Dangerous road: The research provides statistical backing for teachers who sound warnings about anti-social behaviour.
Credit: iStockphoto
PARIS: Children who badly misbehave in school are likelier to end up with a dud job, poor mental health, teen pregnancy or divorce, according to a new study.
The paper, published today by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), provides statistical backing for teachers who sound warnings about anti-social behaviour, its authors said.
The research draws on an exceptionally long-term investigation, launched among 3,652 Britons who were born in 1946. With their consent, these volunteers have been monitored at occasional intervals since their birth, filling in questionnaires about their health, family and professional life.
Adolescent misconduct
At the ages of 13 and 15, this group was assessed by their teachers, who were asked to grade their behaviour as having severe, mild or no conduct problems. A total of 9.5 per cent of the teenagers were identified as having severe problems; 28.8 per cent had mild problems; and 61.7 per cent no problems.
Forty years later, the follow-up inquiry found a clear link between misbehaviour at school and difficulties in adult life.
"Adolescent misconduct might adversely affect developing social behaviours and result in pervasive social and mental health difficulties throughout adult life," the authors write.
Compared with those with no conduct problems at school, those who severely misbehaved were twice as likely to become a parent before the age of 20; likelier to get divorced or have relationship problems with spouses, children or friends; four times likelier to leave school with no qualifications, and twice as likely to be in a manual job or unemployed.
Problems in life also extended, but to a lesser degree, to those with milder forms of misbehaviour.
Costly behaviour
Males accounted for 62.6 per cent of those with severe behavioural problems at school and 54.8 per cent of those with mild problems. If the father had a manual job, this too was a major factor among teenagers in these categories.
The study was led by Ian Colman, an assistant professor of public health at the University of Alberta in Canada.
Colman said the study provides a useful guide for focussing resources to help teenagers whose behaviour could prove costly both to themselves in adulthood, and to society.
He admits that the study has some limitations - there are no data to explain why children misbehaved, for instance. On the other hand, the teachers' assessment was a good indicator of a child's risk of delinquency, and a better guide than the parents' own assessment, he added.
cause - effect
COSMOS: Do you actually review these articles before you publish them? Given the data provided in the article, the following excerpt makes no sense:
"Adolescent misconduct might adversely affect developing social behaviours and result in pervasive social and mental health difficulties throughout adult life"
Naughty kids more likely to fail...
With a childhood background as a "bad boy" myself, I can speak as a qualified individual regarded as being a "statistic", plus as a registered nurse with 22 years clinical experience working with acute and chronic psychiatric disorders - in all age groups - I can speculate with some considerable authority what was deemed "naughty" forty years ago was behavior that did not conform to a teacher's expectations for classroom behavior. My need for attention was met by my peers and by being disruptive in class. My need for sensory stimulation has always been very high, only exceeded by my obsessive drive for autonomy. How one measures adulthood success would seem to also skew this study's resultant conclusions. This article is interesting as "infotainment" but I seriously doubt the scientific value other than to stimulate further research using more exacting controls.> D.J. Erickson -St. Petersburg USA
read again
I believe you will find that COSMOS is quoting the authors. You should be asking the authors of the study whether they review their articles before they publish them.
Naughty kids more likely to fail in life.
Many if not most children who badly misbehave are likely to have been at least partially brain-damaged by vaccines, which contain neurotoxic substances such as mercury-containing Thiomersal (in 1977, 10 babies died in a Toronto hospital after an antiseptic containing Thiomersal was dabbed on their umbilical cords!), aluminum and foreign protein.
Some recommended reading and viewing:
- "Vaccination - Sociopathy, Criminality and Social
Violence" by Dr. Harris Coulter PhD
- The youtube video "Creating a nation of zombies'
featuring US neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock MD
- The 5-part youtube series 'Vaccination: Miracle or
Mayhem?'
- The article "The deliberate de-neuralisation of
America'.
Someone has issues
I am sure that there are plenty of web-sites where your paranoia would make interesting reading. Your reply has nothing to do with the article, either positive or negative.
Re:Someone has issues
Surely if there is a problem with naughty children, it makes sense to not only looking at the consequences, but also at possible causes? The point I am making is that many of these children who misbehave are not doing so because of bad parenting, but because they have been partially brain-damaged by vaccinations.
A few years ago, a young man who was reported to have suffered partial brain-damage as a result of a vaccination as a child, raped and killed British tourist Monica Cantwell on Mount Maunganui in New Zealand. So, far from being a conspiracy theory, this is quite real.
One of Europe's most renowned experts on vaccine damage, Dr. med. G. Buchwald, points out that "We are slowly but surely destroying the intelligence of our future generations with vaccination." I would think that this is something parents should know about.
I suggest you watch the youtube video 'Creating a nation of zombies', featuring US neurosurgeon and health educator Dr. Russell Blaylock MD, author of the article "The Vaccine-Cover-Up". I recommend you google and read it.
RE: someone has issues.
I have to question your logic. What about every other child that has had exactly the same vaccine, but is not a bad student, or has no other mental problems? They can't also be brain damaged. So we have to take out the vaccine as a cause of the misbehaviour!
Was 1946 England a good place to start?
A good article to spark debate, but how can they isolate their time in school as the major factor? Interesting that there is no mention of external factors, such as the family life of the children, the socio-economic environment.
As a practising teacher, my definition of a naughty child would be purely subjective and while it would have common factors with my colleagues it would be personal. Children act differently with teachers and in different school environments so to label a child as naughty is very subjective.
Re: Was 1946 England a good place to start?
You make some interesting points.
There is no doubt in my mind that vaccination is the leading cause of increasing numbers of neurological disorders in children. Parents and teachers then have to pick up the pieces.
In America especially, many children who have trouble sitting still or concentrating for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they are children, are diagnosed as having ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder), autistic spectrum disorders or some other psychological illness and without bothering to look at obvious causes and sensible ways of dealing with the problem (if it in fact exists). Many are then prescribed mind-altering drugs sich as Prozac or Ritalin.
These children have indeed reduced prospects later in life, because they are being turned into little drug addicts at an early age.
I teach at a big private school in Bangkok, Thailand, where I see problem children in the classrooms every day. Last year, in one class of seven-year-olds alone, five children were being medicated with Ritalin. I consider it criminal, but hey, it's a bonanza for the medical-pharmaceutical industry! Never mind the children; profits are far more important!
Why is everything an illness
Growing up I was labeled with Dislexia, which I can't even spell, and ADD. I was told at some point not to expect much of life. At another point we all were some how labeled the "problem children."
My parents both worked manual labor I don't see what that has to do with anything. I think the issue is not listening. Adults over look kids all the time attempting to find all the reasons why kids are so bad. If the children are given just a bit more one on one time wouldn't that make a difference? I also believe that it is the values and ridicule that is lacking. Who watches most of the kids in America? The TV, the game. Parents have become lazy and more involved in their work and less involved in their family. I remember hearing about the hours of over time so the family could survive, what was the point of surviving if the family wasn't spending much needed time together. It could be the vaccines ok I buy that it is something that is not natural but if we take those away will all the horrid illnesses we have been attempting and in some cases successfully gotten rid of, come back?