Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Most Teen-Drinking Deaths Are Not Traffic Related

When it comes to teens and alcohol, drunken driving is far from the only thing that should concern parents.

That's the message from MADD, whose new analysis of alcohol-related deaths among people 15-20 estimates that 68% of fatalities connected to underage drinking are not traffic related.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving analyzed 2010 data from the FBI, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on deaths related to underage alcohol use. It estimates that 32% of these deaths were traffic fatalities; 30% were homicides, 14% suicides, 9% alcohol poisonings and 15% other causes.

"As parents, we are definitely aware of the dangers of drinking and driving," says MADD national President Jan Withers. "I think we're not as educated about all the dangers that drinking before age 21 can be related to. And they're very, very real."

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/17/underage-drinking-madd-alcohol/2070405/

Parent-Child Violence Leads to Teen Dating Violence

Teens today are involved in intimate relationships at a much younger age and often have different definitions of what is acceptable behavior in a relationship. Violence is something that is all too common and according to researchers at Iowa State it is a reflection of the relationships teens have with their parents or their parent's partner.

"It is true that if you grow up in a violent household you have a higher likelihood of being in a violent relationship," said Brenda Lohman, lead author and an associate professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University.

The research focused on psychological violence instead of physical violence. Lohman and her colleagues discovered that psychological violence between a parent and child was more significant than a child witnessing violence between two adults in the home.

"If the parent is more aggressive toward the child, the child is more likely to be in relationships where they're being victimized or perpetrating violence against their partner a few years or even a decade later," Lohman said.

The study is one of the first to examine patterns of violence over three decades to see how children exposed to psychological violence and family stress were affected in relationships later in life.

The study is published in the April issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Source: ScienceDaily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130325160237.htm

Teaching Teens That Bullies Can Change Reduces Aggression

Teenagers who believe people can’t change react more aggressively to peer conflicts than those who think people can change. And teaching them that people have the potential to change can reduce these aggressive reactions, according to a new psychology study from The University of Texas at Austin.

The study, published in the February 2013 issue of Child Development, has important implications for bullying interventions in public schools.

“When adolescents believe the world is full of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people, with nobody in between, they are then quick to classify people as one or the other,” said David Yeager, assistant professor of developmental psychology at The University of Texas at Austin. “We found that teens in this ‘fixed’ mindset — even after a minor offense like getting bumped in the hall or being left out of a game of catch — relegated peers to the ‘bad person’ group, decided that they had offended on purpose and wanted aggressive revenge.”

The researchers developed and tested a brief intervention that taught the teens about the potential for change in people. The intervention reduced the respondents’ tendency to see the offense as having been done on purpose and reduced their desire for aggressive revenge even eight months after the students took part in the study.

Source: University of Texas at Austin
http://www.utexas.edu/news/2013/02/14/teaching-teens-that-bullies-can-change-reduces-aggression-in-school-study-shows/

Dating Violence in Teen Years Can Have Lasting Impact

Teenagers who experience dating violence could be more likely to get involved in violent relationships and have health problems as young adults, a new study suggests.

Researchers analyzed surveys of nearly 6,000 teens across the United States that were taken when the teens were between the ages of 12 and 18, and again five years later. The surveys asked about physical and psychological violence in romantic relationships, and also about feeling depressed, having suicidal thoughts, drinking and doing drugs.

"What stood out was, across both genders and types of victimization, teens who experienced teen dating violence were two to three times more likely to be re-victimized by a partner in young adulthood," said study author Deinera Exner-Cortens, a graduate student in the department of human development at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

Exner-Cortens and her colleagues also found that teens who were victims of dating violence faced higher rates of depression, suicidal thoughts and heavy drinking, which varied by gender.

The findings were published online Dec. 10 and in the January 2013 print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/12/10/dating-violence-in-teen-years-can-have-lasting-impact

U.S. High Schools Lax in Preventing Dating Abuse

Although dating violence is a recognized problem for U.S. teens, a majority of high school counselors say their school provides no training or guidelines for dealing with abusive romantic relationships, a new study finds.

