Lack of support for parents who live in fear of their teenagers, study shows

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domestic violence, parenting, parents, shame, stigma, support, teenage violence, Teens, violence

Lack of support for parents who live in fear of their teenagers, study shows

Parents living in fear of their abusive and violent teenagers are being left without support because of a lack of understanding of adolescent violence directed at parents, according to the first academic study into the issue.

Data from the Metropolitan police revealed that there were 1,892 reported cases of 13- to 19-year-olds committing violence against their own parents in Greater London alone over a 12-month period from 2009-10.

Dr Rachel Condry, lead researcher at the University of Oxford, which carried out the study, said there was little support for parents in such circumstances from police, youth justice teams or other agencies.

“The problem has, until now, gone largely unrecognised, which can mean that parents can find it very difficult to get help,” she said.

“The parents we spoke to said they were stigmatised and felt ashamed – they were experiencing patterns of controlling behaviour that were similar to domestic violence. One woman told us she would get up in the middle of the night to make her teenager dinner because she feared the consequences if she didn’t; others talked about walking on eggshells.”

Britain’s incoming director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, warned last month that teenage violence in the home was a hidden aspect of domestic violence: “There is a lack of respect and a lack of regard for authority. When I was growing up the thought of striking a parent was beyond the pale. Is that peers? Is that TV? Is that the general environment in the house? You are not born to commit domestic violence.”

Nicola, a mother in West Yorkshire who did not want to be named, said her daughter first started to behave violently towards her when she was 13. “She’d push me, punch me, lose her temper and smash the house up – it got to the stage where I was scared stiff,” she said.

“I thought it was me, my mothering skills. People were asking me why I couldn’t control her, but what was I supposed to do? Beat her up?”

Nicola was sent on a parenting course, but felt there was no one to help her. “I’ve got three other kids and none of them were like this – it wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was doing,” she said.

The study, co-authored by Caroline Miles, found that 87% of suspects in the London study were male and 77% of victims were women, although fathers could feel more reluctant to report the issue, said Condry.

The study found that, in the reported cases analysed, 60% of victims were classified as white European, while 24.3% were African-Caribbean. It says: “Families reporting adolescent-to-parent violence are likely to be at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale”.

Of those who recorded a profession, 46.7% were unemployed, 11.6% described themselves as housewives, while 3.4% were teachers and 2.9% were nurses.

Condry said it was a problem that could hit families in any demographic. “It is not the fact of being a single parent that is causing this issue, but parenting an adolescent is difficult and perhaps if a parent is on their own there is more potential for things to go awry.” The study found that a range of issues, including exposure to domestic violence, peer influence, mental health issues and drug problems had played a role, but there was no one reason for adolescent violence against parents.

“There may be issues around what we think of as poor parenting but many families we spoke to did not have those type of histories – that is uncomfortable for society, but we have to get a handle on the complexity of this issue,” she said.

When asked what she thought had provoked her daughter’s behaviour, Nicola said: “She has always seen me dominated, but I’m having counselling now and I’m starting to stand up for myself.”

Eventually she got support from the Rosalie Ryrie Foundation, a charity that deals with family violence. “They were fantastic; they showed me different techniques and it’s much better – she still loses her temper but she’s not as violent,” she said.

“It’s hard to ask for help. Other people should remember that it’s easy to say stand up to them, but it’s much more difficult when you are in that position.”

Condry said: “We want our victims to be entirely blameless. We think parents should be in control of their own children – but this is not an issue that can simplistically be blamed on bad parenting.”

Thousands Of Children At Risk Of Sexual Abuse Claims NSPCC

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Bullying, Children, missing persons, risk, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, Teens

Thousands Of Children At Risk Of Sexual Abuse Claims NSPCC

Thousands of children repeatedly went missing from care homes last year, leaving them at risk of sexual abuse, a leading charity has said.

The NSPCC revealed that 7,885 teenagers and children vanished from care in England and Wales last year, with at least 2,959 going missing more than once, some 35 times.

Around 40% of the youngsters were aged 13 to 17, but some were as young as six.

Tom Rahilly from the charity said: “The state needs to be a parent for these children. If any other child went missing their parents would move heaven and earth to find them and to understand why they did it. It should be no different for young people in care.

