It was 2003 when I watched Joey Lawton walk up to the podium at the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School graduation. As I remember it he was barefoot, and his shorts and Hawaiian shirt were visible when his blue gown blew in the breeze. I confess to skepticism as he approached the mic, a fact I’m not particularly proud of, but it highlights the significance of the fact that I am about to share his entire speech with you – again. I’ve shared this before; and will continue to share it with parents of teenagers, even if some of the details are beginning to look dated. Parents are always moved. And parents still talk about this speech….six years later.

The insight Joey shares about teens’ social world is profound and will give you a view inside those school walls that will enlighten you.

Thanks Joey.

A Rope of Sand by Joey Lawton

I can remember way back when in junior high, I was a freak and proud of it. I wore all black. I painted my fingernails. I didn’t skateboard, but all of my friends did. We listened to KoRn and Limp Biskit and could hide small armies in our pant legs they were so wide. We were self-designed outsiders and proud of it. If you wore Abercrombie and Fitch or played sports or cared about school, we didn’t even want to look at you.

This self-imposed segregation wasn’t confined to my circle of friends, of course. Everyone did it. Athletes with athletes. Straight-A minded students only with other straight-A minded students. The cliques went on and on. Just a look into the cafeteria on any given day would show you just how strong the social walls were. However, a scandal arose one day.

It was nothing to begin with, I think I loaned him a calculator in math once, but I, Joey Lawton, Marilyn Manson worshipping hooligan, became friendly with one of those things, one of those sports-loving preppy kids, one of those – those – those jocks named Barry xxxxx. I tried to hide it, but it could only stay hidden for so long. Then it happened. We said “Hey” to one another in the hallways one day. We both quickly looked away, but I knew that my friends had seen it. “Joey, who was that?” one asked, peeking out from beneath her trench coat. “Oh, um, just a friend from math class,” I said. “You’re friends with a jock?” Oh no, I thought, Here it comes. “Joey’s friends with a jock!” they all jeered. It was humiliating. I tried making excuses, but the damage had been done. They all knew.

Over the next few days, the episode was forgotten, and my friends and I moved on. We didn’t speak of the incident though. But during the next few months, things began to happen. For instance I learned that my friend Dave xxxx, a skateboarder by day, at night attended Boy Scout meetings. And all through the school, the once rigidly constructed social borders began breaking down. My casual friendship with someone outside of my own circle was by no means the breaking point for all of this inter-clique mingling to occur, but to me it meant something.

The social boundaries that I used to treasure so dearly as my shortcut to thinking were beginning to disappear. I was learning that I could no longer look at someone and assume that I knew who he or she was.

Fast forward a few years to high school. The embarrassments that were those two years of Junior High have long since passed, and we’ve all somehow found the strength to move on with our lives. We all still pass a shudder, though, thinking back to Mrs. McClure’s gym class or to those long hours spent in Mr. Hughes’ office for stealing ice cream in the cafeteria. And those walls that I spoke of, too, are remembered with no small wince of embarrassment. Because you remember Dave that I mentioned earlier, the skateboarding boy scout? Well, just a few short months ago he went on a road trip with not one, but several members of the football team. It wasn’t an isolated occurrence either. Perhaps you know of the legendary Daniel Lxxx? The boy who carries around no fewer than two calculators in his fanny pack along with an entire desk set’s worth of pens, pencils, and highlighters? It turns out he’s got a creative side.

In fact, he was in my creative writing class last year with Mr. Young. And you know what? He’s really good.

The list goes on and on. There is no order anymore: skateboarders listening to rap, AcaDec kids hanging out with the Academic Support Center kids, Danielle xxxx going out of her way to give me a ride home from work once last summer. I’ve traded in my Marilyn Manson and KoRn for The Grateful Dean and Belle and Sebastian. The pant legs have narrowed and the social borders have widened until they’re almost a non-presence.

I remember being 12 or 13 and getting angry seeing high school seniors spray painting their graduation year all over town. I just couldn’t figure it out. How could they care so much? Are they so proud to be a member of their class that they’re willing to follow through with this seemingly hollow act just to show it off? Why does it matter so much? At the time I couldn’t imagine caring about a classmate outside of my own little clique. It was preposterous.

