At Risk Youth

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare – or one of them at least. Your child starts chatting with someone online and agrees to meet the person face-to-face, and discovers that the person isn’t a teenager. Task forces across the country set up “stings” aimed at catching adults who prey on young people by posing as teens online. But parents don’t have to wait for law enforcement to keep kids safe online.

“Keep teens out of online chatrooms. Interestingly, older teens are more at risk of being sexually exploited because their Internet use is often unsupervised, and the teens are more likely to talk about personal and sexual matters than a younger minor. Younger kids can face danger from online predators because the teens have a more trusting, unassuming nature; troubled teens looking for an understanding adult or emotionally vulnerable teen girls also are at risk.” [Source: The Clinton Herald]

Many parenting experts suggest that families have a centrally located computer – somewhere out in the open, where online chats can be observed. In addition, consider limiting, or eliminating, Internet access on your child’s phone. Set up rules regarding Internet use, and explain them fully to your kids. Explain why you’re doing it, and also what the consequences will be for broken rules.

A community group in Redlands, Calif., is shifting its approach to underage drinking. Rather than informing young people about the dangers of drinking, the group is educating adults on the consequences of providing young people with alcohol.

“The RPC [Redlands Prevention Coalition] is working to create a ’social host’ ordinance in Redlands,” the Redlands Daily Facts newspaper reported. “The law could empower police to cite hosts of underage drinking parties with civil or criminal violations. Police could also levy fines for the cost of law enforcement services needed to enforce the ordinance against hosts who do not comply with the law.”

Other cities in the area have adopted similar laws and seen them work. The RPC is currently drafting legislation that it hopes to put in front of lawmakers soon.

Children whose parents are depressed are more at risk for depression themselves. Now two new studies from Vanderbilt University indicate that family treatments for depression may lower a child’s risk.

The first study looked at two groups of adults with depression, and their children ages 9 to 15 years old. One group was assigned to cognitive behavioral therapy as a family unit. The other group used written materials that children and parents read on their own.

Children in the first group had half the incidence of depression compared to children in the second. The greatest benefits occurred a year after participation in the two kinds of therapy. The study appeared in the Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology.

The second study found that cognitive behavioral therapy could help teenagers, but did not necessarily help parents with depression.

“We now have extremely encouraging evidence from two studies conducted at Vanderbilt, that we may be able to reduce the incidence of depression and other mental health problems in children at high risk,” said Prof. Bruce Compas.

The second study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Young people with depression are more likely to do poorly in school and relationships, and they are at higher risk for substance abuse and suicide.

An Oregon woman whose two teenage daughters ran away from home has written a book questioning the way legal authorities treat parents of runaway children.

“I am asking for more compassion for parents who are legitimately searching for their kids, more information, more support, and for the end of a facile vilification of people who may be flawed but are not evil,” said Debra Gwartney, author of Live Through This: A Mother’s Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love.

Gwartney’s book recounts how her daughters, ages 14 and 16 years old, jumped on a freight train and disappeared, plunging her into a struggle with authorities who assumed she was an unfit mother.  While Gwartney acknowledges the grim statistic that 43% of all runaway children are sexually, emotionally, or physically abused by their parents, she points out that social workers and police are likely to accept a teenager’s version of life at home and assume the worst of parents.

Gwartney’s eldest daughter came home after three months, and the younger one returned after a year. According to their mother, they have become healthy, happy and stable adults.

Live Through This has been nominated for the Book for A Better Life Award.

This may come as a surprise to some parents, but teenagers care what Mom, Dad and their peers think about them — and researchers from the University of Oregon have the brain scans to prove it.

• Dr. Jennifer Pfeifer and her colleagues used brain-mapping technology to study the reactions of 12 teenagers ages 11 to 13 years old and 12 young adults ages 22 to 30 years old.
• The researchers asked the participants whether they agreed with short sentences such as, “I am popular.”
• The younger participants were more likely to have self-images that depended on what others thought about them.
• Certain people were more influential in certain areas of their lives. For example, they cared more about what their mothers thought about their academic abilities and what their best friends thought about their popularity.

“These findings provide a novel form of evidence confirming the sensitivity of adolescence to what they believe others think of them, especially parents and peers,” said Dr. Pfeifer.

This study appeared in the journal Child Development.