4 Troubled Teens Blog

Research conducted by a public health scholar at the University of Alberta (Canada) found that people who exhibited bad behavior during adolescence were more likely to develop problems as adults. The conclusion comes after Ian Colman analyzed data from a long-term behavioral study.

"The group of subjects has been followed all of their lives through questionnaires and interviews...Of the 3,500 subjects... about 29 percent exhibited some form of behavioral problems [as teenagers], such as disobedience in class, skipping class...."

When those same subjects were interviewed later in life, Colman found that people who'd had even mild issues were experiencing trouble as adults, including unwanted pregnancies, depression, and family problems. Source: Canwest (Canada) News Service

Labels: behavioral_issues, adulthood

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

A 40-year study that began when participants were eight years old has produced some surprising predictors of alcoholism in adults:

" Aggressive, impulsive children - regardless of sex - were more likely to develop adult alcoholism.

" Family conflicts and limited parental education did not predict adult alcoholism.

" Popularity during childhood and adolescence was linked to drinking in amounts greater than average in early adulthood, and problem drinking later in life.

" Children with high IQs and who had attained educational status before age 18 were more likely to drink in above-average amounts as adults.

This fourth finding is the so-called "wine effect," according to Professor Rowell Huesman, who co-authored the study with Professor Eric Dubow of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. "Higher education is associated with greater wine consumption, and that produces the correlation," Huesman said.

The study was published in the May 2008 issue of the journal Addiction

Labels: aggression, alcoholism, adulthood

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments