Researchers have discovered that effective parenting is essential during middle school years to keep children out of trouble. Effective parents show warmth and support, set standards for their children, monitor their behaviour, engage in consistent discipline, use inductive reasoning to explain rules and eschew harsh punishments. Better-behaved children make it easier for their parents to be effective and the parents of the better-behaved children gave their children more freedom as they entered adolescence. But these parents were still exerting much more control over their teenagers after 4 years than than the parents of difficult children were. There is a feedback relationship. Difficult children make it tougher for parents to set limits or discipline their child, which in turn made it more likely that a child would start hanging out with deviant peers. These "oppositional/defiant" children threw temper tantrums, talked back, bullied other children, were selfish and blamed others. Over time parents became more and more lax with a difficult child.
About 50% of antisocial children become antisocial adults.
Parents can help their children stay on the straight and narrow by making sure they stay away from deviant and delinquent peers.