Many times it’s verbal abuse that can demolish a teen’s self-esteem and precede violence or sexual assault.  “I listen, I just listen,” says Kristi McKenney, a ninth-grade health teacher in Milford, Ohio.  “So many don’t feel they have someone to talk to.”  Although she urges kids to see the school counselor, some resist.  Often, though, they return and say, “I need help,” because, she believes, they felt listened to earlier.

Students who have been sexually abused or beaten by partners “need to understand they’re not at fault, they’re not being judged.  When they’re confiding in you is not the time to say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have,’ because it only makes them feel worse,” notes Angelica Ferraras, counselor at the Bronx School of Science Inquiry and Investigation, a middle school in NYC.

Kids often think they’re the only ones this has happened to and fear sticking out as a weirdo–anathema to adolescents.  So it’s good to let them know that other teens have been through this experience, suggest Katie Eklund, a school psychologist in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Tammy Hall, a recently retired Ohio health teacher, has listened to boys who were physically assaulted by jealous girlfriends.  “No matter what they say, you can’t act shocked because then you’ve lost them,” she says.  “it’s harder for guys to admit it because they’re supposed to be macho. “

In cases of potentially serious abuse, it’s best to set boundaries of confidentiality early on.  Counselors typically offer students confidential support but let them know that if they’re in danger of hurting themselves or others, or being hurt, there is a duty to report what students tell.  Sometimes kids pull back if they hear their parents or even police will be told.  But when teens reach the point of disclosure, many counselors agree with Eklund; “It’s a cry for help, and they really want protection; they want adults to know.”

Specific legal mandates on reporting abuse vary by state, so school employees should know how their state’s laws apply to disclosures about dating violence, suggests Tonya Turner, senior staff attorney at nonprofit Break the Cycle in Los Angeles.

If teens make serious accusations against a classmate, counselors often call in the other student to gain his or her perspective.  Parents are called in early too.

Some schools have ‘stay away’ policies that require abusive students to keep a distance from their victims – they’re not put in the same classes or assigned nearby lockers, for example.  “It can protect kids and help them move on from abusive relationships,” says Barri Rosenbluth, program director of Expect Respect in Austin, TX, which provides school prevention and counseling services on dating abuse.

Source: Teaching Tolerance, Spring 2012

In a healthy relationship, you:

• Communicate clearly and openly
• Enjoy time spent together
• Can TRUST each other
• Support each other
• Feel secure and comfortable
• Encourage other friendships
• Have more good times than bad
• Have privacy in the relationship
• Treat each with respect
• Take interest in each other’s lives: health, family, work, etc.

*(If there is one thing we would add to all of these above it would be 3 littler words: ALL THE TIME)*

In an unhealthy relationship, one or both of you:

• Make the other person feel bad about him/herself
• Are afraid of the other person’s temper
• Ridicule or name call
• Do not make time for the other person
• Ignore each other when the other is talking
• Push, grab, hit, punch or throw objects
• Try to control or manipulate the other person
• Control the other person’s money or things, such as a car
• Use physical force or threats to prevent the other person from leaving

It can be tricky to know if an unhealthy relationship can be repaired or if it needs to end.  If a partner, friend, family member, or colleague is harming you physically or emotionally, consider seeking help.  Contact an area crisis center to find out what help is available.

There is a French proverb which says, “He who threatens is afraid.”

Think about that for a bit.

That proverbial wisdom is something that may not occur to us when we are thinking about bullying, teen dating or domestic violence, and other forms of interpersonal disrespect, aggression and cruelty … but it’s true.  Anyone who feels the need to threaten someone else is always afraid.

They may be afraid of being hurt, or disrespected, or losing status.  They may be afraid of something inside themselves that they see (or suspect is) reflected in the other.  They may be afraid of being “less than” the object of their hatefulness.  They may be afraid of being ignored, discounted, avoided, abandoned or unpopular.  They may be afraid of becoming a target unless they make someone else a target.  They may be afraid of losing out in a competition for some perceived limited supply of adoration, respect, resources, or whatever.  But they are afraid of SOMETHING.  You can bet on it.  Otherwise, there’s no need to threaten … or even to be alarmed.

It’s kind of like a phrase that first appeared in James Weldon Johnson’s 1927 poem “The Prodigal Son” that says, “Your arms are too short to box with God.”  Someone who is clearly superior to another has no need to prove it … or to threaten the inferior one in any way.

