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By Paula Moyer

May 15, 2000 (Chicago) -- Last week, another highly publicized school shooting -- this one in Arkansas -- served as a grisly anniversary card for last year's bloodbath at Colorado's Columbine High School. At Sunday's "Million Mom March," an estimated 750,000 mothers converged on Washington to demand that Congress pass tougher gun control laws to prevent more of these killing sprees.

Even though statistics show youth violence has actually been decreasing in the U.S. for the last several years, intensive media coverage of events like these has focused public attention on the issue, says Paul J. Fink, MD, speaking at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) here. But because all the attention does little do address the real issues behind youth violence, he says, organizations like the APA are taking notice of the problem."Youth violence is a complex issue [we] must attend to until the problem is totally eliminated," says Fink, a professor of psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, a past president of the APA, and the chair of the APA's Psychiatric Aspects of Violence task force.

A big piece of the puzzle will be to find out which children are most likely to be violent, says Marvin S. Swartz, MD, who heads the division of social and community psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. "We're making progress in identifying which adolescents are at risk of violent behavior," he tells WebMD. It's been slow going, he admits, partly because it is so hard to find enough teens to study; only about one in 50,000 people eventually goes on to become a killer. Still, some progress has been made in "typing" the teen-aged killer.Adolescents who kill have seve

Teen Dating Violence Spotlighted

A new public awareness campaign created to raise awareness about teen dating violence has been launched by the Governor’s office. The campaign, which is entitled "If It Doesn’t Feel Right, It Probably Isn’t," is being sponsored by the Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence (OPDV) and features three radio public service announcements, mall kiosk displays and school mailings. The campaign began in early September and will continue through Domestic Violence Awareness month in October. Some of the concepts for the campaign and artwork for the posters were selected during the 2004 Teen Dating Violence and Healthy Relationships Media Contest. Last fall, announcements were sent to all high school art, health, music and technology teachers in New York State. Students in grades 9-12 were invited to submit posters, songs and music videos that could be used to raise awareness about the seriousness of teen dating violence. "This campaign will serve as a powerful platform to raise awareness about teen dating violence and will let all of New York’s teens know that there are resources available to help if they are suffering from abuse," Gov. Pataki said. "I hope that by heightening awareness we will be able to continue to combat all types of domestic violence and ensure that our children know what it means to be an equal and valued partner in their relationships." "I also want to commend the more than 180 students that participated in the Teen Dating Violence and Healthy Relationships Media Contest, and once again congratulate those whose artwork and ideas were selected for this campaign. Your ideas and expressions are making a difference for countless teens across this State," the Governor added. Teens in dating relationships are often inexperienced and may be unclear about when certain behaviors cross the line and become abusive. For example, extreme jealousy can often be misinterpreted as love and attentiveness, rather than power and control. In a survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that out of the more than 4,000 9th through 12th graders questioned, approximately 1 in 5 female students reported being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. And, the US Department of Justice has found that females between the ages of 16 and 24 experience the highest per capita rates of domestic violence. Sherry Frohman, Executive Director of the Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence said, "Domestic violence in teen dating relationships must be taken seriously. We must hold offenders accountable and provide services for victims, regardless of their age. As a community, it is our responsibility to support youth and give the clear message that domestic violence will not be tolerated in New York State." Each component of the campaign has been geared towards reaching teens and highlighting the message that abuse isn’t always physical. The radio spots, which will air with the cooperation of the New York State Broadcasters Association, have been written as testimonials and describe the forms of abuse common in adolescent dating violence. Two spots are from the viewpoint of teens and one is from the viewpoint of a mother who notices a change in her daughter. The kiosk signs will be posted in 16 malls across the state and feature a female teen with a UPC barcode across her forehead. The heading reads: "You are not his property." In addition, OPDV will be partnering with schools and distributing a free informational package to all the high schools in New York State. The package will include copies of Kristin Colasonno’s winning poster from the Teen Dating Violence and Healthy Relationships Media Contest. A recent graduate of Ward Melville High School in Stony Brook, Ms. Colasonno’s poster features the face of a girl leaning sadly against a mirror, her reflection showing a black eye and bruises with a headline that reads: "All the makeup in the world can't change what he does," along with the sobering statistic that "1 in 5 teenagers is affected by teen dating violence." All of the campaign materials provide the phone number for the New York State Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-942-6906 (1-800-942-6908 for Spanish speakers), where interested individuals can learn about services available and be directed to programs in their community. 9-23-05

Teens and Dating Violence

It's Happening More Often Than You Think!