“Repeatedly going missing should be a big warning sign as this kind of behaviour can put them at serious risk of harm such as grooming or sexual exploitation. But we have to understand why they are doing it.

“Children go missing for many reasons – they’re being bullied, they’ve been put in a home miles from their family and they miss them and their friends, or they just don’t trust staff enough to tell them where they are.

“Many will have been abused before being placed in care and they need a lot of attention and protection. Going missing for just an hour or two can be long enough for them to come to harm.”

The charity is calling for repeatedly going missing from care to be fully acknowledged as sign that a child is at greater risk of harm.

It also wants care staff to make sure that they listen to children about why they have gone missing rather than simply punishing them, and to work with police to stop children going missing and to return them to safety as quickly as possible.

The NSPCC made a Freedom of Information request to all the police forces in England and Wales to obtain the figures, and 29 out of 43 responded in full.

However the charity said that it is estimated that less than half of all missing cases of this kind are reported to police.

Figures from the Department of Education also differ drastically to those supplied by police, putting the number of missing children at fewer than 1,000, the NSPCC said.

Last month concerns were raised by children’s charities about changes to the way that police deal with missing people.

The plans could see the number of cases where officers are called out drop by a third.

Call handlers will class cases as either “absent”, when a person fails to arrive somewhere they are expected, or the more serious as “missing”, where there is a specific reason for concern.

Police deal with around 327,000 reports of missing people each year, the equivalent of around 900 a day, two-thirds of which involve children.

There is often a link between a child frequently going missing and falling prey to sexual abuse.

The NSPCC warned that the changes could put children at risk of being sexually exploited, while the Children’s Society claimed that pilots carried out were too short to prove the plans were safe.

A Department for Education spokesman said: “We welcome the NSPCC’s findings. It is simply unacceptable that some residential care homes do not respond immediately when young people go missing. That is why we are taking immediate action to reform the system, so all homes are safe and secure places where vulnerable children can get the support they need.

“We have already changed the rules so that Ofsted can share the names and addresses of care homes with the police to better protect children who go missing. For the first time, we will also begin collecting national data on all children who run away, not just those missing for 24 hours.

“Decisions about whether to place children at a significant distance from their local community will be taken at a much more senior level as a result of a new duty on local authorities.

“Additionally a new regulation will mean children’s homes should not be open in areas that are unsafe, and children’s home providers will be required to work with the police and LA to consider the risks. We are also taking steps to improve the skills of care home workers so they are better able to identify risks and take action before children run away.”

Chief Constable Pat Geenty from the Association of Chief Police Officers said: “We know that regularly going missing from home can be a warning sign of child sexual exploitation.

“It can also signify that children and young people may be at risk of other forms of abuse, becoming a victim of crime or involved in criminal activity.

“This is why we have acted to improve our response to risk assessing and responding to missing person cases.”

Teachers To Be Given ‘Sexting’ Curb Guide

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Bullying, CEOP, guidance, images, internet, mobile phones, online safety, peer pressure, resources, school, sexting, support, teachers, Teens, young people

Teachers To Be Given ‘Sexting’ Curb Guide

Teachers are to be issued with a guide on how to deal with ‘sexting’ – the sharing of explicit photos or videos through mobile phones and the internet.

Amid a rise in pupils sending sexually explicit pictures, the advice pack, which is launched on Wednesday, offers tips on how to support a child whose image has been shared and whether the devices used should be searched.

A study by the NSPCC last year reported up to 40% of young people had been involved in ‘sexting’, and found teenage girls in particular were facing pressure from classmates to provide sexually explicit pictures of themselves.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, welcomed the guidance.

He said: “The problem of ‘sexting’ – and the exposure of children to pornographic images through mobile devices – poses real and serious challenges for parents, head teachers and school staff.

“It exemplifies the way technology blurs the boundaries between school life and the wider world.”

The brochure – titled Sexting in schools: advice and support around self-generated images – will complement other resources already available to teachers, including ‘So You Got Naked Online’, produced last year by the South West Grid for Learning Trust.

Peter Davies, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, which helped develop the new document, said: “There are very real risks with this activity by young people, from bullying to the sharing of these images among sex offenders.”

The CEOP had seen an increase in young people sharing sexual images and videos of themselves with their peer group, he said.

Last October, the Internet Watch Foundation found that 88% of self-generated, sexually explicit online content of young people had been taken from its original location and uploaded onto other websites.

