What do I think is causing this trend? Lax parenting. Kids aren't taught manners anymore. Permissive parenting became the trend because folks thought telling the kids no would hurt their self esteem. So many parents buy the kids whatever they want, do things the kids want, everything is about making the kid happy. And if the kid doesn't get his/her way what happens? A tantrum until they get their way. Parents, tired after a long day of work and not wanting to argue give in.

I'll also bring in TV and video games where violence is the solution. More and more parents don't pay attention to what their kids are watching and don't instill that violence is not the solution to a problem. Kids can play violent video games without becoming violent, but a parent has to tell them that in real life you can't just regenerate and that there are consequences.

And parents cannot expect schools to teach their little dears these lessons. Teachers don't have time with all the test preparation they are doing. This lax parenting actually hurts everyone because the teacher has to spend time that should have been on the lesson trying to gain control of the class.

Children learn what they live. It's not enough to tell your children how to behave or to teach them about morality and ethics. Parents must be a living, breathing example of what it means to be an emotionally healthy, ethically conscious, morally stable (and I don't mean morally judging others.... I mean judging oneself) member of society. Only when we show appropriate conflict resolution in our everyday lives will our children truly learn the lesson.

This is nothing new. 20 years ago, I was physically attacked and threatened for an entire middle school year. No one helped me and no one found it odd. My mother eventually had to move us to a different school district. I beleive it was all because the girls didn't like the outfit I wore for the first day at my new school. Bullies have more opportunity now, but this behavior has always been regarded as normal. I think that with the video, society is forcing itself to acknowledge the events (as it is politically correct), but in reality, everyone has known about this for a long time.

This behavior all goes back to the parents. Girls were mean when I was in high school, but today lax parenting have allowed the violence to escalate. Parents need to understand that children need more attention in their teens than they did when they were babies.

Julie you hit the nail on the head! I have two teenagers who are involved in sports and other clubs. I can count on one hand the number of parents who show up for these events. When I was a teenager, my parents never missed a game, a play or a band concert my sister or I was in. Being there honestly makes a huge difference in children's lives. I am busier now with them as teens than I was when they were in elementary school. I am a single parent who works full time but I work it out so that I can be at everything that is important to them. My daughters actually enjoy the fact that I am so involved at their schools that all the kids know me. I have had many of their team mates tell me that they wished their parents came to their things. I find it so sad when their friends parents do not see the wonderful things their own kids are doing.

Lack of discipline in the homes on the childrens and parents side. The one mother who said on national television that "the girl should of had the nerve to back up what she said"! I guess we can see where her daughter got her atitude. Parents no longer discipline thier kids. Theres almost always an excuse why teenagers act the way they act now, ie A.D.D., depresion, violent television and so forth, the list is endless. As long as parents continue to make excuses for the way children behave, they will never be able to properly discipline thier kids. In a nut shell I have to say this, If I had A.D.D. and depression growing up my mother would have use an efective tool called a belt and whipped it out of me until I calmed down, and the sight of my fathers hand coming towards me would have motivated me to find ways not to be depressed.

Let's not forget the impact of violent video games and movies in de-sensitizing all kide to the effects of violence. The more blood and gore they see, the more it becomes a part of their day to day lives...and yes..that is the direct responsibility of parents. It is easier to let them entertain themselves than to expend the energy to take part in their activities. We are all to blame as a community and as a nation. Just ask the rest of the world...the USA is one of the most violent countrys in the world. We should all be ashamed.

I would not advocate beatings as a way of curing depression. Parental violence against children is no better than violence among children.

Nobody has pointed out that in all the cited statistics, nothing is said about the overall level of violence among children, only about the proportion committed by girls. It is entirely possible that boys have become less violent and that is why the stats are shifting. In fact, I would bet the overall rates of violence are declining among young people. Consider the possibilities before jumping to rash conclusions.

Are movies like Fight Club having a negative affect on teens?

Media has an increasing presence in the lives of kids....and what do we see on media...the glorification of sex, prostitution and violence. Children aren't taught to respect themselves or others at home or through the media. Even some daytime shows feature cohosts hitting one another, making suggestive statements and exchanging insults, portraying it as "friendly banter". This is a step in desensitizing kids to harmful behavior.

Several forces are conspiring to widen the gap between parents and children.

The first is the economy: Wage stagnation and rising costs of everything (healthcare, housing, food) have made it necessary for both parents to work full time. Parents simply cannot spend the time necessary to equip their children with higher-level coping skills.