Violence and abuse in teen dating relationships is much more common than most people would like to admit. The startling facts are that 1 in 10 high school students will experience physical violence from a partner and many more will suffer psychological abuse.

Some Startling Facts About Dating Violence

• Of women between 15-19 murdered each year in the U.S., 30% are killed by their husband or boyfriend.
• 26% of all female murder victims in 1995 were killed by their partners.
• 40% of teenage girls age 14-17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.
• In 1998 in the U.S. approximately 1,800 murders were attributed to intimates; nearly 75% of these had a female victim.

Dating violence can include physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Many teens have trouble admitting that they are in fact involved in an abusive relationship. Oftentimes the victim is made by the victimizer to feel as if the abuse is their fault, that they did something to provoke it, that they deserved it. This just isn’t true! Nobody deserves to be abused in any way.Physical dating violence can include:

• Hitting
• Kicking
• Punching
• Choking
• Slapping

Emotional abuse comes in many forms that at first may seem subtle. However, over time even subtle comments can have a big impact on a person’s self-esteem. Emotional abuse is perhaps one of the most common and unfortunately one of the most under reported or recognized forms of abuse. Victims may feel that because the victimizer has not physically harmed them that it is not in fact an abusive relationship. This is a misconception; emotional abuse is a very real problem for teens and adults alike. Emotional abuse includes the following:

• name-calling
• public humiliation
• threats of physical violence
• isolation from friends and family
• extreme jealousy and possessiveness on the abuser’s part.

Emotional abuse is especially harmful because after a period of time being told they are worthless and stupid, the victim begins to believe it. There is a loss of self-esteem and they may even begin to believe they deserve the abuse. This often makes it more difficult for the victim to leave the relationship because she/he feels that they are not good enough for and do not deserve anyone better.Sexual abuse occurs in a dating relationship when one partner forces the other into sexual acts without consent. Many people believe the myth that it’s not rape if you’re in a relationship with the person. This is just not true. Any non-consensual, forced sexual contact from a partner is assault.

Are You in an Abusive Relationship??

After reading this information on dating violence do you think you or someone you know might be involved in an abusive relationship? Here are some questions to ask yourself:

1. Does your partner consistently ridicule or insult you?
2. Does your partner make you account for your time away from him/her?
3. Does your partner become extremely jealous if you talk to other people or go out with friends without him/her?
4. Does your partner threaten to hurt you or him/herself if you break up with them?
5. Does your partner kick, slap, punch, hit or shove you?
6. Does your partner force you to touch or have sex with him/her?
7. Does your partner blame you for provoking his/her violent behaviour?
8. Does your partner come from a home in which he/she is abused?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you or someone you know may be in an abusive relationship. It is important to recognize that abuse will not go away on its own and that you don’t deserve to abused in any way. If you are in an abusive relationship get out and get help. Both you and your abuser need to talk to a counselor.By Teen Health Centreral characteristics in common, says Kenneth G. Busch, MD, a Chicago-based psychiatrist who has worked with a group of violence specialists to identify those characteristics. Their efforts will make it possible for doctors and counselors to more accurately pinpoint which children are at the most risk of committing murder. These kids, of course, would also be the ones who would benefit the most from social and medical interventions. Busch has found that a teen-ager's risk of becoming a killer is doubled if he comes from a violent family, grew up being physically abused, is a gang member, or abuses alcohol or illegal drugs. Even more telling, he has found that a child's risk is four times greater if he also has access to weapons or has had a prior arrest, a neurological problem, and/or severe educational difficulties that led to constant skipping of classes, failing grades, and suspensions/expulsions from school.

Stephen Thomas, PhD, a professor in the Rollins School of Public Health at Atlanta's Emory University, notes that there is also computer software that can do FBI-like profiling of students who might be prone to violence. But he believes that identifying them as troublemakers is the wrong way to deal with these children, since so many of them have witnessed violence and abuse or have been victims of it.

