Risk Factors
The two largest predictors of juvenile delinquency are
- parenting style, with the two styles most likely to predict delinquency being
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- "permissive" parenting, characterized by a lack of consequence-based discipline and encompassing two subtypes known as
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- "neglectful" parenting, characterized by a lack of monitoring and thus of knowledge of the child's activities, and
- "indulgent" parenting, characterized by affirmative enablement of misbehavior)
- "authoritarian" parenting, characterized by harsh discipline and refusal to justify discipline on any basis other than "because I said so";
- peer group association, particularly with antisocial peer groups, as is more likely when adolescents are left unsupervised.
Other factors that may lead a teenager into juvenile delinquency include, poor or low socio-economic status, poor school readiness/performance and/or failure, peer rejection, hyperactivity, or attention deficit disorder (ADHD). There may also be biological factors, such as high levels of serotonin, giving them a difficult temper and poor self-regulation, and a lower resting heart rate, which may lead to fearlessness. Most of these tend to be influenced by a mix of both genetic and environmental factors.
Read more about this topic: Juvenile Delinquency
Famous quotes containing the words risk and/or factors:
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—Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923)
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)