Understanding Antisocial Behavior in Children Essay

On evening of June 9th 1959 in a small town named Clinton Ontario, a couple of hundred kilometres from London, Ontario, a fourteen year old Steven Truscott gave twelve year old classmate Cheryl ‘Lynne’ Harper a ride home on the crossbars of his bicycle, the pair rode along the Country Road. What occurred after this is still unknown, and is still debated due to the wealth of questionable information from varied sources. Around 11:20pm, Lynne’s father had notified officials of his daughter’s disappearance. Just two days later, Lynne Harper’s body was found in a forested area just next to the County Road. Lynne Harper had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

Children are our future. They will shape future generations to come and the way our society deals with difficulties. One difficulty that is currently being addressed is child neglect. Child neglect is the most prevalent form of child maltreatment (Sedlak et al 2010). Neglect includes physical neglect, emotional neglect, medical neglect and educational neglect. Although there may or may not be physical symptoms, neglect may be harder to identify right away. Neglect is often referred to as an act of omission as the parent or caregiver does not intentionally cause harm to the child, but the absence of care puts the child at risk of harm (Sedlak et al 2010). In 2007, the cost of child abuse and neglect was $103.8 billion, which includes immediate

Abandonment indicates a parent’s choice to have no part in his or her offspring’s life. This includes failure to support the child financially and emotionally, as well as failure to develop a relationship with his or her child. Sadly, parental abandonment leaves a child with doubt and uncertainty about the future. Throughout his or her life, this particular child could suffer from lasting questions of self-worth. In the opposite direction, the child could learn to resent his or her parents and remain incapable of trusting anyone. Regardless, intentional negligence of children leaves them with an unbearable pain that they must carry around for the rest of their lives. Child-care and the consequences

In most cases, child neglect can be very difficult to indicate especially if the child never discusses his or her living situation due to the fact that he or she is too young to express feelings unless he or she is being closely observed. According to Crosson-Tower (2010), “… neglect is less dramatic than the

In this criminal trial, two girls have been arrested and charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide for trying to kill their friend. On May 31, 2014 12 years old Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser lure their 12-year-old friend Payton Leutner to the woods and stabbed her 19 times before abandoning her in the woods until a bicyclist found her body. Leutner was quickly sent to the hospital and was lucky to survive. As investigator investigated the case, it was told by both Weier and Geyser that the reason is to appease a fictional paranormal character Slender Man. Both Weier and Geyser are trail for adult court rather than juvenile court and if they were found guilty for convicting to kill their friend they will be facing up to 35-65 years in jail within the adult court. Both Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser exact charges

The shocking revelation has made the death difficult to explain, and the fact that the only known witness to the crime is another young child also makes it hard to investigate. Lewis said “We don’t normally have 5-year-olds as primary witnesses.”

While murderers come in all shapes and sizes, it still comes as a great shock to see a child as the culprit rather than the victim. In the case of Eric Smith, a thirteen-year-old who brutally killed four-year-old Derrick Robie and was tried as an adult and was sentenced to nine years to life in prison. Growing up, Smith was a loner, he didn’t have any friends and was made fun of and was often bullied at school because of his physical appearance. Smith had red hair, freckles, wore thick glasses, and had elongated ears that were protruding. It was also said that Eric Smith suffered physical abuse at home.

You probably never heard of Don Henry and Kevin Ives. Don was 16 when he was murdered and Kevin was 17. These boys had family and friends that probably will ever know who killed them. On Sunday, August 23, 1987, at around 4:00 a.m. Don and Kevin was spotted by the crew of a Union Pacific train near Alexander. The bodies were lying between the tracks, wrapped in a pale green tarp; there was a gun nearby. The train was unable to avoid running over the bodies. The train’s crew immediately reported the incident to railroad officials and to local law enforcement at benton. Around 4:40 a.m local and state police had arrived at the scene and begun investigating. At first, local officials treated the incident like a suicide.

