Talking Teenagers: Image

Alex Sherman says she dresses not for attention, but to express herself

All this week Breakfast will be Talking Teenagers, exploring the issues that affect young people growing up in the 21st Century.

We'll be looking at some of the problems facing young people and their parents.

The series runs on Breakfast until Friday 24 October.

As part of our coverage, we've put together an extensive list of organisations which might be able to help.

This includes web addresses, phone numbers and a brief outline of what each organisation does, where appropriate.

There are also links for the features we're showing in conjunction with the BBC's Video Nation unit.

To go straight to that page click on the link below.

Click here for help advice and information

Image is all important to young people. Hair and fashion make a big contribution to shaping the sort of people teenagers become, but they also help to establish an identity.

Today we'll be looking at how teens are perceived and how they see each other.

They're often confronted by so much negative stereotyping and peer pressure, and we'll be asking what the proposed Anti-Social Behaviour bill means to them.

In another Video Nation story, called Dress to Impress, Alex Sherman from Ipswich told us about why she wears such flamboyant clothes.

They reflect a genuine identification with a certain type of music, lifestyle and culture, she said - and those who simply want to copy are easy to spot.

Later we heard from Kate Figes, author of Terrible Teens, 16-year-old Irene Karapetyan, and Jack Sharp who is 15.

Both are members of Young NCB - the youth arm of the National Children's Bureau.

We also talked to two more teens - Robert Hudson, 14, and Lucy Walker, 16.

They're both members of Shape - a coalition of children's charities which aims to correct misperceptions about young people and crime.

Lucy explained that the media often portrays young people as criminals - when in fact, they are far more likely to be the victims of crime.

Survey

There are more results from the Talking Teenagers survey. One of the rather stark findings of the is that 54% thought they got a bad press.

Teenagers hated being stereotyped, with over half complaining they get a bad press, only 13% - a tiny fraction saying they felt valued by society.

Young people often feel that they are unfairly judged by adults just because they are young, what they do or because of how they look - wearing hoodies, standing around in groups, texting each other all the time.

All of this has a negative effect - on how young people feel and how they behave.

Anti-social?

Young NCB members have decided that this negative stereotyping can be a real problem so they're planning a big event to challenge negative perceptions and judgements of young people.

Also today an NOP poll has questioned kids on the Anti-Social Behaviour Bill which is proposing to give police powers to break up groups of teenagers.

Naturally, our guests today are all very against this bill with good reason - they hang out with their friends because there's nowhere else to go and if they can't do this what on earth can they do?

The Government has failed to ask children what they think of the plans. Yet the NOP poll found that 90 per cent believed they should have their say before any law that restricts their freedom is given the go-ahead.

The fear with these proposals is that they will damage the trust between adults and children. Police powers to disperse groups and fast-track child curfews may penalise law-abiding children with nowhere to meet.

We'll also be looking at peer pressure - how teens perceive each other, pressure to conform or not, and how they might decide to express themselves with the way they look.

Do you think image is important to teenagers? Email us with your views