Children who badly misbehave in school are likelier to end up with a dud job, poor mental health, teen pregnancy or divorce, according to a British study published on January 09. The paper, published online by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), provides statistical backing for teachers who sound warnings about anti-social behaviour, its authors say.
It draws on an exceptionally long-term investigation, launched among 3,652 Britons who were born in 1946. With their consent, these volunteers have been monitored at occasional intervals since their birth, filling in questionnaires about their health, family and professional life.
At the ages of 13 and 15, this group was assessed by their teachers, who were asked to grade their behaviour as having severe, mild or no conduct problems. A total of 9.5 percent of the teenagers were identified as having severe problems; 28.8 percent had mild problems; and 61.7 percent no problems. Forty years later, the follow-up inquiry found a clear link between misbehaviour at school and difficulties in adult life.
Compared with those with no conduct problems at school, those who severely misbehaved were twice as likely to become a parent before the age of 20; likelier to get divorced or have relationship problems with spouses, children or friends; four times likelier to leave school with no qualifications, and twice as likely to be in a manual job or unemployed. Problems in life also extended, but to a lesser degree, to those with milder forms of misbehaviour.
Males accounted for 62.6 percent of those with severe behavioural problems at school and 54.8 percent of those with mild problems. If the father had a manual job, this too was a major factor among teenagers in these categories. The study is led by Ian Colman, an assistant professor of public health at the University of Alberta, Canada.