But now that we’re done, now that I know I’ll never get to fill out crossword puzzles with Sparsh in Murphy’s English class anymore, or trade gossip at the bakery with Laura xxx, or get a high five from Mike xxxx in the hallways, or apologize to Anne xxx for missing the Spectrum deadline again, or just hang out with Spencer Sxxxx listening to The Clash in his basement freezing ourselves half to death, I can understand the desire to go out and illegally deface the town with the numbers 03.

It’s pride. Pride to be a member of this class. A class that, for all of its shortcomings, is a group of simply wonderful people: Steve xxx and his Machiavelli reading list, Jake xxxx and his eerily positive attitude towards almost everything, Meghan xxxx and her, well, dramatic style of sneezing, Max xxxx and his complete and utter shamelessness. I feel that we’ve grown so tight as a class, as much as I want to get as far away from this town as possible, there are going to be 350 people that I’m going to miss tremendously.

It’s been a while since I’ve said much to Barry xxxx, but I want to tell him and everyone else in the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School graduating class of 2003 that we’ve had a great run, and I’ll miss them and our time together always.

Thank you.

One might think with all the focus on raising awareness of bullying in high schools and junior high schools, that hazing incidents would have decreased. But disturbing examples of hazing crop up around the country too often. And there is an important distinction between hazing and bullying – the group dynamic can be what drives kids who know better to participate in hazing incidents.

StopHazing.Org states in Myths and Facts About Hazing, that this is not just “foolish pranks gone awry,” but rather an act of power and control over others. And done in a group, or team environment, it can easily get out of control.

Two professors doing research on the topic at University of Maine point out that “the group dynamic can lead to the escalation where you have…some horrendous incidents.”

The researchers, Allan and Madden, report that the highest rates of hazing occer as follows:

• among members of sports teams (47 percent),

• ROTC (46 percent),

• bands and performing arts organizations (34 percent),

• other school organizations (20 percent.)

Hazing-related activities included:

• being required to associate only with the peer group (28 percent),

• singing or chanting in public (21 percent),

• verbal abuse (19 percent),

• sleep deprivation (12 percent),

• getting a tattoo or piercing (12 percent),

• participating in a drinking game (12 percent),

• drinking until getting sick or losing consciousness (8 percent),

As we reflect this week on how we have changed in the 10 years since the Columbine tragedy, we might take into consideration the more subtle methods of coercion that continue to influence your teenagers.

Adults, be informed about this; make sure you are tuned in to the group dynamics that influence your teens so you can provide the guidance they may need.

Image via Wikipedia

If you are like me, you may be amazed that one kid can send 6,473 text messages in one month. But what I find even more surprising are the number of young people involved in “sexting” – this is the new popular term for sending and receiving messages and images with sexual connotations. In a revealing study titled “Sex and Tech” conducted by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and Cosmo Girl, we learn that

• 37% of teen girls and 40% of teen boys are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages, and
• 22% of teen girls and 18% of teen boys have sent or posted nude or semi-nude pictures or video of themselves.

Where does this behavior come from? Let’s consider four possible explanations:

1.) Age-appropriate experimentation: Teenagers are in an important developmental stage as they figure out who they are and who they want to be. This is part of their job as adolescents; they are moving out from under parents’ wings and preparing to go out into the world as their own, separate and independent beings. During the teen years they often experiment with various personas… am I like Britney? Am I like my older cousin Jamie? You may see your teen change her look, her friends, her activities during this natural and important exploration process. It makes sense that some of this experimentation will take place over and through the communication channels that they utilize, including texting and on the computer. Just because they experiment with a sexual message or image doesn’t mean that they truly believe this is who they are… they may just be trying the image out to see how it feels. While you may be disturbed by a sexual innuendo or risky image that your teen projects in a message, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve failed in teaching her values, she just might be in need of more discussion and guidance. Some amount of experimentation with one’s image is perfectly “normal” for teens.

