NCJ Number
182272
Journal
Reaching Today's Youth Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Dated: Winter 2000 Pages: 10-16
Date Published
2000
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Verbal abuse can include teasing, cursing, gossip, and ostracism; this article discusses the characteristics of each and provides strategies for working with youth who are verbally aggressive.
Abstract
Overall, verbal abuse involves communicative behavior designed to debase and assault the self-esteem of another person. One method of verbal abuse, teasing, can vary from mild and playful to severe and hurtful; at the latter end it becomes bullying. Cursing is a form of low-level aggression that begins early in life and grows in frequency over childhood and adolescence. Cursing can stem from anger, attention seeking, imitation, rebellion, and preoccupation with sex. Gossip, like teasing, can be harmless or malicious. Ostracism involves behavior designed to make a person feel isolated, ignored, avoided, excluded, rejected, shunned, exiled, banished, cut off, frozen out, and made "invisible." In order to avoid the toxic effects of the aforementioned forms of verbal abuse, persons involved in negative verbal exchanges must calm down and reduce their anger level. Ideally, each person will take steps to help the other person calm down and reduce his/her anger level. The two parties should then engage in constructive communication about whatever issues had initially sparked the aggressive exchange. This article concludes by offering suggestions for calming oneself, calming the other person, and engaging in constructive communication. 40 references