likely to suffer from emotional and mental health issues. The research team surveyed over 2,200 teenagers for their study.

“Compared to teens who didn’t engage in [cyberbullying], they were also more prone to suffering from emotional, concentration and behavior problems. In addition, they had trouble getting along with others and often suffered from hyperactivity and conduct problems. Cyberbullies also frequently smoked or got drunk, reported headaches, and were more prone to not feeling safe at school…” [Source: Health Day News]

Cyberbullying victims have similar behavioral and emotional issues, and are also more likely to come from broken homes. Though the study found a connection between these issues and cyberbullying, it didn’t find a conclusive cause-and-effect relationship.

 

Labels: bullying, cyberbullying, mental_health

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

Gene Simmons, Kat von D, 50 Cent, Cindy McClain and Dr. Drew Pinsky are among the celebrities from the worlds of music, entertainment, business and politics who appear in a new anti-bullying video created by the NOH8 Campaign.

The YouTube page on which the video was posted also advises youth in crisis to call The Trevor Lifeline at 866-4-U-TREVOR (866.488.7386) or to visit the Trevor Project's website at www.TheTrevorProject.org.

Labels: bullying, gay, lgbt

Posted By: Troubled Teens 1 Comment