Keeping Girls Gang-free

By Jo Seavey-Hultquist

"I was always mad and I took my pain out on others. . . I started acting like this when I was 9 years old and I think it's because my father wasn't around, my mom didn't understand me, and I just felt lonely and confused. I was just looking for someone to really listen and so I turned to gang banging and living the crazy lifestyle.”
—Ayan, age 15 (Girl Scouting in Detention Centers participant)

Youth gangs are broadly defined as a group of juveniles who form an allegiance, claim a territory, wear common colors, hang out together and commit crimes together. And they are attracting more and more girls. According to a National Youth Gang Survey conducted in 2000, approximately 6 percent of the almost 773,000 documented active gang members were female. Later studies, however, suggest that the number of female gang members ranges from 8 to 38 percent.

And gangs are not just a big city problem. In fact, female gangs are more likely to be found in small cities and rural areas than in large cities. Eighty-seven percent of police departments in suburban counties with populations of 100,000 to 249,999 report persistent gang activity in their communities.

From 'Could-be' to 'Wanna-be'

Gang members refer to girls under 10 years old as "could-be's," while those who imitate gang dress or behavior or hang around with gang members, are known as "wanna-be's." Girls who have gone through a gang initiation and participate in a variety of activities, including robbery or violence. are "regular members."


Major Risk Factors

Jody Miller, an associate professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri—St. Louis and a leading researcher on girls and gangs, notes three factors exhibited by girls who join gangs: they come from dysfunctional families, have gangs in their neighborhoods or have peers who belong to gangs, and have a family member involved in a gang. Meda Chesney-Lind, a criminologist, professor of Women's Studies at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and author of several books on girls in gangs, notes that the majority of girls who join gangs have been sexually or physically abused and see gangs as a refuge.

Warning Signs

But even girls from caring homes can become involved in gangs, so parents need to be alert if their daughters exhibit the following signs: regularly dressing in one color; having gang symbols or gang-like graffiti written on books or clothing; getting a tattoo with gang connotations (such as the number 13 or the name of a street or neighborhood); being called by a new nickname (such as Crazy Girl); becoming aggressive; or suddenly having a lot of extra cash from unknown sources.

Prevention and Positive Alternatives

Some of the things parents can do to combat gangs is to report suspicious activities to the police, share information with other parents, and ensure that supervised, positive after-school and weekend activities are available. Girl Scouting, which has always been committed to the well-being of girls, provides a safe, nurturing environment where they can make friends, find acceptance, and learn important life-skills.

Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County has been helping girls build skills for dealing with violence and negative influences with Got Choices, funded by GSUSA and the Department of Justice and delivered through Girl Scouting in Detention Centers and P.A.V.E. (Project Anti-Violence Education) the Way. In existence for 10 years, Got Choices serves girls who are at risk for joining gangs or who are involved in the juvenile justice system. Young-adult staff, who serve as program counselors, facilitate discussions on violence prevention, self-esteem, making positive choices and setting goals. Guest speakers conduct workshops on topics such as teen dating violence and non-traditional career options.

Last year, 80 percent of participants reported that the program increased their ability to make positive life choices. "I learned from the program counselors to have more confidence in myself and to treat others better,” said one participant. "The program has made a difference. Before, I would not talk to anyone and just keep it all to myself. Now, I got so close to the counselors that I can tell them my problems."

Online Resources

For more information on youth gangs, visit the Web site Gang Out.

Visit the Web site of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, for information on:

• Preventing adolescent gang involvement
• Research reports on female gangs
• Publications on women and girls in the criminal justice system
• Guiding Principles for Promising Female Programming

Visit socialworktoday.com for an article on "Girls, Gangs, & Crime: Profile of the Young Female."

Jo Seavey-Hultquist, program director of Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County, has a master's degree in social work, and more than 10 years of youth program development experience with a special focus on violence-prevention programming.

Get Your Kids to Cooperate Using This Very Simple Phrase

By Barb Desmarais

In the early seventies, I was training to become an early childhood educator. My training included practicums in different preschool settings. I was very fortunate in having an excellent sponsor teacher on one of my practicums whose wisdom has stayed with me since. She taught me a very simple but magical phrase.

I remember one day all the kids were going out to play and it was a wet, rainy day. The teacher asked that they all put their boots on. I was in charge of a small group and one of the little girls in my group refused to put on her boots. "Please put your boots on", I said to her. She ignored me. "Nicki, it's time to put your boots on", I repeated. She ignored me again. Just then the teacher walked by and I told her I wasn't able to get little Nicki to put her boots on. "Nicki, as soon as you've got your boots on I'll know you're ready to play outside" she said. In no time flat the boots were on and off she went to play outside. I was amazed that the same request I was making, worded differently, got immediate results. I've never forgotten the effectiveness of that short, simple phrase.

Why did the teacher's approach work and mind didn't? Children like the rest of us want to feel empowered. If we ask them to do something, they'll either refuse or procrastinate and dawdle. They're simply exercising power and control. This simple way of wording a request, gives them some power yet the request is still the same. You are giving them the opportunity of telling you when they're ready to do something. That's the way they interpret it. It's not perceived as a command. Very few of us respond kindly to a command.

I taught preschool for several years and later had my own children. Virtually every day as my children were growing up I was able to use this very simple way of gaining their co-operation. If they wanted to watch a movie, or play outside, or have a snack I would often say: "As soon as you've brushed your teeth, I'll know you're reading for your story" or "As soon as you've hung your coat up and put your shoes away, I'll know you're ready for your snack" or "As soon as you've picked up your lego, I'll know you're ready to watch your movie."