In order to help those in need, the forms of mistreatment must be first understood in order to make an accurate report. What are some of the different forms of child neglect?  In this presentation, the different forms of child neglect discussed are the educational neglect, medical neglect, and emotional neglect experiences. For starters, educational neglect transpires when the caregiver or parent does not enroll the child in school nor encourages the child to attend school. This type of neglect is happening amongst poor families who may prefer the child to work to assist in bringing more income into the home instead of attending school. Denying children of receiving a good education does not only hurt them, but their future

There are three theories that all describe the reasons why child abuse and neglect lead to juvenile delinquency. This first of these theories is the social bonding theory which states that the weaker the bond between parent and child, the more likely the child is to become delinquent as stated by Ronald Akers. A parent’s role in an adolescent’s life is to foster a social

     Some causes for conduct in adolescents are no discipline, unstructured discipline and a broken home. A broken home is one of the factors that can produce a delinquent child. A broken home reduces the opportunity for creating a strong attachment between child and parents and that reduces the parent’s ability to condition the child. Many theories concerning the causes of juvenile crime focus either on the individual or on society as the major contributing influence. Theories centering on the individual suggest that children engage in criminal behavior because they were not sufficiently penalized for previous delinquent acts or that they have learned criminal behavior through interaction with others.

There is also emotional neglect of the child and its very irritating for them and it is very hurtful to the child’s feeling. Ward (2010) stated that “emotional neglect is any attitude, behavior, or failure to act that interferes with a child's mental health or social development”. As Gardner (2012) claimed that, by keeping the child feelings always under pressure, a parent is creating the fearing process by preventing the child need to interact with other and not showing the positive feelings to the child and blaming the child about every step done it is destroying the emotions and feelings of the child.

Pennsylvania describes emotional abuse as an action or failure to act that leads to a mental injury of a child (Clark 352). It also includes refusing to give a child his/her treatment for medical illnesses. Emotional abuse interferes with a child's ability to develop at the pace of their age level. Emotional abuse victims tend to receive a limited or lack of attention or affection. They are also compared to others in a negative way, constantly bombarded with insults and humiliation. Emotional abuse also includes allowing others to verbally abuse the child (Smith and Segal 2). Pennsylvania defines neglect as the lack of parental care or supervision for long periods of time (Clark 351). It also consist of keeping a prescribed medicine from the child (Rein 11-12). Parents may fail to provide essentials of life such as: nutrition, shelter, clothing, education, safety, and medical needs (Clark 185-190). Neglect occurs within a family and often to young children not old enough to speak. Signs of neglect

Children need to have a role model in their presence to advocate educational activities, community involvement, and avoiding contact with the law for bad behavior. As Baker states, “Delinquents are made, not born” (1991, Pg. 274). Possible noncriminal behaviors that may affect a juvenile to become delinquent include; child neglect and/ or abuse, termination of parental rights, foster home placements, those beyond parental control, interfamily assault and other criminal acts (Baker, 1991, Pg. 275). Parents must learn to teach family conflict intervention, management problems, favorable parental attitudes and involvement in problem behaviors. At an early age we learn to do what it thought, showed, and have the adult figure set the example in our lives. For example, helping with academic failure, avoid delinquent criminal peers, and guide away from drug use and crime. Adolescent problem behaviors start with the parents, then move into the community, and society must respond by providing alternative programs and institutions to help the problem.

The social environment of teens holds an enormous influence on how the teens act and behave. Teens are easily influenced by their surroundings and they look to others for guidance. Their behavior results from that of the parent and peer influences. Parents play a particularly influential role in their child’s life and it is up to them to make sure that they are leading their sons or daughters in the right directions. A teen’s peers also play a large role in how the teen behaves when the parents are not around. A teen’s social environment, consisting of family and peers, plays a vital role in their life, therefore becoming the ultimate cause of juvenile delinquency.