Prior research has found that between 10 percent and 30 percent of teens have been physically hurt by a boyfriend or girlfriend, according to background information in the study. And dating abuse has been linked to suicidal thoughts, weight gain, sexually transmitted diseases and other physical and mental health problems, the researchers noted.

But preventing dating abuse and assisting victims are not priorities for U.S. high schools, the new study concluded.

"We found that the majority of schools don't have a protocol to deal with incidents of teen dating abuse," said lead researcher Dr. Jagdish Khubchandani, an assistant professor of community health education at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. "This means that most of the school counselors would not know what to do. This is also true for school nurses," he said.

The reasons vary from not considering dating abuse a serious issue to school administrators' reluctance to get involved in romantic relationships, he said. Some also fear parents will object to school interference in a child's personal or sexual life.

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.

Source: U.S. News and World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/07/09/us-high-schools-lax-in-preventing-dating-abuse-study

CDC Study: 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey Results

Since 1991, The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has surveyed teens every two years in order to identify trends in risky adolescent behaviors. The results of the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey have recently been released. Highlights of the current survey:

Results from the 2011 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) show that significant progress has been made in improving behaviors related to motor vehicle safety.  Since 1991, the percentage of high school students who never or rarely wear seat belts has declined from 26% to 8%, and the percentage of high school students who rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol during the past 30 days has declined from 40% to 24%.  In addition, since 1997, the percentage of high school students who had driven a car when they had been drinking alcohol during the past 30 days decreased from 17% to 8%.

Though notable progress also has been made in reducing alcohol use, alcohol remains the most commonly used drug among high school students.  Since 1999 the percentage of high school students who drank alcohol during the past 30 days decreased from 50% to 39% and, since 1997, the percentage who reported binge drinking (having 5 or more drinks of alcohol in a row during the past 30 days) decreased from 33% to 22%. Yet, more than 1 in 3 high school students reported current alcohol use in 2011, and 1 in 5 high school students reported binge drinking. Furthermore, marijuana use during the past 30 days decreased from 27% in 1999 to 23% in 2011, but it is now more prevalent than cigarette use during the past 30 days (23% vs. 18%).

The 2011 National YRBS showed for the first time that 1 of every 3 (33%) students had texted or e-mailed while driving a car or other vehicle during the past 30 days, and 1 of every 6 (16%) had been electronically bullied through e-mail, chat rooms, instant messaging, Web sites, or texting during the past 12 months—documenting unsafe practices and a troubling public health issue.

Other notable findings:

Lifetime alcohol use (at least one drink of alcohol): 70.8%, down from 72.5% in 2009.

Lifetime marijuana use (at least one use of marijuana): 39.9%, up from 36.8% in 2009.

Lifetime cigarette smoking (those who have tried cigarette smoking): 44.7%, down from 46.3% in 2009.

Have had sexual intercourse: 47.4%, up from 46% in 2009.

Seriously considered suicide during the 12 months before the survey: 15.8%, up from 13.8% in 2009.

Attempted suicide during the 12 months before the survey: 7.8%, up from 6.3% in 2009.

Rarely or never wore a seat belt: 7.7%, down from 9.7% in 2009.

Source: CDC
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss6104.pdf

Culture Surfing - May 31, 2012

Came across these culture stories of interest...

New York City to Ban Sales of Sugary Drinks over 16-Ounces.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/05/30/here-he-goes-again-bloomberg-set-to-ban-all-sugary-drinks-over-16-ounces/

Not sure how this helps fight obesity. I'm guessing it won't take long for New Yorkers to figure out how to purchase two medium-sized drinks.


