NEGLECTED BOYS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE VIOLENT TEENS

Parental neglect during childhood—not physical abuse—is the strongest predictor of violent behavior during a boy’s teen years, according to a study of incarcerated male adolescents.

“One of the problems with studying neglect is that it is an act of omission, rather than one of commission. In other words, it is characterized as the absence of an act, rather than an actual act of mistreatment,” says William McGuigan, associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State. “However, now we have better measures and larger databases to document neglect.”