"Spare the rod and spoil the child" may seem like good parental advice, but it’s doesn’t work: Authoritarian parents are more likely to raise disrespectful, delinquent children who do not see them as legitimate authority figures than authoritative parents who listen to their children and gain their respect and trust.
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Gangs are a major problem in urban areas, and now scientists have discovered that boys who carry a particular variation of a gene known as MAOA, which is sometimes called the “warrior gene,” are more likely not only to join gangs but also to be among the most violent members and to use weapons. This finding does not apply to girls (who also join gangs).
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Newswise – On Monday, 16-year-old Jeffrey Weise, a high school studenton the Red Lake Chippewa Indian Reservation in northernMinnesota, shot and killed his grandparents, five fellowstudents, a teacher and a security guard, as well ashimself–and Dreamland guest Loren Coleman, author ofthe Copycat Effect predicted it.Like the Columbine killers, Weise frequented aNeo-Nazi internet website. For years, psychologists havebeen saying that exposure to violent media imagesdoes notlead to violent actions, but now they’re changing theirminds. According to the British medical journal The Lancet,violent imagery can increase aggressive behavior in kids.
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The least healthy age group is teenagers. In some ways, they are even less healthy than seniors, most of whom are at least addressing their health problems. Teens have more sexual diseases than any other group, as well as high rates of alcoholism and drug addiction. They also smoke more and eat unhealthy diets. There’s a plague of teenage obesity and Type II diabetes. Dr. Russell Viner, who specializes in adolescent medicine, says, “It seems that adolescents are the only group whose health is getting worse.”
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