When I am working with young kids, I have a fun way of asking them to imagine that a common household ant is threatening to “kick my butt.”  Then I ask them if I should be worried, and of course, they say “No” because we all understand that I could easily smash the ant if I wanted to.  But then I ask them if I should smash the ant … just because I can … when the ant is no threat to me.  Except for the occasional budding sociopath who might be in the room, the kids are generally in 100% agreement that I shouldn’t.  The ant is no threat to me and I don’t need to threaten it.

What happens in one of the classic Karate Kid movies when Daniel’s trainer, Mr. Miyagi, is confronted in a parking lot by the raging sensei of a local dojo, who has the mistaken notion that he is superior to the well-trained and well grounded Miyagi?  In case you haven’t seen the movie, I’ll tell you that the attacker winds up with two broken hands and a huge dose of humiliation without the truly superior one doing much more than just ducking.

But I have easier questions.

What happens when a well-trained and well-prepared performer competes with a talented one who is about 90% ego and only 10% preparation?  What happens when a naïve little person gets angry and starts swinging punches wildly at an individual who is much bigger and taller, and the taller person simply puts a hand on the tiny one’s head?  What happens when someone brings a knife to a gun fight?  The outcomes in every case are pretty easy to determine, aren’t they?  This is how we know that the one who threatens is always afraid.

Maybe if we work on figuring out the sources of people’s fears in social settings, we can help them eliminate their need to be a threat to others who share the same social settings.

What do YOU think?

Researchers have identified two types of teacher bullies:

The power-dominant bully intentionally belittles or humiliates their students.  This can take the form of name-calling, intimidation or sterotyping students based on race, gender, or other differences the teacher perceives.  The power dominant bully’s actions can vary from punishing their students in a humiliating way in front of others to sarcastic asides as graded papers re returned.  (“Behind sarcasm is contempt.”)  Physical harm is rare, since the results are more obvious and cannot be defended.

The power-lax bully is more passive and typically lacks the skills or willingness to manage a classroom effectively.  As a result, this bully will allow students to bully each other or permit class disruptions without intervening.  The power-lax bully is also more willing to let others handle problems (e.g., sending students to the principal) and is absent more often.  But he or she is more open to retraining.

While their motives are different, these teacher bullies do have some traits in common.  According to the 2005 Menninger study, they tend to be established in their positions and have taught, on average, for more than five years.  They are often strong-willed, have a need for control, are resistant to change and lack empathy for others.  They often also have been bullied themselves – either as students or as teachers.

“Never before have I been so relaxed and at peace with myself while spending hundreds of hours sitting at a table.  Whether the piece of art is created over several weeks, months or years, it is an extension of my passion.” – Steven J. Backman, (From his Artist Statement)

I don’t know how long it took Steven Backman to create the tiny sculpture … made from a single toothpick … that you see here; but I DO know it can be destroyed in a split second.

Likewise, a person may spend countless hours working on sculpting themselves into the best person they know how to be only to be physically and/or emotionally destroyed by another individual who chooses to use their personal power DEstructively rather than CONstructively.

Violence in any form is almost always a misuse of power.  Whether hostility comes from a neighborhood bully, a “mean girl” at school, an abusive father, or a controlling wife, it would serve everyone much more if the abuser used that energy to build others up rather than tear others down.   Little do they know, but that benefit includes the abusers, too.

And let’s not even BEGIN to talk about the infinitely greater examples of this same misuse of power perpetrated by dictators, and armies, and misguided societies.

Oh, but it is so much easier to tear down something than to build it.  It’s like the difference between the time it takes to construct a miniature Golden Gate Bridge, and the time it would take to reduce it to splinters.

And what is the reward for destruction?   Is it real or imagined?  And if it is real – at least on some level – isn’t it really just a “cheap imitation of the real thing” as opposed to a real reward?

Who will be remembered and revered longer –

·     Those of us who destroy, or those of us who create?

·     Those of us who devote a huge plank of their life mission to empowering others, or those who focus much of their energies on damaging others?

·     Those who work for peace, or those who work to destroy peace?

·     Those who use their power wisely, or those who misuse their power foolishly?

I’m sure I know.  Are you?  And what difference does it make if either of us picks builders over destroyers if we do nothing to nullify, limit or take away the power of the latter?

