Children's Needs – Parenting Capacity - Digital Education Resource ...

Child development and parents’ responses – adolescence 167In addition many teenagers worry about becoming the victims of crime. Aroundhalf of 11- to 16-year-olds are victims of crime every year. A school-based surveyof secondary-school pupils found that this age group were most likely to be victimsof threats (26%), bullying (23%), theft (15%), destruction of property (14%) andphysical attacks (13%) (MORI 2004).Research suggests that teenage males are the most likely group to have beeninvolved in crime (Self and Zealey 2007). A quarter of secondary-school pupils inmainstream schools (26%) said they had committed a criminal offence in the last12 months: 31% of teenage boys compared with 20% of girls. Offending peaks at14 years (MORI 2004). Most adolescent offending was minor and carried out inthe company of friends.Possible impact on emotional and behavioural developmentThere are five major issues for this age group: emotional disturbances, conductdisorders including bullying, sexual abuse, caring responsibilities and denial of ownneeds and feelings.The volatility of this age group means that the impact of parental problems, whilesimilar to that at a younger age group, is more intense. Mothers’ mental healthproblems (and in particular depression) may result in teenagers showing morebehaviour problems than those whose mothers are well (Downey and Coyne 1990).Parents with poor mental health reported more behavioural problems in theiradolescent children than well parents, in particular anger and strange behaviours(Somers 2007). Other research suggests that problems do not only exhibit themselvesin terms of conduct disorders (see for example Beardsley et al. 1987; Klein et al.1988) but can also be manifest in emotional disturbances (see for example Lee andGotlib 1989).Domestic violence may also lead to both emotional and behavioural problems foradolescents. The reports of children illustrate the emotional impact of experiencingdomestic violence. Alexander and colleagues’ (2005) survey of 254 secondary pupilsfound that of those experiencing domestic abuse, a fifth (21%) reported feelings offear, 15% sadness, 10% felt lonely and isolated and 9% suicidal. Others reporteddifferent feelings including anger, worthlessness and depression, ‘like they’re goingmad’, worry or helplessness.Although girls are more likely to turn their feelings of anger onto themselves, boysare more likely to express anger outwardly. For example, when having witnesseddomestic violence boys may wish to carry out retaliatory acts of violence towardsthe perpetrator. ‘I want to catch him alone ... and I want to hit him hard ... break allhis teeth...’ (12-year-old boy, quoted in Joseph et al. 2006, p.31).When children feel things are out of control, their aberrant behaviour is frequentlya cry for help. Booth and Booth’s (1997) study of the adult children of parents withlearning disabilities found widespread experience of social isolation, victimisation