Strict new laws, cultural pressures, dwindling resources make rebellion risky

New England: The high cost of teen angst

Jay Cohen, Ashland's new town social worker, remembers growing up in the 1960s and '70s when angry teens would publish a “slam list” of classmates they didn't like. “Any person who got angry enough could say, ‘Get away from me or I'll kill you,’” said Cohen. Back then, he added, someone caught vandalizing school property might get a strong reprimand and remember the incident as a “valuable life lesson.”

Hopkinton Police Chief Tom Irvin recalls his teen years in Lincoln-Sudbury High School when classmates would draw pictures on their notebooks of students they didn't like. Some of the drawings showed the student being bombed by airplanes or hanging from a noose. “If these were brought to an adult's attention at all — and it didn't happen often — it was dealt with by a call to the parents,” Irvin said.

Today, these type of threats can be considered criminal. In Hopkinton, a teenage girl could face charges after admitting she scrawled offensive messages on the wall of a girls' bathroom — messages that included racial slurs, threats and a “hit list” of 10 fellow students and a male teacher. The incident, which occurred Tuesday, threw the town into turmoil for two days before the girl confessed. Under the worst-case scenario, the girl could be charged with a felony and receive up to 20 years in a state prison. A new state anti-terrorism law signed in September 2002 makes it a felony to “communicate a threat causing public alarm.” The law makes no distinction between juveniles and adults.

Those who work with troubled teens say that the cost of threatening others is much higher today, even if the teen never would have acted on the threats. “We keep telling kids who are brought in for these kinds of offenses that these are no longer jokes,” said Gail Garinger, first justice of the Middlesex County Juvenile Court in Framingham. “They can't do things like this in today's climate.”

Teens who vandalize or disrupt school activities can also face charges in juvenile court for malicious destruction, vandalism or disturbing a school activity, said Garinger, who stressed that she was not commenting on the Hopkinton incident. Young people who threaten to commit a crime and who are committed to the Department of Youth Services can spend as much as 120 days in a juvenile detention facility. “Potentially a student could be charged with two, three or four things,” she said.

While most first offenders aren't given jail time, their actions still bring them trouble with the law. “There might be community service, or treatment, or restitution if someone was damaging property,” Garinger said. She added that a juvenile record can follow a teen who commits a crime as an adult.

Experts say that the social and emotional pressures on today's teens are more intense than ever, even in affluent communities. “When we were in school, things were tough, but you could make mistakes and recover,” said Cohen, a former director of youth and family services for the town of Franklin. “Today there's so much competition, and if you need help, there's a culture that makes it difficult for you to ask for it. Asking for help cements the fact that you are different.”

Teen angst has been part of the American cultural landscape since James Dean. The glamorous image of the sulky, rebellious teen belies the sometimes-painful physical, emotional and hormonal changes that accompany adolescence.

“Between the ages of 15 and 18 kids go through a tremendous amount of change,” says Jane Cook, adjustment counselor at Hopkinton High School. “The last third of their brains are developing, they go through psycho-social changes, and it's a difficult time throughout. Middle school and early high school seem to be the most difficult times. By junior and senior year, the kids settle into their identity.”

Today, children and teens live in a faster-paced world where there is little time to relax and decompress, said Pat Moran, program director at Wayside MetroWest Counseling in Framingham.

“When I was a kid, we did our homework, then went out and played,” she said. “Now they see so much violence on television, they have the Internet, they have the cell phones on their belt...they live in an over-stimulated environment.”

In affluent, rapidly-growing MetroWest communities, a cultural gap can sometimes exist between the rich newcomers and less-affluent teens whose families have been part of the town for decades. The division is most keenly felt in freshman and sophomore years.

“When I came here nine years ago, it was very rural,” said Cook. “It has changed rapidly over the past eight or nine years.”

Hopkinton High School senior Caitlin Gorski pointed out that teens in affluent Hopkinton often feel social ostracism keenly. “Kids have less to worry about here, so they are more self-focused and people-focused,” she said. “You worry about how others see you...People do get judgmental.”

