Girls fighting is becoming a hot topic these days. Watching the evening news you’ll find what seems to be the video of the week from a juvenile offender, or two or more, who has ganged up with others to beat up another girl, sometimes quite violently.

Numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tell us that teen violence has actually declined 10% in the last ten years. So perhaps the media has just brought it to the forefront. One article claimed there were over 65,000 hits on YouTube for the search “girls fighting.” In my own experiment I ran the search and came up with 72,000 hits. The numbers are growing everyday.

However I did find the search results questionable. I actually scrolled through the list and it isn’t thousands of videos of teen violence. Probably not surprising, many were videos of Anime girls fighting, porn related topics, actual sport footage of girls fighting (serious, like wrestling; and not so serious, like more porn); in a nutshell mostly adult content. While it is obvious that the 72,000 hits of YouTube videos for girls fighting is misleading, it is content parents should be concerned with if this is the latest craze and their daughter decides to investigate the topic on her own. She may become bombarded with questionable content.

Reactions to this phenomena span from “the internet or parents are to blame” or “this has always happened and we just have better access to it now.” Personally, I’m of the belief we just have better access to knowing what is going on know; and I’m sure if there were cell-phones with digital camera technology twenty or forty years ago, we’d be seeing the same thing because mob mentality is not a new social disease. But no matter which side of the spectrum it is on, it is a problem and always will be a problem unless the most influential people in a child’s life do something.

Parents need to ensure that their child knows in no uncertain terms that violence is not an acceptable way to handle problems. It also is not entertainment for the enjoyment of others. Any child involved in violence should also be held accountable for their crime. Crime seems to be the word our society still finds shocking when referenced in relation to crime of children on children, but it needs to be pointed out and accepted for what it is, a crime. Adults today and yesterday have gone to jail for lesser crimes then some of the adolescent bullies that get a free ride because of their age.

Parents should take this seriously as we are now living in a society, that while we may be losing some moral high ground, we have the ability to choose who we see fit to charge as an adult. Parents also should be very concerned that they too may be held accountable, as in some instances parents are now under the scrutiny of the law in regards to deeds of their children.

What will you do? Talk and ask questions. Know her friends; but not just the friends she brings home, know her friends on the internet, the ones you don’t get to give the once over to. Even if you’ve approved of her content on her MySpace account, be concerned about the people and the sites she visits.

And just be a parent who is there. Don’t take this trend lightly, even if it has been around for a hundred years. Know what is going on in your daughter’s life, because unfortunately your daughter fits into one of three categories; she's someone who is a bully, she's someone who knows of either a bully or another girl being bullied or she's someone who is being bullied. It should break your heart no matter which one she is.