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

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

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

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

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

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

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

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

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

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

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

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

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

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

When an adolescent girl is recovering from an eating disorder, her relationship with her mother can be more of a deterrent than a motivator. Mother-daughter relationships are complicated, and unrealistic expectations – by both parties – can hinder a child’s recovery.

A clinical lecturer at Northwestern University, where she is affiliated with both the Family Institute and the Department of Psychology, Weigel Foy endorses an introspective look at this unique relationship and believes temporary distance from family members allows many adolescent and teenage girls to feel safe exploring the mother-daughter relationship in ways they haven’t been able to during prior treatment for anorexia or bulimia. [Source: Melodika]

A residential treatment center can give a teen that much-needed distance and time to take an honest look at her relationships, uncovering negative behaviors and patterns.

 

Labels: relationships, parenting, mothers, eating disorders

Posted By: Boarding Schools for Girls 1 Comment

Teenagers who have sisters are less likely to feel lonely, unloved, guilty, self-conscious or fearful, according to a new study from Brigham Young University. The same study found that having a loving sibling of either gender fostered charitable attitudes among teenagers, even more so than having loving parents did.

• Professor Laura Padilla-Walker studied 395 families who had at least two children, with one child or more ages 10 to 14 years old.
• Affection between siblings was associated with the children doing good deeds; hostility between them was associated with a higher risk for juvenile delinquency.
• Sisters protected adolescents from negative feelings, and it did not matter if the sister was younger or older, or if they were far apart in age.

"An absence of affection seems to be a bigger problem than high levels of conflict," wrote Dr. Padilla-Walker in her study published in the Journal of Family Psychology.

Labels: relationships, siblings, sisters

Posted By: Boarding Schools for Girls 1 Comment

Teen sexual behavior has been associated with a wide range of problems -- but a new study indicates that all sexual activity doesn't have equal impact on teens' abilities to do well in school.

Professors Bill McCarthy and Eric Grodsky of the University of California and the University of Minnesota reviewed surveys and school transcripts from a decade-long study begun in 1994 of high school students.

• Teenagers who have sex within serious, romantic relationships have academic achievements similar to those who remain virgins, the researchers discovered.
• Teens having sex within serious relationships were not statistically different from virgins on measures such as grade point averages, college acceptances, problems at school, and attachment to their school.
• However, teens who engage in casual sex have lower grades and are at higher risk for suspension and expulsion from school, and they are less likely to go to college.

"Compared to abstinence, sexual intercourse in committed romantic relationships is often academically harmless, whereas in other types of relationships it is more detrimental," according to Drs. McCarthy and Grodsky. "Females and males who have sex only with romantic partners are generally similar to abstainers on most of the education measures we examined."

This study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.
 

Labels: relationships, sex, academic performance

Posted By: Boarding Schools for Girls 1 Comment

The fear of having no friends (or being unpopular) can be a stressful experience for all children -- and for parents, the mistaken belief that "only children" are more likely to have problems with peer relations can be particularly troublesome.

However, according to a new study from the Ohio State University, children without siblings are just as popular in school as those from bigger families,

• The study included 13,000 children enrolled in the National Study of Adolescent Health.
• When the researchers asked them to choose five friends, "only children" were chosen just as often as children who have siblings.
• Only children had poorer social skills when they were in nursery school but they became equal to their peers as they grew older.

"As family sizes get smaller in industrialized nations, there is concern about what it might mean for society as children grow up without brothers and sisters," said Professor Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, lead author of the study. "I don't think anyone has to be concerned that if you don't have siblings you won't learn social skills you need to get along with other students in high school."

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

Labels: relationships, friendships, siblings

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment

If your daughter is struggling with teen depression, there's a good chance that someone else in her social circle is, too.

Depressed teenagers tend to hang out with one another on the "social margins" of their high schools, according to a new study from Arizona State University.

Professors David Schaefer and Olga Korienko studied data collected on 3702 teenagers, and found that depressed teenagers choose to form friendships with others who have similar mood problems.

"These students are not avoided by others at school because they are depressed, and their depression is not a product of having poor quality friendships," Dr. Schaefer said.

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

Labels: relationships, depression

Posted By: Boarding Schools for Girls 1 Comment

About 70 parents of parents with teenagers believe that sex outside marriage is wrong, according to a federally funded study from the Administration of Children and Families, an agency within the Health and Human Services Department. The majority of their children agreed with them.

• The survey asking for views about sex education was conducted by Abt Associates, a consulting firm, and involved 1000 pairs of adolescents ages 12 to 18 years old and their parents.
• When asked whether they agreed strongly or somewhat strongly with the statement, "having sexual intercourse is something only married people should do," 70% of parents and 53% of teens answered yes.
• Forty-seven percent of teens and 30% of parents disagreed.

The report found that churches, parents, and peers influenced teenagers' attitudes about sex and abstinence just as much or more than sex education classes at school.

 

Dr. Gary Scott, a research fellow at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, said that "while most parents and children oppose premarital sex, government programming to reduce unwanted adolescent pregnancies through abstinence education have mostly failed to steer teens away from the lingering temptation toward premarital sex."

Valerie Huber, Director of the National Abstinence Education Association, said that the research is showing that parents need to talk to their children about sex and "teens are listening even if they're pretending they're not."

Labels: relationships, sex

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 1 Comment