Another variation of the same phrase is when your child asks for something or to do something you can say: "Sure, as soon as you've finished your homework" or "Sure, as soon as the dishwasher is emptied". They might say: "Can I have a cookie?" You can reply: "Sure you can have a cookie; as soon as you've fed the cat." You get the idea.

In the 20 years that I've worked as a parent educator I've shared this very simple, effective phrase with literally hundreds of parents. Many have come back to me with comments such as: "It works like magic" or "I was skeptical but it really works" or "I can't believe how easy it is." What is so nice is that it's appropriate to use with every age group, as long as they have language. Give it a try.

Barbara Desmarais is a parenting and life coach and has worked with parents for close to 20 years. To get more tips and insights on parenting, visit her website at http://www.theparentingcoach.com - Sign up for her monthly parenting ezine and receive your free copy of her popular e-book "Raise Your Children But Not Your Voice."

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barb_Desmarais

How Do Children See Race?

Printed with permission from Dr. Marguerite A. Wright's book I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla, available here.

Note: This section, titled "Do White Children See Race Differently?" concludes the first section of Dr. Wright's book, in which she outlines the developmental steps in which young children first perceive skin color and race, and the meanings they attach to these attributes. Dr. Wright has outlined her advice on how to raise black and biracial children (and indeed, all children) with as little racial bias as possible in our race-conscious world, and ends her section on preschoolers with this passage. We highly recommend the book to parents of every ethnic background.

Johnny Lee, a white man who was a former imperial wizard and a founder and recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan Youth Corps, vividly remembers his experience when he was five and saw a black man for the first time. Johnny said to his father, "Look, Daddy, there's a chocolate-covered man." Daddy replied, "No, son, that's a nigger." Lee said that it was at that moment that "the seeds of hatred" were planted that resulted in his life in the Klan, a life he later repudiated.

Unlike young Johnny, white children who have not been sensitized to race ascribe little importance to skin color.

Relatively few studies have been done on how children of other races, including whites, become aware of racial differences. Those available suggest that skin color is not as salient an issue for white children at the early grade-school stage of development as it is for blacks. It is understandable that young white children do not tend to regard skin color as important, since racial prejudice is generally not a factor in their lives.

I am impressed by how little race seems to matter to many of the white young grade-schoolers I encounter. Most of them, from families of friends and acquaintances, attend integrated schools or live in mixed-race communities. Their answers to my question about race are similar to Ian's, a six-year-old white youngster. Ian described the colors of the white and black people as, respectively, "whitish" and "brownish"; he can identify the "Chinese" people and says that he has friends who speak Spanish, although he doesn't have a special name for them. Like black children who do not come from racially obsessed families, Ian did not spontaneously describe or categorize people by skin color or race. Despite my repeated promptings, Ian could not think of a single way, other than skin color, in which blacks and whites differed. Although his level of understanding about how people get their color and his awareness of the existence of different racial groups was similar to that of black children, skin color did not seem as emotional an issue for him as it was for some blacks.

I have heard of Latino and Asian children for whom "race" became an emotional issue when they were subjected to teasing and other mean behavior because of their accents, their limited fluency in English, their different types of dress or the lunches they bring to school. Fortunately, however, most early grade-schoolers, regardless of race, do not seem to have stereotypes of themselves or of people who are different colors. Like preschoolers, they are inclined to see people as individuals rather than as members of a group--color, racial or otherwise. Because of this developmental advantage, these early years are an optimum time for children of different races to get to know each other, before they become aware of the stereotypes that in time will rob them of their racial innocence.

I suspect that children in other countries with a history of racial discrimination develop race awareness in ways similar to American children. Several years ago, I met a lovely white six-year-old at the home of friends of friends while visiting Australia. From the start, she seemed very comfortable with me, unlike a few of the adults, all gracious people, who it seemed to me were trying a little too hard to appear at ease with a black person. Circumstances led to my spending much of the afternoon talking and playing games with her. It wasn't until much time had passed and we rejoined the adults' conversation that she began to ask me about myself.

First, she asked questions about my skin color (like "How did your skin color become brown?" and "Will it change back?"). Next, she asked me about my full lips. Her parents understandably were discomfited by her questions and took turns trying to dissuade her from asking me anything else. Actually, it was quite amusing. The parents were growing increasingly tense trying not to offend me, while their daughter, oblivious to their discomfort, became increasingly more persistent in her questioning. To make matters worse, their guest was not being very cooperative with the parents' efforts to restrain their daughter.

In spite of my assurances that I didn't mind answering the questions, the parents continued to try various strategies to silence their daughter, all the while doing their utmost not to appear anxious. Eventually, they found some pretext to escort her from the room. She had never seen, much less talked to, a black person before, and her curiosity was perfectly normal. I knew that to her, skin color and lip shape were just physical attributes, not the hot potatoes they were to her parents. When we said good-bye later that day, I felt a tinge of sadness; I wondered if I visited her again several years in the future whether she would see my color more than she would see me.

Even at this stage of development, children who have not been exposed to the racial prejudices of their family and society retain the remarkable gift of obliviousness to the social baggage attached to race. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, author and nationally syndicated talk show host, once told a marvelous story on her show about a childhood incident that illustrates this point. When she was a girl, she had a piano teacher named Charlie. Whenever he came to her home to give her piano lessons, he greeted her younger sister by hoisting her on his shoulders. One day, about a year after Laura had been taking lessons, Charlie did not hoist her sister on his shoulders. Instead, he bent down and gave her a candy. Her sister said, "Charlie, your hands are black!" This was the first time her sister had noticed Charlie's skin color despite all the time they has known each other. Although she had been oblivious to his different skin color when she was younger, as she grew older, she was developmentally able to see the difference. Dr. Schlessinger concluded: "Racism is not congenital; it has to be learned."