Family Matters

When you were growing up who did you look up to? Seriously ask yourself that question…was it a super hero, a friend, a parent? I personally always looked up to my mom as a kid and still do to this day. My parents were my rocks, and my mom was my superhero. But sadly not everyone gets to have that type of relationship with his or her parents.

There are three interrelated factors that influence the child and those are the style of parental family management, the strength of parent-child bonding, and the degree of conflict among family members (Abbott, 2010, p 671). How a child is brought up will almost always influence how they will turn out in the future unless they decide to change their path. Having a family that is not connected or having parents that are not involved in the child’s life it becomes a negative influence for that child and can warp their view of family, love and relationships, in my opinion. If you have a bad relationship with your parents that can also bring stress into the situation and push the child to spend more time away from home and elsewhere instead like with peers or on the street. Also if the child is exposed to violence and conflict at a young age and regularly, that will negatively influence them and could make them at higher risk to be violent, aggressive or commit crimes.

 

Many times domestic violence, abusive parents, and victimization are all factors that lead many adolescents down the path of delinquency and crime. For years we have studied why there is a correlation between crime and adolescent violence. Past studies have “gained considerable momentum in the U.S due to the accumulation of empirical evidence indicating that youth commit a significant portion of all violent crime and experience higher rates of criminal victimization than any other age group (Haynie, 2001). Unfortunately, large proportions of adolescents are routinely exposed to violence through family exposure, neighborhood exposure or direct victimization and these factors have detrimental effects on behavioral transitions and life chances that an adolescent will have.  If a child see’s their parent acting inappropriately or violently, they will think that the behavior is socially acceptable. Their decision-making processes are extremely susceptible to the influence of their immediate family at this time and exposure to violence can increase the adolescent’s chances of early delinquency and crime.

Your family life and how you are brought up in the surrounds you have are all major influences on a child's development and future. 

Abbott, R. D., Catalano, R. F., Fleming, C. B., Haggerty, K. P. (2010). Relationships between Level and change in family, school, and peer factors during two periods of adolescence and problem behavior at age 19. ProQuest: Empirical Research, 39, 670-682.

Belsky, J., Caspi, A., Jaffee, S., Moffitt, T, E., Silva, P. (2001). Why are Children born to Teen Mothers at Risk for Adverse Outcomes in Young Adulthood? Results from a 20-year longitudinal study. ProQuest: Criminal Justice. 13, 377-397.

Haynie, D. (2001). Delinquent Peers Revisited: Does Network Structure Matter? American Journal of Sociology, 106:1013-1057.