Statistics from the children’s charity Beatbullying suggested 38% of young people have received a sexually explicit text or email, while 25% have received a sexual image they found offensive.

Research by the charity also suggested over half of teachers (54%) knew pupils were creating and sharing explicit material of themselves.

The newly-published guidance was developed by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a child protection charity, Securus Software, which provides online safety systems to over 3,200 schools, and Medway Council, whose existing advice for Kent schools was incorporated into the recommendations.

The Department of Education and the National Association of Headteachers also supported the development of the resource.

The pack will include advice to teachers about how to respond if a child tells them about ‘sexting’ they have been involved in, as well as how to handle explicit images, manage student reaction and prevent further incidents.

Case studies in the document highlight the devastating impact the sharing of explicit images can have on children’s lives and the challenges faced by schools in dealing with it.

Facebook Is The Worst Social Networking Site For Bullying, New Report Says

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abuse, Bebo, Blackberry Messenger, Bullying, Cyberbullying, Depression, Facebook, harassment, internet, self-harm, social networking sites, Teens, trolling, Whatsapp, young people

Facebook Is The Worst Social Networking Site For Bullying, New Report Says

Facebook is the worst social networking site for internet trolling, and bullying is now more prevalent online than anywhere else, a study has suggested.

Some 87% of teenagers who reported cyber abuse said they were targeted on Mark Zuckerberg’s site, while around one-fifth of youngsters were picked on by Twitter trolls, the report showed.

Those most frequently victimised were 19-year-old boys.

According to the report, 49% of those targeted by bullies were victimised off-line, while 65% of teenagers were subjected to abuse in cyberspace.

Only 37% of those who had experienced trolling ever reported it to the social network where it took place, the report found.

Emma-Jane Cross, CEO and founder of the charity BeatBullying, said many young people were suffering in silence.

“Bullying both on and off-line continues to be a serious problem for a huge number of teenagers and we cannot ignore its often devastating and tragic effects,” she said.

“We work with hundreds of young people being cyber-bullied or trolled so badly that it can lead to depression, truancy, self-harm, or even force them to contemplate or attempt suicide.”

The study, for internet site knowthenet.org.uk, found a number of social networking sites had become “popular forums” for trolls.

Some 13% of the 13 to 19-year-olds consulted claimed they were targeted on BlackBerry Messenger, 8% said they were picked on by trolls on Bebo and 4% said they were victimised on Whatsapp.

Fewer than one in five (17%) teens said their first reaction would be to tell a parent and only 1% of those surveyed said their initial response would be to inform a teacher.

Around 34% of those who were picked on by trolls said their experiences lasted more than a month.

Knowthenet, which released the study, has now launched a “trolling hub” offering advice on how to deal with online bullying.

Opinium Research consulted more than 2,000 teenagers for the study.

A Facebook spokesman said: “There is no place for harassment on Facebook, but unfortunately a small minority of malicious individuals exist online, just as they do offline.

“We have a real name policy and provide people with simple tools to block people or report content which they find threatening so that we can remove it quickly.”

Links to report concerning behaviour on Facebook exist on every page of the site meaning users can report any piece of content.

Partner exploitation and violence in teenage intimate relationships

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abuse, relationships, Sexual Violence, Teens, young people

A 2009 report by the University of Bristol and the NSPCC on Partner exploitation and violence in teenage intimate relationships

Why divorce can be so difficult for teenage children

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Children, Divorce, family, parents, relationships, Teens, young people

Why divorce can be so difficult for teenage children

“Peter, just to say, I’m thinking of you and I love you very much. It would be great to talk to you, Dad.”

“Fuck off.”

The text messages between Chris Huhne and his then 18-year-old son, Peter, are painful for any father or son to read.

Over a period of 11 months to May 2011, they show a dad attempting to maintain a connection with his son as he goes through a messy and very public divorce. They also show a son who is absolutely furious with his father – for his “affairs”, for reducing their relationship “to lies and pleasantries”, for being “a pathetic loser and a joke”.

When I was 16 and my parents separated, I vowed that I would never forget what it was like to be a teenager in that painful situation, but reading Peter’s texts, 20 years on, I realised I had.

