Parents can help reduce fighting among youth

New York: Involving parents makes programmes designed to prevent violence among youth more effective, a study says.

Addressing the parents' attitudes about fighting, involving them in violence prevention programmes and tailoring programmes to different racial/ethnic groups may improve the effectiveness of prevention programmes, the researchers said.

"Fighting can lead to serious injuries and even death, so we felt it was important to identify effective ways to prevent physical altercations among adolescents," said corresponding author of the study Rashmi Shetgiri from Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute in the US.

"Most violence prevention programmes focus on school-based interventions with little involvement of families. This study suggests that it is crucial to involve families, especially parents, in violence prevention programmes," Shetgiri noted.

Nearly one-fourth of all teenagers in the US reported being involved in a physical fight in the past year, with higher rates of violent altercations among African American and Latino adolescents, the study said. So this study on teenage violence focused on attitude of African American and Latino parents.