Violent behavior in children and adolescents : Risk factors

S. Kotsopoulos

ENCEPHALOS ASSOCIATION

Greek

English

School violence, Risk factors, Anti-social behaviour, Empathy, Prevention

Report

Parents, Policy Makers.

1 - 20 pages

This article provides an outline of the factors that lead children into anti-social behaviour and in the exercise of any type of violence in school. Interpretations usually offered to the public for this phenomenon from television and the press is usually simplistic. The youth violence is not treated with rhetoric. First of all valid knowledge is required about this phenomenon. In this interpretive scheme, the author attempts to present a composition of known risk factors are in a repetitive way can become a driving force of acts of violence in children and adolescents.
As risk factors may be considered:
Predisposition for aggression
The predisposition for aggression is an innate characteristic. Nonetheless, sometimes the parents don’t help the child to overcome this problem because they are not existent and they don’t care for the right upbringing of their child and as a result, the propensity for aggression not only not suspended but to is being cultivated and strengthened.
Absence of empathy
When the family operates correctly creates the psychological basis of safety which is necessary for the child so as to experience the world around him and to be associated with him. However, because of the fact that the child sometimes lacks of this safe psychological basis, they do not develop the ability of empathy and as a result fail to suspend their own impulse and aggression.
Anti-social behaviour models-TV
Television is a window to the world that unfortunately offers models of aggression and violent behaviour that may not match the values of family. These models of antisocial behaviour can lead to imitation without internal resistance, especially if the child has not already gained strong bases of social education from his parents.
Other risk factors may be considered: the anomie (lawlessness) that often prevails in Greek schools, envy and hatred that some children feel for each other, the aggressive behavior in a group as proof of this commitment, etc.
For the prevention of this phenomenon is required coordination by all relevant actors so that interventions to be planned, especially at school level. For example: the tackling of learning difficulties of students, the faster learning of the domestic language in children of migrants, the recognition of their successes, the treatment of indigenous children to prevent discrimination in the weight of those who have recently settled in Greece. Finally it is very important to develop information and awareness programs for parents on best methods of care of their children.

This article presents an outline of the factors that lead children in violent behaviors and it’s based on theoretical assumptions, in other words, it is not the result of personal research on the subject. Nevertheless these factors listed are proven to be the basis for the event of such behaviour within the school. The violent behaviour of children is a matter which is searched from various scientific fields. Mr. Kotsopoulos focuses more on social factors, but making also reference to psychological factors.
More specifically, it considers that although there is a propensity for aggression in the child’s nature but the problem is being compounded because of the indifference of parents for the child. This can happen when parents or grandparents welcoming a bullying behavior or when the child imitates and then adopts the violent behavior of their parents.
Other factors that create child aggression is the lawlessness prevailing in society and consequently at the school level, the envy which many children feel for others, antisocial behavior that often arises from excessive exposure on TV, etc.
After quoting the foregoing factors, the author proposes measures for the prevention of the phenomenon. And this because he considers that it is difficult to deal with this phenomenon in the form of therapy since the problem has been already emerged. One of these proposals has to do with the confrontation of the learning difficulties of students, since it is a problem which may subsequently lead to school bullying phenomena due to the low self-esteem of the pupils. The phenomenon of school aggression is a phenomenon that occurs in all societies and is commonly accepted that at a first level must be undertaken one approach that includes all those involved with the subject (awareness and raising activities to all the stakeholders for the phenomenon) and in the second level one more person – centered (for the students that are directly involved in the phenomenon) approach.

http://www.encephalos.gr/full/44-4-02g.htm

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