THE DELINQUENT CHILD
A
delinquent child or juvenile delinquent is one who deviates seriously from the norms
of his culture or society and commits such acts that, if committed by an adult
would be punishable as crimes.
Psychologists
consider delinquent child as one who has failed to internalize the primitive
taboos and code of conduct set by the family and society.
Characteristics of Delinquents
1. Physical: They are mesomorphic in constitution, muscular and
bold.
2. Temperament: Restlessly energetic, impulsive,
extraverted, aggressive and destructive.
3. Attitude: Hostile, defiant, resentful, suspicious, unconventional
and non-submissive to authority.
4. Psychological: Tending to direct and concrete rather than
symbolic in intellectual expression and less methodological in their approach
to the problem.
5. Socio-cultural: Lack of affection, stability, moral
standard of parents usually unfit to guide them effectively.
Causes of Delinquency
The important causes of delinquency are the following:
1. Hereditary factors: Hereditarians argue that delinquency
is genetically controlled to some extent.
2. Constitutional factors: Some constitutional deformity
which give rise to feeling of inferiority, dispose one to more aggression as a
compensatory reaction for his inadequacies.
3. Family factors: Family factors like broken home, improper
parental control, criminal behaviour fo parents or other family members,
domestic conflicts , economic difficulty and poverty of the family, dull,
monotonous and uninteresting home environment, denial of reasonable freedom and
independence, maltreatment and injustice contributes to delinquency.
4. School factors: School factors like defective curriculum,
improper teaching methods, lack of co-curricular activities, lack of proper
discipline and control, slackness in administration and organization,
antisocial and undesirable behaviour of the teachers, failure and backwardness
also contributes to delinquency.
Role of the teacher
The teacher can take following preventive measures to check
delinquency among students:
1. Educate the parents to understand their children and make
them aware of the need for providing a proper environment for the satisfaction
of the basic needs and urges of the children.
2. Save the child from bad company and antisocial
environment.
3. Where the family or neighbourhood environment is
defective, remove the child from his original environment and place either in
foster homes or well managed reformatories and special schools.
4. Rectify the school education and school environment by
making it healthy and congenial. The curriculum, methods of teaching,
discipline, classroom behaviour of the teacher, and the social atmosphere of
the school should be rectified so that children do not get involved in problems
of emotional and social maladjustment.
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