Thomas advocates an approach in which young therapists are sent into schools before violence occurs to try to connect with teens who are having problems. Thomas, who is also director of Emory's Institute of Minority Health Research, did not attend the APA meeting.

Fink tells WebMD that most of the solutions put forth for youth violence focus on punishing the children who commit these crimes -- and this is because such approaches have a strong public appeal. Punishment may feel good to the general public, but unfortunately, he says, it doesn't work well in preventing violence. A better approach is to design methods to help keep kids from becoming violent. For example, he says, it's been shown that kids who skip school are more likely to be murdered or to murder someone else. So it came as no surprise to him that efforts to enforce school attendance in Philadelphia have had the added benefit of reducing youth violence in that city. Members of the APA panel point out that the psychiatric community cannot act alone, and stress the need for increased resources in schools and in the wider public arena. "This is a complex issue," Thomas says. "We need to stay on it longer than a media minute."Even as the psychiatrists met, the Sheriff's Department in Jefferson County, Colo., released a minute-by-minute account of the Columbine shootings, showing that the 12 students killed by the teen-age gunmen were dead within 16 minutes and that the two gunmen had killed themselves within 57 minutes of starting the attack. But the 700-page report left the most important question about the shootings open."While this report established a record of the events of April 20," said Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone, "it cannot answer the most fundamental question -- why?" by Paula Moyer

Dating Violence Common Among Teens

Teen life, with its fads, crushes, clashes, and breakups, seems to be a world away from abusive relationships. Yet, there’s a dark side to all of the social drama. Many teens go through the same types of abuse—sexual, physical, and emotional—that we know some adults go through.

Dating violence often involves sex. More than one in four female college students say they have suffered rape or attempted rape at least once since age 14. At a large college, more than half of the women surveyed noted some type of unwanted sex, most often from their dates.

¹ Such violence can start at an early age. About 1 in 12 eighth and ninth graders suffered sexual violence in dating.

²Still, dating violence is common outside of sexual situations. Studies show that more than one in five high school students and almost one in three college students have been victims of dating violence that did not involve sex. In a study of eighth and ninth graders, one in four reported nonsexual violence in dating.

³Most victims of physical dating violence are females. Seven in 10 pregnant teens report abuse by their partners

.⁴ Although female high school and college students are just as likely as male students to inflict dating violence, females most often do it to defend themselves.

⁵Abuse in dating isn’t just about hurting a partner physically. Bullying, for example, is a form of emotional abuse. Many young people face other types of emotional abuse in the form of:

• Name calling
• Blame
• Threats
• Envy
• Anger
• Attempts to control a partner’s dress, activities, and friendships

.⁶ Teens may be confused by a boyfriend or girlfriend who abuses them and may not know how to deal with a dating partner’s mind games. Threats and rage may be followed by vows of love and pleas for forgiveness.

Teens may be afraid to break up with their partners out of fear that their partner will hurt them or will harm himself or herself. A teen may want to be there to help a boyfriend or girlfriend, may hope that things will get better, or simply may not realize what can happen. Over time, violence can escalate and teen victims may mistakenly begin to believe that they deserve the abuse.

If you have a teen who is dating, be alert for signs of abuse, both physical and emotional. Outward signs include:

• Having bruises and injuries
• Changing the way they look or dress
• Dropping old friends
• Giving up things they care about.

New friends as well as changes in attitudes, styles, hobbies, and school activities are common in young people. Still, they can be clues that a teen is being controlled by a boyfriend or girlfriend. Emotional abuse is harder to see than physical abuse, since it happens over time and can take several forms. A young person suffering emotional abuse may become insecure, destructive, angry, or withdrawn. He may abuse alcohol or drugs and may even become suicidal.

If you believe that your child is being abused, talk to her. Ask questions, set limits, and offer advice. She may find it hard to talk about stress in her dating life. So, don’t show anger or push so hard that the she pulls away. Instead, let her know that you respect her views and are there for her. Tell her that you care about her and want her to be safe. If you believe that your child is abusing his dating partner, confront him about it, and seek expert help.*We refer to a child as "him" in some places and "her" in others. We do this for easier reading. All information applies to both boys and girls unless otherwise specified.

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