Boarding Schools for Girls

Teenagers form friendships based on common ethnicity, even in schools which have diverse populations, according to a new study from Stanford University.

• Dr. Matthew Jackson used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and found that high school students are more likely to meet and be friends with people of their own race.
  
• Black students value friendships with students of other races at 55 percent compared to friendships with other blacks.
  
• For Asians, that figure is 90 percent.
  
• For white and Hispanic students, friendships with students of other races are valued at between 55 and 90 percent.
  
• Dr. Prudence Carter, a Stanford University sociologist, said that black students may segregate for a sense of community because they tend to be in the minority.

This study was presented at the National Proceedings of Science.

Labels: ethnicity, relationships, friendships

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What your children fight about may have an impact on the relationship, according to a new study from the University of Missouri.

• If the children are fighting over physical and emotional personal space, such as becoming angry when a brother borrows a shirt without asking or when an older sister hangs around the friends of a younger sibling, the siblings will report less trust and communication.
  
• However, if the children are fighting about fairness and equality issues, such as taking turns and sharing chores, their fights had no impact on the quality of their relationship.

"Parents need to establish and enforce family rules about respecting privacy, personal space and property," she said. However, when children fight, parents should usually let them work it out because when parents stepped in, fighting usually escalates.

Professor Nichole Campione-Barr and her associates studied pairs of siblings ages 8 to 20 years old, in a report published in the journal Child Development.

Labels: relationships, siblings, parenting, fighting

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Girls and boys express mean behaviors in different ways -- but a new study from Australia found that both boys and girls share a similar understanding and experience with mean behaviors.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Rhiarne Pronk of Griffith University studied relational aggression and victimization among teenagers, and found that both boys and girls experience unpredictable friendships, social exclusion, rumor mongering and gossip, some of which involves e-mail and the Internet. However, both groups used these techniques to enhance their social standing or acceptance.

Dr. Pronk found that certain characteristics put adolescence at higher risk for victimization in relationships. These factors might include a lack of social appeal or emotional reactiveness. Children who are too popular or too talented also attract relational aggression.

The study appeared in the Journal of Adolescent Research.

Labels: relationships, aggression, bullies

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The Ohio House of Representatives has passed a law that will require public schools to educate students in grades kindergarten through 12 about dating violence. The law also requires certain school staff members to take training about dating violence by October 2011, and then every five years after that.

The law goes into effect March 29, 2010.

A Feb. 8 article on BucyrusOnline.com that reported on the new law also provided the following information from the U.S. Department of Justice about dating violence and other forms of relationship abuse:

• About one in three high school students have been or will be involved in an abusive relationship.
• Forty percent of teenage girls ages 14 to 17 say they know someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.
• One study found that 38 percent of date rape victims were young women from 14 to 17 years of age.
• In 1995, 7 percent of all murder victims were young women who were killed by their boyfriends.

Labels: relationships, violence, abuse

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A survey conducted by Britain's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) and the University of Bristol has revealed a disturbing prevalence of relationship violence and sexual abuse among British teens.
A Sept. 1 Daily Mail article provided the following details about the study

• The researchers discovered that one in three teen girls had experienced sexual abuse at the hands of their boyfriends.
• Many of the surveyed teens said they had been pressured or forced to kiss or sexually touch their boyfriend, while one in 16 of the 13- to 17-year-olds said they had been raped.
• A quarter of girls interviewed by the charity said they had experienced violence in a relationship.
  
• Having an older boyfriend put girls at a higher risk, with three-quarters of them saying they had been victims of physical or sexual abuse.
• Girls from a family where an adult had been violent towards them were also at greater risk.

The survey results were based upon information gathered from 1,300 teen girls from throughout the nation.

Labels: relationships, violence, abuse, girls

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Teens have stronger ties to their parents today than any time in the past 30 years, according to a study from Project Teen Canada. Researchers said the results would probably be the same for the United States.

Every eight years, researchers with Project Teen Canada ask 5,500 teens the same questions about their relationships with their parents.

• This year only 42 percent of the surveyed teens said they had arguments at least once a week with their parents; in 1992, 52 percent of surveyed teens reported weekly arguments with their parents.
• Eighty percent of teens said they enjoyed their parents' company, compared to 70 percent in 1992.
• Fewer than 40 percent said their parents did not understand them, compared to 58 percent who answered this way in 1992.

Reginald Biddy, a sociologist at the University of Lethbridge, said that todays parents are doing a better job of balancing careers and family lives.

"Relational enjoyment requires focus, and focusing requires time," Dr. Biddy said in a May 14 article on the website of the New York Times Magazine. Parents are putting more time into their children, enjoying them more and having more influence over them, thus lowering stress for everyone, Dr. Biddy said in the Times article.

Positive relationships between parents and teens have been cited as among the most important positive influences in the effort to reduce issues including teen substance abuse, teen eating disorders, and teen pregnancy.

Labels: relationships, teenagers, parents, communication

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On May 3, KTRK-13 (an ABC affiliate in Houston, Texas) aired a news segment by about teen dating violence that demonstrated a startling disconnect between the prevalence of teen dating violence and parents' awareness of the degree to which the problem has permeated today's youth culture. In the segment, KTRK's Sharron Melton cited the following statistics:

According to the US Bureau of Justice, about one in three high school girls have been, or will be pushed, slapped or hit by a boyfriend. And 40 percent of girls between the ages of 14 and 17 know someone their age who has been abused. ...

According to a survey by the National Teen Dating Violence Prevention Initiative, 81 percent of parents say they do not believe dating violence is an issue, and 54 percent admit they have not even spoken to their child about dating violence.

Though dating violence is a significant problem among young people, many adolescents and teenagers are not able to identify signs that they are in an abusive relationship -- and many who are being abused do not know how to escape the violence.

Experts advise all parents of teenagers to educate themselves and their children about the signs and dangers of teen dating violence, and to take action if they suspect that their teen is involved in an abusive relationship.

Labels: relationships, teenagers, violence, dating

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