If you're teenager is interested in healthy relationships and want to learn what makes some relationships unhealthy, there's a holistic conference tomorrow in Sacramento that teaches the difference to teens between healthy and unhealthy relationships. It's the Power of Know Youth Conference to be held tomorrow, Saturday, February 23, 2013 to be held from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Charles A. Jones Skills Center, 5451 Lemon Hill Ave., Sacramento. Check out the conference details at its website, the Power of Know Youth Conference, or at the conference's Facebook page, "Power of Know Youth Conference 2013 | Facebook.
Too many teenagers are being bullied through social media and in classrooms, causing a rising number of children to stay home from school out of fear of abuse from other teens. For some, there are few resources known about to address the needs for specific communities in Sacramento.
More than 250 adolescents are expected to attend, according to the February 22, 2013 Sacramento Bee article by Stephen Magagnini, "Sacramento youth conference to focus on healthy relationships." The speakers will inform teens what is meant by an unhealthy relationship such as when one teenager texts another hundreds of times a day to control, dominate, and manipulate the other person by wanting to know where the person is and what that person is doing all day. It's a prelude to becoming an abused partner or spouse later on should the people remain in a close relationship.
It's not love to show another person that much attention focused on control, domination, and manipulation. It's enslaving the other person emotionally, sometimes out of a insecurity or as an act of bullying and cyberbullying. You see the same pattern in marriages which lead to domestic violence or psychological and verbal abuse or jealousy that eventually turns to anger and rage in a relationship of control based on one submissive and one dominant partner. The purpose of the conference is to focus on knowing the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships.
February is "teen dating violence awareness and prevention" month
At the conference, the teenagers will have the opportunity to act out 20 scenarios and discuss appropriate boundaries. The goal is to learn how to respect your partner without manipulating your friend. Teenagers manipulate partners either by getting them pregnant, controlling any money they earn or are given by parents, or domination and control through intimidation and bullying or by calling frequently to find out where they are at any given moment.
The path leads to more domination and control with verbal and emotional abuse that eventually becomes physical when the partner becomes more dependent. If the teenager eventually moves in with the partner, the abuse escalates. In the situation where there's a friendship or romance, the controlling partner may try to separate the teenager from the person's family and other friends. It's not a healthy relationship.
At the conference, teens will learn what a healthy relationship is like, how to show your partner respect and not manipulate them." What the participants at the teen conference will be asked to decide is how the person might react when experiencing, seeing, or hearing about 20 different scenarios.
Teens will be asked whether the situation is a red light or a green light, meaning when is a stop and when is a go regarding how one would react. For example, what would a teenager do when a friend begins to intimidate, yell, or with anger throw objects around the room. How would a teen react when a friend asks for computer passwords that are the property of another teen, or what would be said if a teen sees a friend with bruises ever since that teen begins to date a specific person?
The point is for teenagers to see what unhealthy and respectful, healthy behavior looks and feels like, and how to react. Examples at the conference will include what is meant by cyberbullying and how to ask for help or help a friend, relative, or classmate experiencing cyberbullying.
One out of four teens are bullied
A huge number of teenagers will stay home from school daily to avoid being bullied at school. At the conference, teenagers will learn about conflict resolution, such as how to speak up for the victim, handling bullying, and how to talk to school counselors, parents, or friends.
The purpose of the conference is for the teens to receive training. Parents are welcome to attend with them. And parents will get tips on how to identify unhealthy relationships or behavior, along with how to talk about bullying and cyberbullying with their teenage children.
In some homes the parents don't know how to identify unhealthy relationships because they're living in them, emotionally or financially dependent upon the person doing the bullying in order to stay in their homes. Some parents stay in unhealthy relationships for financial reasons and see no way to obtain job skills, experience, and make themselves independent of unhealthy relationships due to economic or emotional dependency.
About 75 percent of the kids who have signed up for tomorrow's conference are of Asian or Pacific Islands ethnicity. The majority of teenagers coming to the conference are from families who come from Southeast Asia.
What the conference will provide are more resources. Some of the Southeast Asian teens live in families with more socio-economic barriers and often less communication between parents and children, according to the Sacramento Bee article. One of the largest ethnic group attending the conference, is the Hmong.