Robert Simon, Violence Prevention Specialist
Start Strong Wichita, a project of Catholic Charities
rsimon@catholiccharitieswichita.org

There’s a growing trend of teens and tweens posting videos on YouTube that ask “Am I pretty or ugly?”

“People say I’m ugly. So … tell me — am I?”

A young girl stares earnestly, and perhaps a bit awkwardly, into the camera asking the world wide web of YouTube users to comment on her appearance. With 35,000 views and nearly 1,200 comments, her video is just one small piece in what seems to be a growing trend of teen and “tween” (between the ages of 11 and 13) girls taking to the Internet to broadcast concerns about their looks — and asking strangers to weigh in on these insecurities.

First reported by Jezebel, these YouTube videos seem to be made predominantly by middle-school aged girls, though there are boys featured in some of them as well. A simple search turns up pages upon pages of similar clips, entitled things like “Am I Ugly?” “Am I Ugly Or Pretty?” “Am I Ugly, Be Honest” and “Am I Pretty Or Not?”

One video, posted in December of 2010 has gotten over 3.4 million views and 92,000 comments. “I just wanted to make a random video seeing if I was like, ugly or not? Because a lot of people call me ugly and I think I am ugly … and fat.” She goes on to show the audience a series of photos of herself and asks users to “tell me what you think.” The comments on these clips range from astoundingly awful (“my vote: UGLIER THAN A DEMON” or “F*ck off whore wannabe”) to supportive (“I think you look pretty and nice,”) to concerned (“Sweetie, ur 2 young to be using the Internet, much less having these losers judge you.”)

The sheer number of these videos, and how regularly their creators reference other ones, suggests that a virtual community has formed around the concept.

SFGate’s Amy Graff expressed concern that these young people are only harming themselves by asking anonymous strangers for look-based critiques:

A 12-year-old isn’t mature enough to deal with vicious remarks made by their mean-spirited peers and sick-minded Internet trolls … Adolescence is dark and savage and when teenagers put themselves up on the Internet it only magnifies the experience.

HuffPost Teen reported recently on another disturbing online trend — a community of “thinspiration blogs” on Tumblr. As reporter Carolyn Gregoire discovered, this “thinspo” collective is built around young women encouraging one another to lose extreme amounts of weight, in an insular (well, as insular as the Internet can be) environment. In contrast, these YouTube videos are built around the anticipated responses of “outsiders,” and though the young people in them purport to want honesty, they’re likely also looking for affirmation.

This need for approval coincides with the girls passing an age when self-esteem tends to peak. After age nine, researchers find that body confidence plummets. According to the NYU Child Study Center, one study showed that 59 percent of girls in 5th through 12th grade were dissatisfied with their physical appearance.

Given how fragile kids are at this stage, not to mention privacy concerns and the potential longevity of Internet exposure, bloggers have responded to these videos by urging YouTube to shut them down. Jezebel’s Katie M. Baker asks “How do we get YouTube to make this illegal?” And while the video sharing site officially requires users to be at least 13 years old, getting in when you’re younger is simple. Graff calls for parents as well as YouTube to more closely monitor kids’ use of the site. Given that many parents already believe they should be making decisions about their child’s Facebook use, this solution doesn’t feel particularly far-fetched.

The (somewhat) good news is that a small but growing number of “response” videos to the “Am I Ugly?” trend have been posted, which means some kids are questioning the idea itself. But, in a world of carefully curated Facebook profiles that put personal lives (and looks) at center stage, and a constant bombardment of “aspirational” digitally altered images both online and offline, it’s perhaps unsurprising that young people are sharing their body image anxieties in such a forum. Deleting these videos from YouTube channels could act as a band-aid solution, but their existence is indicative of something much larger.

What do you think the role of parents is in situations like this? What can we do to encourage our children to feel confident about their looks?

Note: We’d love to hear from you on the issues in the comments below, but please remember that what you say can have a very profound impact on young people. Please keep it clean, and flag anything you see as abusive. Thanks.

By Dr. Tyeese Gaines
1:06 PM on 02/29/2012

Rihanna and Chris Brown in the audience during the 2008 MTV Movie Awards at the Gibson Amphitheatre on June 1, 2008 in Universal City, California. (Photo by Chris Polk/FilmMagic)

Apryl Cornell was only 15 years old when her boyfriend began abusing her.

