This study used data from 6 sites and 3 countries to examine the developmental course of physical aggression in childhood and to analyze its linkage to violent and nonviolent offending outcomes in adolescence. The results indicate that among boys there is continuity in problem behavior from childhood to adolescence and that such continuity is especially acute when early problem behavior takes the form of physical aggression. Chronic physical aggression during the elementary school years specifically increases the risk for continued physical violence as well as other nonviolent forms of delinquency during adolescence. However, this conclusion is reserved primarily for boys, because the results indicate no clear linkage between childhood physical aggression and adolescent offending among female samples despite notable similarities across male and female samples in the developmental course of physical aggression in childhood.Children's behavior problems have long been considered precursors of juvenile delinquency and adult criminality (Carpenter, 1851;Horn, 1989; Roosevelt, 1909). The development of these behavior problems during the elementary school years was the object of intensive investigations over the last quarter of the 20th century. A number of large-scale longitudinal studies in different industrialized countries used repeated measurements over many years to trace the development of behavior problems. These studies followed older pioneering longitudinal studies that were retrospective (e.g., Robins, 1966) or that had limited their prospective assessments to one time point during childhood and one or two time points during adolescence and adulthood (e.g., Lefkowitz, Eron, Walder, & Huesmann, 1977; West & Harrington, 1973).Having reviewed this long-lived literature, the U.S. National Research Council's Panel on Understanding and Preventing Violence concluded, " [I] NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript to become violent teenagers and adults" (Reiss & Roth, 1993, p, 358). There is indeed ample evidence that, at least for boys, childhood disruptive or troublesome behavior is one of the best predictors of adolescent and adult criminality, including violent offending (e.g., Farrington, 1994;Fergusson & Horwood, 1995;Huesmann, Eron, Lefkowitz, & Walder, 1984;Moffitt, 1990;Pulkkinen & Tremblay, 1992;Stattin & Magnusson, 1989;Tremblay, Pihl, Vitaro, & Dobkin, 1994). However, Nagin and Tremblay (1999) and Tremblay (2000) pointed out that extant research generally does not distinguish physical from nonphysical aggression or violence. Thus, it is only possible to conclude that disruptive or troublesome behavior during childhood predicts later delinquent behavior, not that physical aggression during childhood per se is a distinct risk factor for physical violence in adolescence or adulthood.A determination of whether physical aggression is a distinct risk factor for later physical violence is important for both conceptual and practical reasons. Conceptually, the nature of ...

The early childhood antecedents and behavior-problem correlates of monitoring and psychological control were examined in this prospective, longitudinal, multi-informant study. Parenting data were collected during home visit interviews with 440 mothers and their 13-year-old children. Behavior problems (anxiety/depression and delinquent behavior) were assessed via mother, teacher, and/or adolescent reports at ages 8 through 10 years and again at ages 13 through 14. Home-interview data collected at age 5 years were used to measure antecedent parenting (harsh/reactive, positive/ proactive), family background (e.g., socioeconomic status), and mother-rated child behavior problems. Consistent with expectation, monitoring was anteceded by a proactive parenting style and by advantageous family-ecological characteristics, and psychological control was anteceded by harsh parenting and by mothers' earlier reports of child externalizing problems. Consistent with prior research, monitoring was associated with fewer delinquent behavior problems. Links between psychological control and adjustment were more complex: High levels of psychological control were associated with more delinquent problems for girls and for teens who were low in preadolescent delinquent problems, and with more anxiety/depression for girls and for teens who were high in preadolescent anxiety/depression.

Links between parental knowledge and adolescent delinquent behavior were tested for correlated rates of developmental change and reciprocal associations. For 4 years beginning at age 14, adolescents (N = 396) reported on their delinquent behavior and on their parents' knowledge of their whereabouts and activities. Parents completed measures of their adolescents' delinquent behavior. Knowledge was negatively correlated with delinquent behaviors at baseline, and increases over time in knowledge were negatively correlated with increases in parent-reported delinquent behavior. Reciprocal associations indicate that low levels of parental knowledge predict increases in delinquent behavior and that high levels of delinquent behavior predict decreases in knowledge. Discussion considers both youth-driven and parent-driven processes that may account for the correlated developmental changes and reciprocal associations.

Multiple informants commonly disagree when reporting child and family behavior. In many studies of informant discrepancies, researchers take the difference between two informants' reports and seek to examine the link between this difference score and external constructs (e.g., child maladjustment). In this paper, we review two reasons why difference scores cannot serve as unambiguous predictors of outcomes. Further, we use polynomial regression analyses to both test the validity of difference scores and provide a more direct test of the hypothesis that discrepancies in parent and child reports predict child psychopathology. Data from 218 parent-adolescent dyads (M adolescent age = 11.5 years, 51 % female; 49 % European American, 47 % African American) were used to predict adolescent-reported antisocial behavior and depression from parent and adolescent reports of parent-adolescent conflict, parental knowledge, parental acceptance, adolescent rule-breaking behavior, and adolescent pubertal development. Results demonstrate that analyses using difference scores do not provide valid tests of the utility of informant discrepancies in predicting adolescent psychosocial maladjustment. However, interaction terms in polynomial regression analyses provide evidence that informant discrepancies predict child psychopathology. Parent-adolescent informant discrepancies predict adolescent psychopathology but researchers should avoid using difference scores to measure informant discrepancies. Polynomial regression analyses provide more comprehensive and accurate tests of whether informant discrepancies predict child and adolescent psychopathology.