THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 19, 1996 TAG: 9603190029
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines
Part of an occasional series on children and fighting.
START WITH the basics: Children aren't perfect.
Throw in some complicating factors: Puberty. Students thrown together from different neighborhoods and schools and backgrounds. A budding desire for independence and solving one's own problems. Puberty. First girlfriends and boyfriends. Peer pressure. An increased concern with self-esteem.
Did we mention puberty?
Toss well - as is done in most middle schools - and what comes out are sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders primed for a tempest. Moods and self-image can be brittle, and conflicts arising from real or imagined slights are legion.
It's the ``he-said, she-said'' phenomenon: Someone says something unkind or untrue or both to someone about someone else, and it makes it back to that someone else. Someone Else's pride is hurt, the all-important image has taken a beating, and Someone has to pay.
Sometimes such conflicts boil over into fisticuffs, most often with boys; girls are more likely to stick to words, albeit vicious ones.
Most parents of 11-to-14-year-olds don't have to worry - it's not the Wild West out there, and most children go to school or the playground without problem.
But parents may wish to increase the chances that their children won't get into fights - particularly these days, when it's not unheard of for preteens on the playground to be packing pistols.
Such lessons aren't always easy for this in-between age. The youngsters are neither little children nor young adults, but often act like both - sometimes in the same day.
``It's confusing for parents and for kids,'' said N. Michelle Smith, a guidance counselor at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Suffolk.
Middle-school-age children typically are trying out their independence, moving away from childish things and ways and looking more to their peers for acceptance than to their parents or other adults, say child-development experts.
``Their hormones are kicking in and they're dealing with all that,'' said Linda Horsey, a Norfolk therapist and adjunct professor teaching graduate-level counseling courses at Norfolk State University. ``They have their big toe on the doorstep of adulthood. They have this little crack open and there's all these exciting things coming at them.''
And these children also are increasingly concerned with what the other kids think about them - popularity and self-esteem become vital interests. Boys and girls may aggressively posture and flex muscles, literally and figuratively. Boys in particular may feel the need to fit a macho stereotype, and be afraid to back down from anyone.
All this might seem irrational to parents, but they have to remember that their children don't have the same experience to think or act otherwise, said William R. Stallings, who coordinated conflict-resolution programs for the Portsmouth Public Schools.
``It's kind of, `You have to stand up for yourself; you have to stand up for your friends,' '' said Smith, the Suffolk guidance counselor. ``In elementary school, they had their parents to take care of things.''
Parents, of course, should've been instructing their children all along that fighting and violence aren't the best ways to solve problems, and showing them other, peaceful ways to settle conflicts: to talk them out, to ignore them, to take them to an adult. The lessons aren't too late in middle school, only harder, the experts say.
And they're crucially important, since this is when children pick up the skills and habits they'll likely carry with them throughout their adult lives.
Most importantly, show your children how to act; don't just tell them.
``Parents have to not fight in the home!'' exclaimed Katharine C. Kersey, professor and director of Old Dominion University's Child Study Center. ``This has been documented over and over and over, that children who see violence in the home - it doesn't have to be physical violence, it can be verbal assaults, it can be sarcasm -'' are likely to settle their own problems using violence.
``They're struggling with the concept of justice,'' Norfolk State's Horsey agreed. ``What parents don't understand is that kids are seeing if what you're doing and saying are out of sync. If what you're saying is different from what you're doing, they'll go with what you're doing. . . . If you have hostile ways of resolving conflicts, I guarantee you it will continue'' in the children.
Parents should explain to their children exactly what behaviors need to change - the children's and the parents'. Single parents should make an effort for their children see them peacefully resolving differences with other adults, so they'll have an example to follow, Horsey said.
Parents should talk to their children about school, about the other kids, even about fights the children have witnessed, to use them as learning tools for discussions about how to properly handle conflicts. Note the negative consequences of fighting: school suspension, bloody noses, the chances of seriously hurting someone or getting hurt over something trivial. Talk encourages more talk, and can uncover concerns children have before they reach the fighting stage.
Parents, as always, should be consistent in their teaching. And they should praise children when they settle disagreements peacefully.
``So many of us tend to overlook the good things children are doing,'' ODU's Kersey said. ``But then we get all spastic when we see them take the toy.''
Children, she added, ``have a real sense of right and wrong, and we need to reinforce it like mad, and live it and model it and talk about it, to keep it alive.''
These are sometimes hard lessons. When someone says something derogatory about a boy's mother, it's not easy to convince him that it's OK to simply disagree and walk away.
And sometimes walking away isn't possible.
``Generally, children should fight under the same circumstances that an adult would fight: as a last resort, in self-defense, and not as a means to gain status or impress someone,'' said Dewy G. Cornell. He's a clinical psychologist and associate professor at the University of Virginia and one of the leaders of the Virginia Youth Violence Project, which helps educators around the state reduce the threat of violence in their schools.
Cornell added that parents shouldn't teach their children that they must fight for self-respect or to earn their parents' respect. ``Studies of bullies and aggressors find that many if not most of them learned to be aggressive in their homes.''
If there are repeated threats or assaults, parents should intervene - a good opportunity to show their children how adults peacefully handle conflict.
In the end, parents should explain that differences always will exist, but they can be ``win-win situations'' when there's no fighting and neither side is forced to give in, Portsmouth's Stallings said. Even when a child walks away from a tormentor.
`` `You're walking away from ignorance,' that's what a kid said to me,'' Stallings said.
KEYWORDS: CONFLICT TEENAGER SERIES by CNB