2.) Indirect communication: Because texting is not face-to-face communication, it feels one step removed, possibly one step safer than a personal come-on. Consider that even adult communication changes when we are not face to face; I’m constantly amazed at how aggressive and nasty many comments are on public blogs and discussion boards…. the closer we get to anonymity the more we tend to push the limits of acceptable behavior.

3.) Pressure and expectations: Consider the behavior that is modeled on television and in the movies for our teens; kids sometimes feel pressure that they should be engaging in communication that is sexual in nature – it surrounds them all day and all night! They feel pressure in a general sense from these images and they sometimes feel direct pressure from their peers. In the above-mentioned study 51% of teen girls say “pressure from a guy” is a reason they send sexy messages. As a whole 23% of teen girls and 24% of teen boys say they were pressured by friends to send or post sexual content.

4.) Minimal supervision: Teens today can get away with more because parents aren’t watching. I don’t mean this as a value judgment on parents, but rather to point out that few parents actually are aware of the content of many of the text messages that are sent via your child’s cell phone. Monitoring the content of kids’ messages isn’t easy, and even caring and watchful parents wonder what the right level of supervision should be.

Many are conflicted about this activity: Deep in the back of the Sex and Tech study I found a fascinating data point that I believe helps to demonstrate the conflict that kids feel about messages with sexual content. Respondents were asked to describe the people who send suggestive messages and images by responding to a list of adjectives. The top four adjectives* kids used to describe those who send sexy images and messages were:

• 72% slutty
• 66% flirty
• 65% desperate
• 55% bold

You can feel the attraction teens sense in this activity by their descriptive terms of “flirty” and “bold,” can’t you? What teen wouldn’t want to be those things? And yet most know it’s not the kind of activity that will make them proud.

So why do some teens do it anyway? Perhaps because of the four explanations above and because they are teens. Because of their stage of brain development they don’t connect actions with consequences.

Hopefully you can find a way in to guide them so their consequences don’t live on in cyberspace forever.

*Net of those who responded “strongly” and “somewhat agree”

It’s a tsunami; your kids are subjected to over 3000 commercial messages a day*. The marketing messages directed to kids and teens are both direct and subtle, and absolutely never-ending. Your kids, in fact, have such powerful purchasing clout that psychologists, anthropologists and behavioral scientists examine and research how they think, act and influence buying decisions. No wonder today’s parents feel such pressure from their kids for the latest gizmos, gadgets and designer brands.

Here is a sobering fact:

• Children now spend $40 billion dollars of their own money and influence another $700 billion in spending annually – roughly the equivalent of the combined economies of the world’s 115 poorest countries. *

Government regulation of policies to protect kids from excessive advertising changed in the early 1980s when the Federal Trade Commission lost authority to regulate advertising and marketing to children in the FTC Improvement Act. The net effect of this change is shocking:

• In the two decades prior to deregulation, kids’ consumer spending increased at a modest rate of roughly 4% a year. Since deregulation, it has grown a remarkable 35% every year, from 4.2 billion dollars in 1984 to 40 billion dollars in 2008 – an 852% increase.*

The Media Education Foundation is a non-profit that produces documentary films and other educational resources to inspire critical reflection on the social, political, and cultural impact of American mass media. Their documentary Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood traces the dramatic changes that have occurred in our kids’ lifetimes. You have felt the powerful shift in marketing, although it might have been subtle and beneath your radar screen – at least that’s the way it progressed for me. When the Teenage Mutuant Ninjas Turtles were entertaining my young son I don’t remember being upset that McDonalds offered related toys in their Happy Meals. But that insidious act was just the beginning of what has become a tsunami of unrelenting product promotions. It’s madness now, and with so much media being consumed by our kids, it’s helpful to highlight this issue to parents. Personally, I wasn’t aware of the telling statistics behind this seemingly gradual shift toward materialism in our younger generation. But I have wondered as our society has become, and particularly as our teens have become so materialistic – are we are doing a poor job as parents? Is it our fault? Is there something fundamentally wrong or shallow with our kids? It’s far more complex than that.

