4 Troubled Teens Blog

Teenagers who resort to violence may be seeking respect and appreciation among their peer groups, according to a new study from Spain.

• Dr. David Ruiz and his colleagues studied 1320 teenagers in Valencia, Spain.
  
• One of their main findings was that if teens experience lowered social status and social rejection, they suffer loneliness, low self-esteem, and lowered satisfaction with their lives.
  
• This results in many teenagers using relational violence to gain acceptance.
  
• Relational violence is defined as behavior designed to provoke harm within another person's circle of friends or damage their perception of belonging to a group.

"Having high self-esteem is a key aspect because this is important in inhibiting teenagers from indulging in behavior that involves relational violence between peers at school," the author wrote in the study, which was published in the journal Psicothema.

Labels: violence, research, motivation

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

A new program for troubled teens in California is seeing some good results. PRIDE - which stands for Pico Rivera Individual Development in Ethics - is a nine week program that partners at-risk teens with mentors and gets them involved in community activities.

"The youths are taken to bowling nights and movies, as well as Skid Row in Los Angeles and the county morgue. One important event in the program includes being 'arrested' and kept in jail for a few hours, to show the teens what the experience is like."

More than a "scared-straight" program, the overall goal of PRIDE is to motivate kids to do well in school and go on to college. PRIDE participants are referred by teachers, principals and parents.

Labels: motivation, support, education

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 2 Comments