What's at the root of teen violence?

GHN News-- Violence-prevention information does not work for teens, and researchers tell us that's because of the underlying reasons involved in teen violence and high risk behaviors.

 “Our findings tell us that it’s unlikely that traditional cookie-cutter violence-prevention programs will be effective for everyone,” said Dr. Rashmi Shetgiri.  Shetgiri led the research study on the issues of teen violence and is an  instructor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern. The study is in the September/October issue of Academic Pediatrics.

The value of having research on the nature of teen violence is underlined by the fact that it predominates in certain groups and is a major problem   across the country in that each year one in three adolescents is involved in fighting. 

Researchers explain that teen-age violence is triggered by a number of factors that put teens on aan emotional precipice at times in activities that involve everything from drug abuse to depression.  To get to the heart of the problem researchers studied the behaviors of 4000 young people.

What has been found is certain types of defiant behaviors that include smoking or alcohol can signal the propensity to fight.  Furthermore depression is a trigger for fighting.  Researchers point out how important it is to know this since Latino teens have been shown to have higher rates of depression.

“Our study didn’t examine why depression might lead to increased fighting among Latinos, but it showed that this mental-health disorder was a significant risk factor among both Latino boys and girls,” Dr. Shetgiri said.

Family support for success or the lack of it tends to figure into the response of teens to crises and whether or not they turn to violence, especially for Caucasian adolescents.

Whereas that support for success was not as distinctive in protecting African American youth from fighting, it was in general for others, and the way the support is perceived makes a difference as well.. “Expecting them to be successful, expecting that they’re going to do a good job, could play a very important role in preventing fighting,” Dr. Shetgiri said.