The conference is open to any teenager with or without parents also attending, who are of any ethnic origin, not only Asians or any other specific group. The conference is being sponsored by the nonprofit Capital Foundation, which has been addressing healthy relationships since 2005.
The purpose of the teen conference is to show kids how to so say 'no' to unhealthy relationships and bullying. The important message teens will be shown is to understand the potential impact of any words and actions sent or spoken to another person of any age. If someone is bullied as a teenager or younger, it's usually remembered for a lifetime. For further information on the conference, check out the Power of Know Youth Conference website, Power of Know Youth Conference, or the conference's Facebook page, "Power of Know Youth Conference 2013 | Facebook.
Childhood bullying can last a lifetime, a new study reports
A new study from the University of Warwick published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry shows childhood bullying can last well into adulthood, sometimes for life. The study shows that children who are exposed to bullying during childhood are at increased risk of psychiatric disorders in adulthood, regardless of whether they are victims or perpetrators.
Sometimes the victims seek to marry the ethnicity or socio-economic and educational class of the group that originally rejected them in childhood or adolescence. Check out the full article, "Adult Psychiatric Outcomes of Bullying and Being Bullied by Peers in Childhood and Adolescence," on the new study at the JAMA site. Professor William E. Copeland of Duke University Medical Center and Professor Dieter Wolke of the University of Warwick led a team in examining whether bullying in childhood predicts psychiatric problems and suicidality in young adulthood. While some still view bullying as a harmless rite of passage, research shows that being a victim of bullying increases the risk of adverse outcomes to mental health. Read the full article on JAMA Psychiatry.
This study, published in Online First by JAMA Psychiatry, looked beyond the victims of bullying and also investigated the impact on the bullies themselves, and those who fall into both categories. Professor Wolke summarized the outcome of the study according to the February 21, 2013 news release, The long shadow cast by childhood bullying on mental health in adulthood. “It is clear that those involved in bullying are at an increased risk for emotional disorders in later life. It is those in the middle of the chain, who are both bullies and victims, who are at the highest risk of suicide.”
The results indicate a clear pattern in the three categories that highlights the extent of the influence that childhood bullying can have: Males and females may suffer from different outcomes of both bullying and being the victim of bullies
Victims of bullying displayed a higher prevalence of agoraphobia, general anxiety and panic disorder in young adulthood, whereas bullies showed a tendency to develop an antisocial personality disorder. Those who were both bullies and victims were significantly more likely to suffer from depression, panic disorder, agoraphobia (in females only) and suicidal tendencies (in males only).
For example, a woman who in childhood bullied kids smaller and weaker and then as a teenager was bullied by classmates who rejected her from joining their group was more likely to suffer from agoraphobia, panic disorder, or depression. But in males, the risk was higher for suicide tendencies not seen in the females.
A Sacramento author's play included in the instructional book on writing drama also contains a play about being the victim of bullying behavior by some 8th grade classmates. Writers sometimes exemplify the difficulty of making friends in the early teen years in plays, short stories, and novels. For example, in the book, Ethnoplayography. Check out the article, "How to expand plays into scripts, novels, or reality documentaries," or the paperback book, Ethno-Playography - iUniverse.
Bullying can't be seen as an inevitable part of growing up if it's remembered for a lifetime
In the new study, Professor Wolke explained “Bullying simply cannot be seen as a harmless, inevitable part of growing up. Bullying can be easily assessed and monitored by health professionals and school personnel, and effective interventions that reduce victimization are already available. Understanding the impact of bullying on both the individual, whether victim or perpetrator, and on society as a whole, means we must promote such interventions to help reduce human suffering and provide a safer environment for children to grow up in.”
Research assessed 1,420 participants four to six times between the ages of 9 and 16 years and accounted for the influence of childhood psychiatric problems and family hardships. The National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation supported the work.
Please see the full article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support. Check out JAMA Psychiatry. Published online February 20, 2013. The full article, "Adult Psychiatric Outcomes of Bullying and Being Bullied by Peers in Childhood and Adolescence," is available at the JAMA article site.
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