None of us can judge whether Peter’s anger is justifiable or not, but it is shocking. And it sheds light on an overlooked part of divorce: how deeply it can affect adult, or late-teenage, children.

I know so many people whose parents did something similar to mine: struggled on in a difficult marriage “for the sake of the children”, finally splitting up when the kids went to university or were considered old enough to handle it. This can be a selfless parental act, and is often what the children want: although my parents were visibly unhappy in my teenage years I was desperate for them to stay together.

The upside is that it can be better to maintain the familiar family structure, says Christine Northam, a relationships counsellor for Relate; the downside is that children may develop in “a sterile and not very loving” environment.

Unfortunately, parents who stay together for the children “don’t take into account the model they are presenting to their children”, thinks Northam, and these loveless examples can hamper children in their adult relationships. Parents staying together for the children may have another person in their lives and children learn to keep secrets, or protect mum or dad from the infidelity. Parents “are modelling something that perhaps is not very good for the kids”, says Northam.

My parents divorced in the pre-mobile phone era, although I don’t think I would have sent my dad messages like Peter’s. But I was angry with my father for several years, blamed him for the family breakdown, and sought to support my mum. As a teenager, I was deeply critical of my dad and what I regarded as his flaws. I think my feelings were complicated by my struggle to emerge as a man in my own right: somehow, my dad’s desires and relationships were embarrassing and eclipsed my own and, I felt, inhibited me from expressing desire or forming romances of my own.

“It’s loss, it’s grief, it’s bereavement,” says Northam of the anger felt by late teens whose parents divorce. “Kids of 18, 19 are quite judgmental; it’s all very black and white. They’ve lost what they had – they’ve lost mum and dad together. People just don’t understand that when they think: ‘I’ll have an affair and leave.’ Kids love stability and the family they grew up with, and that is the model we buy into as a society.”

It is easy for parents to assume their late-teenage children are more grownup than they are, says Angharad Rudkin, a clinical psychologist and chartered member of the British Psychological Society who works with adolescents struggling to come to terms with family breakdown. If they are 17 or 18, we may overestimate teenage maturity because they no longer have irrational strops. In fact, research shows that the brain continues to develop until the age of 25 or 26. “Assuming an older teenager will be able to understand why we’ve split up, and is sensible and fair, is still asking an awful lot,” says Rudkin. “Older teenagers can look back and feel like they were living a lie – that this family life they had grown up with and perhaps never questioned was something their parents were just waiting to break up when they went away to university.”

Splitting up when children are young adults may spare everyone awkward enforced access; the weekends with dad or the new life divided between two homes. But it creates a new difficulty: how can a parent who is shunned by a teenage child maintain contact? If they back off to give teenagers space to rage, that can be interpreted as uncaring. After my parents split, I remember feeling that the onus was on my dad to maintain contact with me; luckily for both of us, he did.

When you keep reassuring your teen that you love them, only to be faced by insults or silence, it must be hard not to lash out, or at least tell them it is tough for you too, and they are old enough to deal with it. It is absolutely essential, Rudkin and Northam agree, that divorcing parents of late teens remember to be the grownups. “You will have to swallow your pride and take the more grownup stance – they are still going to be furious little kids under it all,” she says. “It’s the adult’s responsibility to go out of their way to make contact with the teenager, and not expect a gracious response.”

Grownup children may become one parent’s confidante or “best friend” and children then feel responsible for their parent’s happiness (as they often take on an unnecessary responsibility for the disintegration of their parents’ marriage). “The parents need to stay in the role of parents,” says Northam. “Fathers need to remember that however grownup your child may look, you are still the father, and you need to be the parent who makes the effort to see your children – it’s not the kids’ responsibility. It sounds a bit banal, but one of the obvious things [for a departing father to do] is to say sorry.”

I have no idea whether Chris Huhne and Peter, who is 20 and at university, have repaired their relationship since those awful text exchanges. I hope they have. And if they haven’t, I hope that Chris is still trying, and Peter feels less fury.

Twenty years on from my parents’ divorce, the fact that I find it easier to empathise with Chris than with Peter’s teenage anger is one sign that my dad and I managed to repair our relationship. My own teenage rage seems a world away. I’m very grateful my dad never stopped trying with me, and I admire him for it now, even though I am not sure that a child ever forgets the pain their parents cause, no matter how grownup they are.