Said Jay Porter, the resource officer at Hopkinton High School: “There's definitely a line between the haves and have-nots. Most kids eventually see through it. The older the kids get, the more they accept each other.”

Kids in rich communities also face the pressure of high expectations. “In affluent towns, people are very successful and their expectations for their children are very high,” said Sue Lightman, adjustment counselor at Lincoln-Sudbury High School. “The expectation is not just that you will go to college, but that you will go to a very good college. Kids are stressed out trying to keep up with these increasing demands. They might sleep four hours a night because they take such a long time to do their homework. They might be involved in four or five clubs.”

Educators and students agree that ninth- and 10th-grade students often have the most difficult time with social pressure. While the Hopkinton School District is protecting the name of the girl who scrawled the offensive graffiti and the students on her “hit list,” students around the high school and middle school widely believe the parties involved are freshmen or sophomores.

“I think people do things (like the graffiti) because they want to get attention,” said a Hopkinton eighth-grader. “When you're being picked on, you can get easily hurt. There's not much physical stuff here, but people can be really mean with their words.”

“It's worse with girls,” added another student. “They take it more personally.”

Teacher Valerie von Rosenvinge, who helps coordinate Hopkinton High School's mentoring program for ninth-grade students, said that upperclassmen tend to pick on the freshmen. Last year, when she solicited anonymous stories about high school life, von Rosenvinge said that a few of the letters bashed the freshman class.

“The younger kids are the most vulnerable,” she said. “Upperclassmen think that freshmen are obnoxious. Freshmen are used to being the big fish in the middle school, and all of a sudden they are thrust into this grown-up world and they are trying to act the part. To the upperclassmen, freshmen are seen as invasive...as mosquitoes.”

Hopkinton has several well-regarded programs to help children and teens learn to tolerate differences and stave off the bullying that sometimes leads to outbursts of anger.

A new ninth-grade mentoring program, called “Ignite,” teams upperclassmen with freshmen, giving the new students an ally and a guide for that turbulent first year. Von Rosenvinge said that many mentors accompanied their freshmen to the first high school dance of the new school year; weekly advisory sessions with teachers give high school students a chance to discuss troubling issues; and a new town-sponsored Youth Commission aims to create activities and safe hangouts for teens who are not involved in sports or after-school clubs.

Ashland is adopting a new anti-bullying program for its middle school, patterned on a successful program developed by Wellesley College that helps students appreciate diversity. According to Jenna Pedroli, the guidance counselor running the program, it will aim to identify bullies and those at risk from them, and to defuse tensions between students.

Lincoln-Sudbury has an “MVP” program, standing for Mentors and Violence Prevention. It also offers peer mediation, programs that help depressed sophomores, and other resources.

But money for those programs is getting harder to come by. “It has been tough because state money has dried up,” says Lightman of Lincoln-Sudbury, who estimated that the school has lost $50,000 in outside funding. As a result, the school is digging deeper into its own funds to keep programs afloat, including two that deal with violence prevention and substance abuse. “The resources that we once had are just not there anymore,” said Lightman.

Cohen, the new social worker in Ashland, came to that town after his former department in Franklin was eliminated due to budget problems. “When the budget goes dead, the social service programs, the suicide prevention programs, they all get cut,” Cohen said. “This really sends the wrong message to the kids.”

While many programs have faced cuts, Cohen says that the ones that remain are doing a good job of giving teens an outlet for their anger and their issues. But inevitably, some kids fall through the cracks. “Columbine High School was wealthy and had resources,” Cohen said. “But the reality is that in social services, you can't reach everybody before something happens.”

Parents can and should play a role in nurturing their teen through the most turbulent periods, said Jane Cook, the adjustment counselor in Hopkinton High School. But sometimes, the parents are too stressed out themselves.

“Sometimes affluence comes with a price of too much priority placed on careers,” Cook said. “The most important thing is being available for your kids, and not just by cell phone. Kids need to know who their parents are and what they stand for.”

By Cathy Flynn
29 October 2003
 

http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/local_regional/ashl_teens10262003.htm

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