A psychosocial theorist would explain adolescent delinquency by examining one's development pertaining to their needs, abilities, and social expectations. Erikson classifies individual stages of development with adolescents ranging from ages 12-24 (early and late), but I feel that it is more important to focus on the early adolescent age group. He associates different task that basically occur during each stage of development. The tasks he associates with adolescence can help in explaining adolescent delinquency. For example, in early adolescence, and individual goes through physical, emotional, and sexual changes. All of these changes can help to explain changes in behavior, as compared to behavior during the middle chil

dhood stage. Also, adolescence delinquency could also be partly a result of failure to learn tasks in earlier stages, such as early moral development in the early school age stage. If a child is not taught morals at an early age, then they grow up not realizing the importance between right and wrong behavior.

A systems theorist would pay close attention to an adolescent delinquent's family system. They would examine the family's boundaries and rules, which affects the individuals of the family. Also, a systems theorist might seek to explain adolescent delinquency through a negative feedback loop. This suggests that a parent ignores a child's suggestions and scolds them for making suggestions, which can cause severe emotional and mental damage to the child. Such important influences on an individual can in fact be very damaging. Changes in a family member often result in changes in the other family members. For example, if a parent takes on a new job where he or she is constantly away from home, it can affect the other members of the family negatively. This can also be mentally damaging to the members, which in turn causes change in behavior. Also, a systems theorist would look to see if there is any family violence in the family system.

A social learning theorist would base their explanation for adolescent delinquency on the role of people observing other's negative behavior and imitating it. Toddlers learn many things from observing and as a result imitating the adults or models in their life and by doing this, "they become socialized into their family's and community's way of life" (Newman and Newman, 76). If a child observes negative models, then there is a good chance that they will imitate this behavior. Children usually follow vicarious reinforcement, which means that they are more likely to imitate model's behavior when it is condemned or unpunished, rather then when it is punished. For example, if a child watches his/her parent disobeying the law and is either rewarded or unpunished for it, then the child is more likely to adapt this behavior rather than if his/her parent goes to jail for breaking the law. Individuals do not learn through observation when they are toddlers but it is pos

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