The second is new technology: the advent of the internet, myspace, youtube, digital camera phones and the like, have created many novel new outlets for bad behavior. Parents who came of age before these technologies arrived may not have the skills or experience necessary to teach their children subjects like "netiquette" and "appropriate uses for digital recording media."

The third is changing norms: it has become the norm to encouraged girls to engage in many behaviors formerly reserved for males only, such as working outside the home, competing in sports, and joining the military. Girls may no longer feel pressure to conform to older standards of female behavior (such as "sugar and spice and everything nice") in order to be secure in their identities as young women. If aggression is no longer a challenge to their identity, girls may not feel the need to repress it as much as in previous generations.

While violent heroines certainly abound in television, games, and other media, I think they cannot explain the changes in behavior we're seeing as much as the other three factors above.

I think that most every here understands that the problem begins with the parents. They are your kids, your job is not to make sure they think you are cool, but to make sure they grow up to be productive members of society. Saying no to them is helpful, they won't have a realistic view of life if they think the world will always be perfect. If a rule is broken, consequences are in order and should be consistent and firm. Parents taking care of kids problems all the time and condoning behaviors just leads to kids who can't solve problems. If any of my three teen girls would ever be involved in such a thing the SECOND thing they should be afraid of what will happen on court.

Perhaps girls are tired of being raised to believe that they will never be good enough, that they will always be the victim. How many of these statistical girls have been sexually assaulted?

I like what one person stated, I grew up in a single parent household my mother raised me on her own. And to this day there are things that I wont do simply because my mothers belts!! helped to develop my moral compass. I will admit i was whooped on a regular basis, every time i did something wrong. Maybe if parents stopped trying to be friends and were parents, this would not be an issue.

I have five boys, one girl, and so far, I've seen a lot more animosity against my 10 year old daughter than against any of my boys (ages 4, 7, 13, 15, and 18). I don't understand it! My daughter is a really sensitive, tender-hearted kid, and she gets along great with adults, small children, boys, and with NICE girls. But the mean girls seem to find her, and wow, do they eat her alive! We are on the verge of homeschooling her again, just to avoid this nonsense. She was in private school, has been in public since kindergarten, and is going into 5th grade. Probably just in time to bring her home, to salvage what's left. She is still a really nice person, and I'd like to keep her around the nice kids....

I don't know if "lax" parenting is the real culprit. It is doubtful that more discipline would have prevented violence. My parents were hardly disciplinarians; however, what they did instill in me was an empathy for my fellow peers, as well as a protective instinct for those weaker or younger than myself. The desire to hurt someone, physically or emotionally, was never there...unless they were picking on one of my siblings or a classmate who was unable to stick up for his/herself.

Perhaps these mean girls were just that...MEAN--with nasty personalities and narcissistic tendencies. Parents need to watch out for that because no violent video game (believe me, I've played plenty of them) is going to turn a kid hateful and cruel. Neglectful or abusive parents probably will, but not parents that simply are lax on discipline.

I just hope that my daughter (18 months old) will grow up to be kind and protective instead of a selfish bully. Parents need to provide a good example for their children by being kind and helpful to others, rather than just putting the blame on TV and video games.

This behavior is shocking to say the least, but aren't girls just as cruel with words?

I completely agree with Brooke above - I too was the victim of a rather vicious attack in middle school that left me terrified of a group of girls to the point where I actually thought they might kill me if ever given the chance. That was about 12 years ago, right when AOL became popular and the Internet was more mainstream. I feel horrible for the teens out there now on social websites and such who are the victims of cyber bullies on top of the day to day schoolyard punks. I really think the only thing about this attack that different was that it was videotaped - it's been happening like this much longer than most people acknowledge or realize.

20 years? Try 35. Long before cell phones, video games, etc. I was threatened every day of my 6th grade year by a group of girls and no one - not even my parents - did anything. These girls grew up "empowered" by the lack of repercussions and taught their girls who are now teaching their girls. My mom has since told me that she didn't know what to do - it was nothing she had ever experienced and thought it would just go away. It did - when I changed schools. I don't know what the solution is any more than I could fix it back in 6th grade.

There is a bit more to this than most seem to realize. Today's teens actually face more strict school rules and laws than in the past 40 years. They are also the least sexual of all the generations in the past 40 years, with the exception of exhibitionism. They show little originality or creativity, with nothing distinctive that identifies this period from any other (music, etc). They are also more herd-like. With all of these shortcomings, there is one thing they do better than most generations...violence. People that are stunted in most ways tend to use violence as an outlet for that pent-up energy. A valuable lesson to learn from this is that Nazism creates Nazis, as the past 10 years have shown.