Teen Cosmetic Surgeries Skyrocket
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/05/31/053112-news-teenage-plastic-surgery-1-3/

In 2011, about 250,000 teens oped for plastic surgery. Nose jobs and breast surgeries were the top two procedures performed.


Florida Mom Allegedly Chokes Teen Boy Over Facebook Comments About Daughter
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/30/debbie-piscitella-chokes-teen-facebook-florida_n_1556485.html

Mom has been charged with child abuse. Protective instincts are good, but assault is probably not the best method for addressing Facebook bullying.


Millennials Switch Mediums 27 Times an Hour
http://www.ypulse.com/post/view/redefining-social-as-millennials-switch-mediums-27-times-an-hour

By the time you say "attention deficit," millennials have already moved from a laptop to an iPhone.

Young Americans Have Highest Death Rate Among High Income Countries

A new study of adolescent health around the globe found the United States had the highest mortality rate for people ages 10-to-24 of any high-income country in the world.

The American kids were also No. 1 in pot-smoking, moving toward the top spot in boozing — all while still hitting the gym harder than their contemporaries in other wealthy nations.

Death on the wrong end of a gun or any other violent method is up to 20 times more likely in the U.S. than the other 27 wealthy nations, according to findings reported in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

Traffic accidents combined with the violent deaths boosted the U.S. to its undesired position atop the mortality charts, The Lancet wrote in a series of articles this week.

“The drinking patterns of USA adolescents are catching up with those in other (high-income countries),” The Lancet reported. One reason the American numbers are disturbing: Most of the domestic binge drinkers are too young to drink legally. While the U.S. drinking age is 21, the number is as low as 16 in other nations.

The numbers also indicated that U.S. kids ages 13-15 exercised more than their global counterparts in high-income countries. The boys were No. 1 and the girls No. 2 in the rankings.

Source: NY Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/hard-partying-young-americans-highest-death-rate-high-income-country-study-article-1.1067644

Study Links Swearing on TV to Teen Aggression

A new study finds that the more profanity teens are exposed to through television and video games, the more accepting they are of swearing and the more likely they are to use profanity themselves. Those kids who swore more were also more likely to engage in physical aggression.

"Profanity is kind of like a stepping stone," said study researcher Sarah Coyne, of Brigham Young University. "You don't go to a movie, hear a bad word, and then go shoot somebody. But when youth both hear and then try profanity out for themselves it can start a downward slide toward more aggressive behavior."

The researchers found links between the amount of swearing in video games and television and how often the students used profanity themselves; participants who used more swear language were more likely than other students to exhibit physical and relational violence. However, because the study is correlational it can only show that swearing on TV is indirectly linked to aggression, not whether one causes the other.

Source: Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/10/17/swearing-on-tv-linked-to-teen-aggression/

Expelled Teen Charged in Plot to Bomb School

Police on Wednesday said they had prevented an attack on a Tampa high school after arresting an expelled student and discovering materials at his home to make pipe bombs.

"We were probably able to thwart a potentially catastrophic event the likes of which the city of Tampa has not seen," Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor told a news conference.

Police named the suspect, who was detained and charged on Tuesday, as 17-year-old Jared Cano and said his target was Freedom High School.

Castor said Cano, who was expelled from the school in 2010, had hoped "to cause more casualties than were suffered at Columbine" — a reference to the 1999 massacre at a Colorado high school by two students who killed 12 peers and a teacher.

Acting on a tip from an informant Tuesday morning, police learned that Cano had been planning his attack to take place on the first day of class next Tuesday, Castor said. Two faculty members were specifically targeted, she added.

Evidence found in a search of Canl's home included a "manifesto" with drawings of school rooms and statements apparently indicating his intention to carry out a deadly attack, authorities said.

Police also found timing and fusing devices, and other material that could have been used to make a bomb such as fuel sources, shrapnel and plastic tubing, Castor said.

Among favorite quotations listed by Cano on his Facebook page is: "Lessons not learned in blood are soon forgotten."

Source: MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44175557/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/