It’s bad enough that kids are targeted because of their impressive influence on what items and what brands families purchase, but marketers go even further now when they infuse products with social meaning. This marketing approach doesn’t focus on a product’s features or use, but rather infuses the product with symbolism. As stated in the materials from the Media Education Foundation: “Marketers promote a set of highly materialistic values about what it means to be ‘cool,’ …embedding values in the messages that glamorize self-indulgence, instant gratification and narcissism.”* Their techniques, research and knowledge about human behavior are pretty sophisticated, and directed toward maximizing your child’s influence on purchasing behavior.

Juliet Schor is on the Board of Advisors for The Media Education Foundation, and an eloquent and informed spokesperson on this issue. Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood offers an opportunity for classroom and kitchen table discussion about this issue. They have posted the entire transcript online and they also offer helpful study guides to generate insightful examination of this issue.

What can parents do? How do you counter the incessant, subtle and not-so-subtle messages your kids receive? How can we as parents and professionals counter the culture and teach our kids about the values that really count and that matter the most?

There aren’t any easy answers, for sure. I invite your thoughts, suggestions and resources. And I’ll keep trying to share good ideas with you.

*Quotes and statistics come from the Media Education Foundation Study Guide for Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood.

It took less than 2 seconds to obliterate six months of work, and courage, and effort.

Last January Drew moved from the west coast to the east coast; his parents felt that it would be easier for him if they made the move in the middle of the school year rather than begin a summer in a new town knowing nobody. So from January to June Drew had put up a brave front, trying to make friends, trying to be accepted in his new school, trying to break into the seventh grade cliques. And in 2 seconds everything changed when one of his classmates said three simple words to Drew on the last day of school…

“I hate you.”

What would possess a kid to do something so heartless and cruel? It was days later when Drew told me his story, and the pain in his eyes was still intense and sharp, as it was in his mother’s eyes.

Of course it happened because Drew is cool. He is kind; he is funny; he is handsome…so the other boy is probably jealous, and threatened.

But telling that to Drew doesn’t take away his pain.

Do Drew a favor. If there is a new child in your community or in your child’s school, reach out to that new child this summer and make him/her feel welcome. Teach your middle schoolers about feelings, and consideration.

There is no way to justify that kind of cruelty.

The students on the 11-person panel seemed rather “normal” in most ways for this high-achieving school. These kids were on athletic teams, some were in honors courses, active in community service, in the band… they looked like a typical panel of high school students, except they were here to talk about the Youth Risk Behavior Study and what really happens in high school.

I raised my hand and asked “What’s the profile of a substance user (or abuser) here at this school?” They looked around at one another and one of them said “They pretty much look like us.”

In other words, “users” are well disguised because they live in the midst of, and by outward appearance are indistinguishable from, other teenagers.

That got me thinking. So I asked my daughter, eighteen years old at the time, about the profile of a “user.” She immediately said “Popularity.” Wow: her perception is popularity increases one’s chances of using illegal substances.

New data from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) supports this perception with real facts…and if you’re parenting teens or working with them you need to know this.

CASA seeks to identify factors that impact teenage substance abuse, and their August 2007 study reveals some alarming data about the extent of drugs and alcohol in our middle and high schools. They refer to “drug infested” schools where “drug dealing and use, drug possession, and drug or alcohol intoxication are common features of school life.” They compare “drug-infested” and “drug-free” schools in many areas, and in the behavior of “popular” students the differences are quite dramatic. Note:

When you look at the “most popular” teens who attend “drug-infested” schools, the usage rates sky-rocket. Compared to popular teens at drug-free schools, those who attend drug-infested schools and consider themselves to be popular are:

and on it goes. You get the picture….

So, as you contemplate your teenager’s social life, be careful what you wish for. Many an experienced parent will tell you of situations where their kids prefered to stay at home and miss some of the big parties because they simply didn’t want to be put in situations over which they had no control.

