Posted on 07/05/2002 8:58:52 PM PDT by Pharmboy
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - While most fourth and fifth graders say they would tell a teacher or another adult if one of their peers hit them, some say they would hit back, according to the results of a new study.
"Violent behavior peaks at 16 to 17 years of age, but findings from this study indicate such behavior has a trajectory that begins, at the latest, during the early elementary grades," write Dr. James H. Price of the University of Toledo in Ohio and his colleagues.
"Parents should support or advocate for formal violence prevention programs starting in the early elementary grades," Price told Reuters Health. "These programs as well as home activities need to teach students conflict resolution skills, impulse control, anger management and problem solving skills."
Price and his colleagues investigated fighting behavior and safety issues in a survey of 1,912 fourth- and fifth-grade US students aged 9 to 12.
About 43% of the students said they had been hit by a peer during the previous year and a similar proportion reported being pushed or shoved by a student, the investigators report in the Journal of School Health.
When asked their potential responses to being hit, more than half (56%) of the students said they would tell a teacher or another adult, but nearly one third of the students said they would hit back.
Older students, 11-year-olds in particular, were more likely to say they would hit the person back than younger students, the researchers note. Black and Hispanic students and students with poor grades were also more likely to say they would hit back.
Most (82%) of the students, however, recognized that problems could be worked out without fighting and a similar proportion said that students who avoid fighting should be respected. In fact, 61% of the students said they would try to get their peers to talk things out instead of fighting and 59% said they would try to get their peers to walk away from a fight.
In other findings, the majority of students reported feeling safe at school, but nearly 4 out of every 10 students said there was gang activity in their school that made them feel unsafe. Further, a small minority of students reported carrying a knife, gun, club or other weapon at least one time during the previous month.
Those who carried weapons two or more times during the previous month were twice as likely as their peers to say they were concerned about their safety on school grounds and their safety going to and from school, the report indicates. They were also more than three times less likely to say they would use a passive solution to fighting.
In light of the findings, society needs to realize "that the 'Band-Aid' or after-the-fact approach to anti-social acts, such as incarceration and punishment, are ineffective as solutions to such a complex public health problem as youth violence," the researchers write.
"We agree with the report on youth violence from the Surgeon General: '...the most urgent need is a national resolve to confront the problem of youth violence systematically, using research-based approaches, and to correct damaging myths and stereotypes that interfere with the task at hand,"' Price and colleagues conclude.
SOURCE: Journal of School Health 2002;72:184-191.
In a public school, telling the teacher will usually not get any help for the victim. The assailant will just deny it, the kids who saw it will not talk, and the victim will get picked on worse in the future. There is a pecking order in these jungles, and sometimes the only thing that seems to work on an obstinate bully is force. Often the teachers will wink when a bully gets a physical comeuppance from a nerd. I know, because I was the nerd.
Nope.That's what boys do.The fights I got into when I was a kid,whether won or lost,taught me a lot.It's a part of growing up.This bit about "violence" is radical feminism's seeing something that exists in young boys,and not in young girls,that they'd like to eradicate.The feminization of America.Violence indeed!
It takes a lot of consistant effort to teach a child manners and control of their actions. Both best done AT HOME by MOM and DAD. Day care especially these state paid warehouses are not good enviroments to bring kids up in. There is little discipline in them and of course the one thing the kids need most at that age is the loving arms of parents. Day care's are impersonal places. Kids need hugs, kisses and lots of one on one attention to develop into caring human beings.
An interesting point.I re-read the article and that distinction wasn't made.
It takes a lot of consistant effort to teach a child manners and control of their actions. Both best done AT HOME by MOM and DAD.
Agreed.You can tell a child something 1,000 times,but they will do as their parents do and not as they say.Having a mother and father who love each other will set the example for their children.Having parents who are always at each other's throats,especially physically,will produce a child who resorts to physical action to resolve his problems,surgeon general(!) notwithstanding.
I think that this is the same problem with "pacifists".Sure,nobody likes war,but there are some things that are worth fighting(and dying)for.
Well I guess they learn after a few beatings. ;-)
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