Are you seeing this trend? What do you think is causing it?

I could not agree more. Being a mother of one son, though, I am concerned about both genders and the entire growing trend of disrespect - which begins within oneself and, I believe, becomes something that is then done against others - amounting to violence, aggression, hatred... all this is the opposite of knowing respect for themselves and others, knowing how to love themselves and others, and having the awareness to be able to see that these are essential and natural laws of life that one must grow to recognize.
In my own life, I have issues as a co-parent of my son (6 yrs.) in a messy joint custody situation whereby we have a "war" constantly being upheld by my son's father who constantly wants to tit-for-tat and bring everything in front of the Judge and smear me so as to eventually win full custody.
All of this is affecting my son in teaching him that these things are part of life... which they are, but he is too young yet to separate that from the way we should all be striving to live.
I am using this as an example to show how I see this kind of issue as being one underlying cause to the growing problem with our youth.

I wish today that parents would place more care and insight into STUDYING what their children need to learn, need to gain awareness of... but that begins with the parents growing so far that most people who have had trauma in their lives are not ready for.
We are a society diseased by a cycle of trauma. My mother was not able to support me for the traumas I experienced, both major and minor. My sister and I were beaten by the husband of my babysitter daily until we got our mother to transfer us out (age 4), a kindergarten friend was the victim of a heinous crime - his father accidentally killed him by gunshot while attacking the mother (age 5), my stepfather was an alcoholic and became terribly verbally abusive (mostly) and sometimes physically abusive - he came into my life at age 3 and was responsible for taking care of us nightly while my mother completed her Masters Degree, I became the black sheep of the family at age 10 when I began recalling the beatings by the husband of my babysitter in dreams and addressed my mother about it - she was not equipped to support me, gave me the silent treatment and freaked out, so my stepfather and sister pushed me to leave her alone... the list goes on because as I grew these disturbances that should have been replaced by lovingly supported growth created holes in my personal judgment and led to self-abuse, destructive behavior that, for me, never became outwardly aggressive and violent because I was an advocate for peace... I had at least tapped into the intuitive need for peace in life and was struggling constantly to feel at peace at the same time as I was hating myself and hurting myself.

Looking at the video footage linked above, I can't tell how closely my kind of story relates to these girls, but... STILL (I am seriously not even looking for my own attention... I do not need it! I have grown so spiritually strong at this point and I teach yoga and share beauty with everyone that I can in life)... I survived by a great deal of strokes of fortune... but that's life in the RISK POOL. Do we want our children growing up, swimming in the Risk Pool??? Not ME!!! I don't want to leave my son's personal development to chance or to let myself ever think, well, what's not killing him will eventually make him stronger... because it all teeters on too thin a wire... a child commits suicide, a child commits murder... children allow their pain to swell into acts that hurt themselves and others... THAT is what they need to learn to look out for, to be aware of!
Here in the days of teaching my son not to hit when he gets frustrated because another child wants to play with a toy when they're playing together... I am GOING to make sure he sees in these simple lessons that he has to grow awareness for others needs and feelings and even their own means for survival. I am NOT going to wait until his lack of understanding has manifested into something that is even more difficult to untangle.
Don't take this the wrong way, I don't stand over my son's shoulder nagging him on how to become aware of this, that and the other thing. I simply make sure my son and I have open communication on AWARENESS.
Awareness & consciousness are key principles to life taught in Yoga. I teach my son to live a life in yoga (in unity).

I know I have put a lot out here... I hope some can appreciate it... just trying to help here.

I must agree very strongly with Natassia, too! I think she is most in-line with my thinking.

"Let's not forget the impact of violent video games..."

Have you ever looked at the demographics for videos games? *sigh*

I think there is a simple answer to all of this. Since women have become more empowered (which certainly isn't a bad thing), we have also lost many of those "feminine" traits that were expected of us. Ladies aren't supposed to physically fight because they are supposed to be gentle creatures who nurture. This is probably why women aren't inclined to video games (aside from having lower skills for navigating 3d environments, etc). There were many more social expectations for women in past decades. Women were the organizers of social events and responsible for their families. By taking away the strict etiquette guidelines for women, we have left a void. There isn't nearly as many social expectations, so young ladies don't have a "model" for how they are supposed to act. Our society is shunning gender roles and with that the genders will be more alike. Violence will not be a "masculine" trait any more.