“At first everything was good. He was two years older than me and attended my school,” she recalls. “[But] about four months into the relationship, he started telling me who I could hang out with and what I could wear.”

Cornell says her boyfriend forbade her to wear certain clothes, like shorts, in public. She could only wear them in his presence.

And, to avoid more conflict, she stopped spending time with her friends.

“It was too hard to hang out with them and deal with my boyfriend,” Cornell says.

The abuse soon escalated to physical assaults. During one episode, Cornell’s boyfriend struck her in the head so hard, she blacked out. During another, he tried forcing her to have sex against her will.

“Topless, I ran out of the room to the middle of the staircase that led to where the rest of the family was sleeping,” Cornell says, “Soon, he came out and talked to me. He said he was sorry. He said he loved me.”

She adds, “I was kind of scared, but I made him promise not to hurt me. I was worried that no one would believe me if I told.”

Cornell’s experience is, unfortunately, not unique.

One out of 11 high school students in the United States have experienced some form of physical violence from a boyfriend or girlfriend, with African-American youth experiencing this abuse at a higher rate.

In fact, the CDC’s Youth Behavior Risk Surveillance Study reported that black high-school girls are 80 percent more likely than white girls to be hit, slapped or hurt on purpose by their boyfriends.

It is thought that these abusive relationships mirror behaviors witnessed at home.

“Things like education, income, access to resources, and social disadvantage are also strongly linked to violence,” says Laura J. Hogan, co-director of Start Strong, an 11-site program promoting healthy teen dating, with $18 million in support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The biggest problem lies, Hogan says, in teenagers’ lack of life experience.

“Teenagers don’t have years and years of dating experience to draw from,” she says. “They are learning as they go, learning from the role models they have around them, and figuring things out along the way.”

Teens are more likely to react to conflicts with aggression or violence in order to ‘save face’ in front of their friends, according to Hogan.

“They’re also less likely to challenge abusive behaviors if these are considered normal by their peers,” she says.

Taking it Seriously

When reports of the alleged reconciliation between Chris Brown and Rihanna hit prime-time, critics challenged the example it set for the artists’ young fans. Yet, Hogan says it creates a teachable moment.

“We can’t always control the messages that young people hear and see about relationships in popular culture, or how they react to them, but what we can do is use these incidents… to have conversations with our youth about preventing teen dating violence in their life,” Hogan says.

Cornell, now 19, works through Start Strong Wichita to counter media images condoning dating violence by using her own experiences as a cautionary tale.

“Young people do not believe that dating violence can happen to them,” Cornell says.

To her point, during the Grammys, several young women tweeted comments about Chris Brown that some argued made light of the seriousness of domestic violence.

One tweet read, “He can beat me up all night if he wants.”

Another read, “chris brown could beat me all he wants, he is flawless.”

And, another: “Dude, Chris brown can punch me in the face as much as [he] wants to, just as long as he kisses it.”

Getting out

Cornell, however, lived the seriousness of dating violence for two years before she finally left the relationship.

It took a coincidence — her participation in a play during junior year, called “The Outrage” — to help her see what was happening.

“I was assigned the role of the girl who was being abused,” she recalls. “My abusive boyfriend was in the audience along with my family. When it was over, my mom came up to me and said, ‘You played that way too well.’”

It was her play director who pointed out the hypocrisy of being in a play aiming to prevent teen dating violence while she stayed in her unhealthy relationship. So, Cornell made a choice.

“At first he was mad, but he did leave me alone,” she says. “I started to go back to him several times, but I never did.”

“The more [Cornell] learned about what healthy relationships should be like and how to set healthy boundaries, the more she knew that she had to free herself from her boyfriend,” says Hogan.

Each Start Strong site gears its interventions toward middle school students — ages 11 to 14 — in an effort to mentor them prior to entering the dating world.

“We are working with families, friends and the community so that everyone is helping to spread the message that violence and abuse in a relationship is never acceptable,” says Cornell, who works with the Start Strong Wichita program.

According to the CDC, teen dating violence can lead to poor school performance, substance abuse, and suicide attempts. The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control adds increased risk of teen pregnancy, risky sexual behaviors, and unhealthy weight control to that list.

“Rather than trying to repair the damage of dating violence and abuse later in life, [with Start Strong] we are teaching middle school students the skills to have healthy relationships so we can ultimately prevent the violence before it starts,” Hogan explains.