Warm Family Environment Protects Aggressive Children from School Maladjustment and Later Adulthood Unemployment

The study looked at the specific risk mechanisms and protective factors in the relationship between aggression in childhood and the likelihood of long-term unemployment in adulthood. Scientists studied whether childhood aggression begins a cycle of maladaptation in school that results in an erratic worklife as an adult.

In regard to protective factors that might buffer these long-term risks, scientists queried the subjects as adults about the type of parenting they had experienced when they were teenagers. Scientists also looked at a group of individuals who were aggressive as children, but also exhibited high levels of prosocial behaviors; they expected to see this group at lesser risk than aggressive individuals with low levels of prosocial behavior.

Participants were drawn from the ongoing Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, which has tracked individuals from the ages of 8 (n=369) to 36 years (n=311). The participants were evaluated with teacher ratings and self-reports at four different ages: age eight; age 14; age 27; and between ages 27 and 36.

The authors found that the children who were aggressive at age eight began a cycle of maladaptation that included school maladjustment, problem drinking, limited occupational alternatives and, finally, long-term unemployment. But they also found that child-centered parenting (supportive parents, parents involved in their children's lives and a warm family environment) and prosocial behavior (high self-control of emotions in stressful or uncomfortable situations) reduced aggressive children's chances of long-term unemployment.

Maladjustment to school appears to be important to this cycle of maladaptation. Other research has shown that school adjustment is one of the most important development tasks of adolescence. At school, adolescents learn skills that are necessary for higher education and work. Failure can result in limited future opportunities, as was shown in this study. But child-centered parenting (also called authoritative style) appears to protect aggressive children from this problematic cycle. The scientists said that the protective effect of such parenting may be due to the fact that these parents exhibit greater interest and involvement in school; such support has been found to be positively associated with children's school performance.

The ACT Project focuses on preventing aggressive behavior from a very young age. The goal is for parents and early childhood educators to model and teach children the prosocial skills they will need when they enter school. These skills include nonviolent ways of dealing with anger, resolving conflict, and learning to get along with others. This can help them be successful with peers, in school, and, ultimately, at work. Encouraging parents to use nonviolent, positive discipline and a warm child-centered approach, ACT incorporates the basic authoritative parenting style that was found to be effective in this study.

View press release and original journal article, July 16, 2000, "Warm family environment protects aggressive children from school maladjustment and later adulthood unemployment," http://www.apa.org/releases/childaggress.html.