Bringing up daughters: The new battlefield for parents

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advertising, alcohol, anorexia, anxiety, bulimia, daughters, Depression, Eating Disorders, family, media, mental health issues, parents, pressure, self-harm, social media, Teens

Bringing up daughters: The new battlefield for parents

It’s a freezing night in Bristol, and snow is forecast – but every seat at Colston Hall in the city centre was sold out weeks ago, and not only for Ronan Keating who’s playing in the main auditorium. Also packing them in is a 59-year-old, softly spoken Australian psychotherapist, who will take to the stage for 90 minutes with just a whiteboard and some ideas that will keep his audience on the edge of their seats.

The psychotherapist is Steve Biddulph, and most of the people queuing up to hear him are the mothers of teenage girls. A few years ago Biddulph toured Britain warning of a crisis facing boyhood: now he is back with a similar message about girlhood. And if the audience here is anything to go by, he’s definitely touched a nerve. “Parents of girls are seriously worried about their daughters,” says Saffia Farr, editor of Juno magazine and the organiser of the Bristol part of Biddulph’s country-wide tour. “They feel there’s this overwhelming tide of advertising that’s targeting their daughters, of inappropriate clothing being sold in the shops, of media messages that encourage their girls to grow up way, way before their time. And they want to know what they can do about it.”

Telling them what they can do about it is Biddulph’s mission. “A few years ago, boys were a disaster area – there was an epidemic of ADHD, they were underperforming in exams, they were drinking too much and getting involved in wild behaviour,” he says. “Back then, girls seemed to be doing just fine. But, about five years ago, that all changed – suddenly, girls’ mental health started to plummet. Everyone knew a girl, or had a girl themselves, who had an eating disorder or who was depressed or was self-harming. It was a huge change in a very short period; I started to investigate why this was happening.”

Biddulph lives and works in Australia, but the crisis he sees brewing for young girls seems to be echoed across the Western world – and, in Britain, the figures suggest it’s worse than in other countries. A few weeks ago, the charity Childline announced a 68 per cent increase in youngsters contacting them about self-harming, and said most of the increase was among girls. The problem also seemed to be affecting teenagers at a younger age, with 14-year-olds now likely to be among callers.

Anxiety and depression in teenage girls is also on the rise: research from the Nuffield Foundation last year found that the proportion of 15- and 16-year-olds reporting feeling frequently anxious or depressed has doubled in the last 30 years, and is more common in girls: it has jumped from one in 30 to two in 30 for boys, and from one in 10 to two in 10 for girls. Meanwhile, a report from the Department of Health found teenage girls in Britain are more likely to binge drink than teenage girls anywhere else in Europe; more than half of 15- and 16-year-olds admit they drink to excess at least once a month. A separate report in 2011 found that one in five girls in this age bracket who drink at least once a week have drunken sex and later regret it.

Anorexia and bulimia are also dramatically on the increase: official figures for hospital admissions released last October pinpointed a 16 per cent rise in hospital admissions for eating disorders, and showed that one in every 10 of these admissions was a 15-year-old girl.

“There’s plenty to be concerned about,” Biddulph says. “Everyone who has a teenage daughter right now sees this, in their child and among their child’s friends.” The people they blame, he says, are the advertising industry and the media. “They are driving girls’ sensibilities and making them miserable. The corporate world has identified them as a new market for products, and is preying on them.” During his talk, Biddulph describes teenage girls as being out in the wilderness, surrounded by hyenas: it’s starting to get dark, he tells his audience, but they are all alone out there.

His message, though, is one of empowerment: he encourages parents to get together, to challenge the advertising industry and to lobby the Government to impose more restrictions on advertisers.

“Take the drinks industry – about 30 per cent of the market is sales to underage drinkers,” he says. “Alcohol companies are extremely powerful – but parents are powerful, too, and they have to stand against this and stop the marketing of alcopops and push for a higher drinking age.”

But the battle needs to be fought on a domestic as well as a policy front. “What we need to do is re-evaluate how we think of teenage girls: the current philosophy is that they’re growing older, so they need us less. But I believe that teenage girls go through a kind of second babyhood, and they in fact need their parents more than ever. We have to spend time with our daughters at this age: talk to them, listen to them, keep in touch with them. Staying connected to their parents makes all the difference to how they cope with the pressures they’re up against.”