Don’t be the parent blindly pushing your kid out the door to make friends or be the popular one. While tuned-in parents can support and help a teen whose social life needs some invigoration, it’s best to listen a lot to what your teen is saying, and don’t push too hard.

The facts shown in the CASA study should make you take pause. “Popularity” can come with some difficult pressures for kids to handle.

The facts are in: Kids who bully in middle school are five times more likely to have a criminal record by the time they are 25 years old.

Bullying does matter, and that statistic should help explain why. Bullying is behavior that deserves attention and intervention, and parents must understand that their behavior makes a difference.

What is bullying today? And why is everyone talking about it as though it’s new? Hasn’t it been going on for centuries? These are questions that many parents are asking, and Stan Davis, an expert on the topic, was willing to provide valuable input.

First, the definition: Bullying is a quest for power and status in a social environment. To put it another way, bullying takes place when those with a higher degree of power use that power to solidify it.

Bullying has taken place throughout history, and examples abound: racism, sexual discrimination, prohibiting women from the right to vote…in every time period in the history of man there are people with power who solidify it by holding others back. And, just as in the examples of racism and discrimination, it has taken changes in laws to disallow this behavior.

Unfortunately, bullying behavior is too commonly seen. We see it on the playground, but we also see it in adult interactions. We see it exhibited on reality TV. Parents and teachers find the messages are difficult to combat when we see bullies portrayed as funny, or we see people use social power over others to win.

The powerful don’t give up their power willingly; society must decide the values it will promote, and society makes and defends laws accordingly. We’ve seen fundamental changes in values in our lifetime as we’ve become a more diverse and tolerant culture. These examples help us put the topic of bullying in a larger, and more meaningful, context.  Today we are aware of the consequences of allowing this dangerous behavior, and our culture no longer wants to tolerate bullying. 

Although the horrific school shootings in recent years have been the catalyst for the anti-bullying movement, there are many important reasons to support this change of heart, and the reasons are visible in every school yard. 10% of kids will behave as bullies, and 10% of kids will be the target of bullies. The toll bullying takes on the targets is akin to the toll suffered by victims of domestic violence… it can last a lifetime.

“Coaching the targets of bullying is not the answer,” says Stan Davis. “We have to change the system, rather than the target.” You see, a victim doesn’t have the power to stop the bully, so our only recourse is to change the system around it. This makes sense, when you consider our earlier examples such as racism and gender discrimination. In order to change the system, adults must play a key role. To make changes, playground behaviors previously tolerated are no longer allowed. This requires adults to clearly articulate expectations, and adults need to be consistent when applying consequences when transgressions do occur.

Davis says targets need protection and supervision; coaching or advice won’t help. We shouldn’t ask targets if they want to “press charges;” the adults must develop the system in such a way that consequences are applied automatically. Teaching victims how to defend themselves is not addressing the causal behavior; it’s the bullying behavior that must be addressed and forbidden.

Parents’ behavior plays an important role in preventing bullying. Parents don’t have to model bullying for their kids to be bullies; so the connection between parental behavior and bullying may not be obvious at first. Parents who are loving, and who spend positive time with their kids, help them develop into balanced individuals who are less likely to exhibit problem behavior. Kids who develop their sense of responsibility, and empathy, grow in healthy ways. They do this when they have lasting, positive relationships with adults.

Additionally, parents need to know that it is in homes where discipline is inconsistent that kids are more likely to learn to use power through bullying. Davis cites Dr. Dan Olweus’ research, which states that the two most important ways parents can help their children develop well – and not develop bullying behavior – is to spend time with them, and to apply discipline and limits consistently and fairly.

The media often portrays bullies in television, in reality shows, or in dramas where the bully wins the power. As is always the case, parents’ voices should be there to counteract the messages kids receive from such potentially powerful media.

Bullying today may or may not be different than it was when today’s adults were growing up, but certainly our culture has changed. We now can document the serious long term consequences of this behavior, and will no longer tolerate it. But it will take vigilance from all of us to make these cultural changes last over time.

Eleanor Roosevelt offers context for us all: “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college she attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

You can visit Stan Davis’ website at www.StopBullyingNow.com