Conduct Disorder
As immediately as infancy, children express individual characteristics that can be considered aggressive. The child can be aggressive in the way it cries, the way it plays and the way it attains attention. Parents of children that have a hard time sleeping through the night, trouble accepting affection and/or difficulties with hyperactivity are often so stressed and bothered by these behaviors that they resort to negative reinforcement techniques in their parenting. Examples of this can be seen in spanking, harsh reprimanding or even ignoring the child's behaviors. By using negative reinforcement, the parents are unknowingly strengthening the prevalence of these behaviors, and therefore, the risk of these types of activities to continue through adolescence is also heightened (Patterson, 1982). Children who tend to not comply with authority in infancy have a greater chance of having an aggressive temperament in adolescence (Kolvin, Nicol, Garside, Day & Tweedle, 1982; Olweus, 1980; Webster-Stratton & Eyberg, 1982). Therefore, as "difficult" children become adolescents, they present an even greater challenge for their parents, school officials, law enforcement and the community. Often ignored is the biggest challenge, whi
Sampson and Laub (1997) contest that the very act of labeling a child with conduct disorder can have demoralizing effects on the their self esteem and can escalate negative reactions from others. Poor social bonds and negative life changes are also key features in their assessment of the risks in becoming a criminal. Intervention can succeed if it is understood that treating conduct disorder solely while neglecting other possibilities is inadequate. A full scale program tackling issues of substance abuse, antisocial personality, social class, history of abuse and individual characteristics would explore the array of potentials whose foundation is conduct disorder. beginnings of a life of "cumulative disadvantage". Also, Sampson and Laub (1997) found that isolating criminal behavior as being caused by conduct disorder does not allow for the array of influences and associations that lead a difficult child to criminal activity later in life. Conversely, evidence from McCabe et al. (2001) did not support Moffitt's (1993) theory that individuals who began to show signs of conduct disorder in childhood were more likely to commit more violent acts than those surfacing in adolescence. Surprisingly, the two groups (child onset and adolescent onset) only differed in one aspect, more specifically, "youth with childhood onset disorder were more likely to have bullied or threatened others" (McCabe et al. 2001: 10.) In respect to other violent behaviors, such as animal abuse and use of weapons, the groups did not differ in any significant manner. Unfortunately, the data used in their study could not yield, as of yet, any new findings on the subject of the disorder's consistency over time. However, the data is now being used longitudinally in follow-up interviews which will eventually shed some new light on Moffitt's (1993) theory which states that child onset refers to a more stable degree of conduct disorder than adolescent onset. As more and more adolescents with conduct disorder slip through the cracks of the criminal justice system, their disorders are often left untreated, particularly in ethnic minorities, and ultimately they lose faith in themselves as persons incapable peaceful life. More often than not, they are misled by the punishments
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1528
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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