Case study

Lindsay Julian, 51, lives in Salisbury. She has three daughters: Emily is 24, Olivia is 14, and Amelia is 11. She also has a son, Alexander, 28

“Emily got into drinking when she was about 15, and she started taking drugs fairly soon after that. It was a real roller-coaster time for all of us: sometimes she’d drink a lot and run off, and we’d have no idea where she was. One time, she didn’t come back all night, and we ended up calling the police. They were difficult times.

“There are so many pressures on young girls today – you’re very aware of that as a mother of daughters. So when my younger girls got close to the age where things got difficult with Emily, I thought: we’re going to do things differently this time round. I sent them to a Steiner school, where I think the pressures are lessened: the philosophy is holistic, it’s not all about exam results, which I think can be very stressful for young girls.

“Some of my daughters’ friends spend a lot of time on social media, texting and on Facebook – but I’m careful to limit those things for my girls, and it does make a difference. They watch TV but I monitor it – in some homes, TV seems like a third parent, and I don’t want it to be like that in our house. A lot of teenage girls never switch off, they’re constantly connected, and that puts them under pressure from one another as well as from advertisers.

“We’ve got friends where you can see that their 14-year-olds are more like adults; the wanting to drink, to go to parties all the time.

“Emily is fine now: things turned around for her eventually, and she now works as a researcher and has written a book. She’s a rock for her younger sisters and I’m very proud of her. I know you could say that she was OK in the end, but I don’t think it’s an experience I’d want to go through with my younger daughters. I think their adolescence could be happier, and less fraught, than Emily’s was.”

How ‘human mannequin’ disease teenager Louise Wedderburn is battling the odds to become a model

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bone, fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, genetic condition, joint, mobility, Teens

How ‘human mannequin’ disease teenager Louise Wedderburn is battling the odds to become a model

A teenager suffering from a rare genetic condition turning her into a “human mannequin” has refused to be beaten by her disease – and is battling against the odds to pursue her dream career in fashion.

Louise Wedderburn has a rare genetic condition which causes each of her joints to lock as the muscle turns into bone.

The 19-year-old was born with Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), a genetic disease which causes soft tissue to turn into bone, freezing her body permanently into place.

There have been just 700 confirmed cases of the rare disease worldwide and only 45 in the UK.

With no known cure, the life expectancy of those with FOP is just 41. It could only be a matter of years before Miss Wedderburn is frozen in an upright position, needing a standing wheelchair to get around.

But the teenager, from Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, insists: “It’s never going to stop me from doing what I want to do.”

She already defied the odds to attend her school prom despite being home-schooled for the majority of her education, and has now taken the first steps in a fashion career, doing work experience at London Fashion Week then at Elle magazine.

Miss Wedderburn’s story has been captured in Channel 4 documentary The Human Mannequin, aired tonight.

“I wanted to raise awareness of FOP,” Miss Wedderburn said. “Obviously in our community everybody knows about it because of me, but it’s not as well known as some other conditions.”

Diagnosed at the age of three, it was when she hit puberty that the condition took hold. Both her arms are locked in place and her spine is frozen.

But the 19-year-old’s illness has not affected her passion for fashion – she buys all the newest products and spends hours practising techniques and styles, as well as filling her wardrobe with the latest fashions.

“My mum and granny were always well dressed. My mum used to dress us up in the biggest, frilliest dresses ever, and having older sisters I was always into clothes,” the 19-year-old said.

“I just love all of that. I would love to either be a stylist or a make-up artist or work for someone like Elle.”

And she got her dream come true, securing work experience placements at London Fashion Week and Elle magazine, both recorded in the documentary.

The experiences came with their own challenges – Miss Wedderburn has to be accompanied at all times because of her limited mobility and also has to be careful in crowded places, as any bump could cause her body to lay down more excess bone, locking another joint.

But she refused to be put off, saying: “If I start to think about things I would never leave the house.”

Sister Samantha, 21, accompanied her to fashion week where she joined designer Nadine Merabi, helping at hair and make-up trials then checking models’ hair, make-up and clothes before they hit the catwalk.

At her placement at Elle, her mum Ciona, 44, also had to be on hand to help with practicalities like sitting comfortably at her desk.

Miss Wedderburn admitted the latter was easier for her because of the chaotic nature of being backstage at fashion week.

And she said she had been met with a positive reaction from everyone – which is not always the case. “People have all sorts of different reactions,” she said.

“For some people it can take a lot for them to understand. You have to sit and explain it.

“But all my close family and friends are just like, ‘you’re normal, get on with it’. There’s never been, ‘you’re different, you can’t do this, you can’t do that.”‘

She often sticks to the mantra: “if it doesn’t bother me it shouldn’t bother you”, and is adamant that FOP will not stand in her way.

“If I think it’s fine and I can manage to do it, I will do it,” she added.

Miss Wedderburn now plans to pursue her career however she can from home, including a fashion blog and her own styling and make-up business.

There are also hopes for a cure for FOP after research scientists recently managed to stop it progressing in mice.

“The last time I heard, any cure could be about three to five years off,” Miss Wedderburn added.

“Of course I’m hopeful but I don’t get all excited and think it’s going to happen, because they could say three to five years but it could be longer.”

But she refuses to fear the future – either the possibility of not living past her 40s, or being locked into one position.

“It doesn’t actually scare me because I don’t think about it. If it happens, it happens, and if they find a cure then that will be amazing.”

 

The growing problem of cyber-bullying

Tags

abuse, Children, Cyberbullying, parents, school, social media, suicide, Teens

The growing problem of cyber-bullying

Although it’s been around for as long as I can remember, I appreciate that for most adults cyber-bullying is quite a new phenomenon. And I don’t quite think they’ve yet grasped how to treat it. Unlike other forms of bullying, its effects often aren’t seen until it gets completely out of hand, and sometimes when it is too late.

According to the cyber bullying charity the Cybersmile Foundation, every 20 minutes a child between 10 to 19 years of age attempts to commit suicide in England and Wales. While one in three children in the UK suffers from cyber-bullying.

However, apart from the occasional scandalous news story such as the recent suicide of Canadian teenager Amanda Todd, most of it is never brought to light. So what’s really going on?

In my experience, most cases of cyber-bullying incidents aren’t, thankfully, as bad as Amanda Todd’s story. They usually comprise of arguments on Facebook that turn into popularity contests. Someone will spark off the conflict with a claim or rude post on the other person’s wall or photo and it will lead to a string of abusive and sarcastic messages. The rules of the battle are to remain nonchalant throughout and the winner is decided by whose comments received the most “likes”.

It then becomes almost a spectacle with everyone watching the fight unfold and messaging each other on who they think is faring the best. The bravest friends stick up for their comrade with their own comments and those less willing to get involved will simply join the mass of likes. This goes on until the receiver or the poster of the original message has enough sense to delete it and the fight continues in private.

Unfortunately, not all cases are so harmless and some can lead to serious emotional damage. A friend of a friend was a recent target when girls in her year created a Blackberry messenger group about her. It was comprised of over 20 people messaging each other about how they should kill the “slag”, supposedly because she was going out with an older boy. They then added her to the conversation and she wasn’t seen at school for two weeks. A close friend of mine was also a recent victim of abusive texts after false accusations arose around her having cheated with somebody’s boyfriend. “I felt so isolated and exposed,” she told me, “There was nowhere I could turn where they couldn’t get to me”.

There are also instances of malicious public statuses, embarrassing pictures being sent round and abusive questions on sites such as Formspring, a medium on which anonymous questions can be posted to specific people. Teens hiding behind their anonymous identity can post extremely hurtful things, which they would never say in real-life, but which they feel are acceptable in cyber space. Those who don’t answer are often accused of being cowardly and as a result receive even more “hate”.

Over 80 per cent of children fear that cyber-bullying is getting worse. Due to the growth of social media, every move you make on sites such as Facebook and Twitter is watched and regulated. Just a slight slip such as an “uncool status” or adding somebody as a friend, who you supposedly don’t know well enough, leaves the perfect opportunity for bullies to strike.

Victims of cyber bullying are always told they should seek help from school but they can often be just as confused as the perpetrators themselves. Although it is the wrong thing to do, many teenagers believe that their only chance of survival in the social media jungle of bullying is to fight back with equally as harsh and hurtful comments. This just leads to more tension and leaves schools and authorities with no easy way of putting an end to it without being accused of showing favouritism to a particular side.

I spoke to the founder of the Cybersmile Foundation, Scott Freeman on what he recommends when he receives distressed phone calls from victims and parents. Many parents are extremely worried about whether their child is being cyber-bullied and often are not sure how to protect their children if they don’t even know if it’s going on.

They are told to look out for certain signs such as their child acting paranoid and protective about other people looking at their computer and not wanting to go to school. A big reason why children may not want to alert their parents to the problem is the fear that their privileges, such as having a Facebook account and surfing the web may be taken away. Parents must show that they are on their child’s side and want to help them not punish them.

Children who call the helpline are suggested to talk to either to their parents or a member of staff at school about it straight away. If given permission to do so Cybersmile will contact their parents to run them through what can be done. If the child feels uncomfortable with that they should talk to a close friend, the most important thing is not to suffer alone. Cybersmile also offers counselling for anyone who is really having trouble. Most children live in fear of being cyber-bullied and this shouldn’t go on.

The charity also raises awareness of the problem, they fear is growing, by giving talks in schools and universities. They are designed to shock students into thinking about what they do online and who they may be affecting. Cyber-bullying workshops are also on offer for parents and children in order to bridge the gap between both generations and work on ways to combat the problem.

Cybersmile is working on changing the harassment law which they feel is outdated because it does not include online bullying. They believe that the internet should be viewed as a public space in which people who are acting abusive should be punished by law. A petition calling for government action has already received over 1,000 signatures, in the hopes of helping to erase cyber bullying. The foundation is producing anti-cyber-bullying wristbands which will be available from the 5th November. The money raised will be used towards supporting their 24 helpline which can be contacted on 0845 6887277.

For more information about the Cybersmile Foundation visit www.cybersmile.org

Time to lay responsibility at the rapist’s door

Tags

behaviour, blame, challenge, low self-esteem, perpetrators, prevention, rape, relationships, responsibility, Sexual Violence, support, Teens, vulnerability, women

Time to lay responsibility at the rapist’s door

A 15-year-old boy was describing to me and a group of 12 other young men his relationships with teenage girls. He held firm with his opinion that if a girl came round to his house it implied that she wanted to have sex. But there was one boy in the group who, even in the face of pressure from the others, was certain that “even if she’s naked, she’s not supposed to be raped”.

I was interviewing the young men about their experiences of relationships for the Female Voice in Violence project, and it was clear that the majority of the boys did not understand the concept of rape. They could not see it.

Would you “see” rape? This is the question being asked in the second stage of a government campaign to raise awareness of abuse in teenage relationships. The initiative is launched at a time when there is an increasing focus on young women’s experiences of sexual violence. To date, those shouldering the responsibility of rape prevention have been the victims: girls are blamed for making themselves vulnerable to rape, and their low self-esteem or a craving to belong is the reason, we are told, that they place themselves in situations where they may be victimised. Now, however, it is the turn of those who commit sexual violence to be challenged to recognise it.

It is right that girls are supported to reduce their vulnerability. However, there is a growing sense of frustration among girls, and some services that work with them, that this vulnerability is communicated as the cause of sexual violence. The message they hear is that girls are raped because they are vulnerable. Where, they ask, is the space to consider the responsibility of those who are perpetrating abuse? So a campaign that challenges the perpetrators to ask whether they see rape is welcome.

Girls have told me they are relieved that they are not once again being told to modify their behaviour in order to avoid abuse. Those same girls would call for services to support victims of sexual violence; these are essential. However, providing services to pick up the pieces, or reduce vulnerabilities, will never, on their own, prevent sexual violence. Until the behaviour of rapists is understood and challenged the abuse will continue.

The campaign signals a move to reframe and revisit questions about how to prevent sexual violence, so it is crucial that the response on the ground is able to mirror this. While investment has been made in services for boys and men who commit forms of violence such as gun and knife crime, little attention has been given to preventing their use of sexual violence. This needs to change.

Young people’s views are shaped by a mosaic of messages, images and attitudes. Professionals need to be supported to challenge these ideas in order to stem the development of abusive attitudes and behaviours.

Challenging the ideas that normalise sexual violence, from the outset, should underpin any such preventive work. The inclusion of men and boys in this debate is critical. The young man who condemned rape in the face of peer pressure is not a one-off. We need to understand the difference in attitudes between young men. Only then will we move from seeing rape to stopping it.