Development Theories and Offending Behavior in Children: A Report

This report investigates the development of offending behavior in children and adolescents, focusing on the influence of psychological theories. The introduction highlights the various factors contributing to antisocial and offending behaviors, particularly interactions with family and peers. The main body delves into three key theories: behaviorism, cognitive developmental theory, and attachment theory. Behaviorism explores how classical and operant conditioning shape behavior through rewards and associations. Cognitive theory, proposed by Jean Piaget, examines the stages of cognitive development and how they impact a child's understanding of the world. Attachment theory emphasizes the importance of early relationships and bonds in fostering a sense of security. The report also discusses interruptions to development, such as changes in environment or stress, and provides examples of how these interruptions can lead to offending behaviors. The conclusion summarizes the impact of these theories on understanding and addressing offending behavior in young people. The references include books and journals used in the research.

Children Develop
Offending Behaviour

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Development Theories and how they shape and influence a young person’s development.. 3
Interruption to Development..................................................................................................5
Complimentary and Contrasting Examples............................................................................6
CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
There are a lot of factors and characteristics that contribute or are associated with the
development of offending behaviour in children and in young people. The interactions and
relationship of children and adolescents with their family members and peer are the main reason
that develops anti social and offending behaviour in them (Sisson, Smith and Cheney, 2017).
Generally this behaviour is adopted, where a child is neglected by his parents or an adolescent is
badly treated by their peers. Behaviour of them is reflection of what they cannot express to
others about how they feel. In this report we will discuss the three theories (behaviourism,
Cognitive and Attachment theory) that will explain, how children and adolescent develop
offending behaviour and how these theory can shape and influence the development in children
and adolescent.
MAIN BODY
Development Theories and how they shape and influence a young person’s development.
Behaviourism Theory of Development
Behaviourism is a kind of learning theory that mainly focuses on the observable
behaviours. There are two approaches to this theory i.e. Classical conditioning and Operant
conditioning. Classical conditioning is that where a child or adolescent learn things from the
associations that may be between the environmental stimulus or it can also be naturally
occurred stimulus. For Example: A father usually when comes home and bang the door
hard, he is always angry. This way the kids developed a behaviour that whenever the
door is banged hard by their father, he is angry.
 Operant Conditioning is when a child learns how they are suppose to behave through
rewards. This behaviour is when the child is asked to do something in return of
something every time (Barnes and Puccioni, 2017). For Example: Whenever a child is
crying, his mother takes him to park. This act was repeatedly done due to which child
developed a behaviour in which they know that if they cry they will be taken to the park.
When ever a child develops certain behaviour, by using this theory the development can
be done of the child and adolescents or young people. With the help of this theory, the child
behaviour can be moulded with the parents encourage positive behaviour and encourage

children. to positive behaviour by not offering them with varied incentives and unnecessary
praising or over praising. Being consistent and realistic is important while dealing with
behaviours. This is the area where a child may trick or manipulate. To set rewards appropriately
is very necessary so that the behaviour of the children can be developed and they do not think
that they will get every time what they ask for in return of some good work. Every action, reward
shall be in accordance to the activities and shall not be unnecessary for the event or for the
particular situation.
Cognitive Developmental Theory
This is the theory that is mainly concerned with the though precess of a person. It also
includes the process of thought gets influence with the understanding and the interaction with the
other people in world. This theory was proposed by Jean Piaget. In this theory it was described
that how the though process of a person and his mental states are developed. This theory is not
only limited to the how a child acquire knowledge but also it helps in understanding the nature
they posses of intelligence. Sensorimotor Stage: This stage concerns with a child till age two. An infant usually do
not have any knowledge of the world (Chaput, Saunders and Carson, 2017). Behaviour
of them are therefore limited to the very simple motor responses which are caused by the
sensory stimuli. For example: singing to a child while reading to baby. Pre-Operational Stage: This stage concerns with a child from age 2 to 6. In this the
child learns on using language but do not understand any concrete logic. In this stage
they cannot manipulate the information mentally and also they are not able to take the
point of views of others. For Example: Answering all the questions to “Why” of the
children. Concrete Operational Stage: This stage concerns with a child from age 7 to 11. In this
the child develops an understanding of many of the mental operations. In this a child
starts to think logically and also have difficulties in understanding the concepts or
abstract.
 Formal Operational Stage: This stage concerns with a child from age 12 to Adulthood.
In this, people develop an ability where they can also think about the abstract concepts
like: logical thoughts or deductive reasoning, etc.

This theory is very important for the development of the offending behaviour of the
children and that of adolescent as it helps in identifying all the primary sources that were
influential for the child while he was undergoing learning and developing (Courcy and des
Rivieres, 2017). This is the theory in which the pattern of learning of children is determined by
way of which they developed a particular offending behaviour. After it is determined then an
effective planning is done so that such behaviour of the children can be changed. This theory is
very important as it helps in understanding the emotional, mental, social. Educational, etc.
growth of a children.
Attachment Theory
This is the theory that mainly focuses on the relationship and bonds with the child and
adolescent with other people like their friends, family, relatives, peers, etc. Attachment basically
is an emotional connection/bond with other person. At a very early stage I..e from birth till a
child develops an understanding of the primary and secondary caregiver do not show any kind of
attachment. But gradually after they starts recognising faces and people, they show their
preferences and attachment to their caregivers (Özduran and Tanova, 2017). These caregivers
provides assurance to the children and develop a feeling of trust and security. For example:
when a children ask for sometime and their caregiver respond to them quickly, they gets
assurance that they can depend on them. This creates early foundation of the attachment.
When a children develops an offending behaviour this can lead to have negative impact
upon their growth and personality. The development in the children when is interrupted by an
act, their behaviour often results into offending behaviour (Mermelshtine, 2017). The theory of
attachment is very important as the attachment provides an assurance that someone is their of the
children to care for them and to provide them with security.
Interruption to Development
There can be many type of interruption to the process of development of children. They
are as follows:
 the interruption may be due to the change of the surrounding or location of the children to
which he was previously adapted to.

 The interruption may arise in situation when the child starts activating in a very different
manner then expected.

 When any stress is observed by the children in their family or in an environment of care
giving.
 Children exposed to early abuse and dominance in their surrounding.
 The interruption can also be related to the fact that they child is adamant and is not
listening to others and have already adapted with the negative behaviour.
 If any changes are made in the pattern when a child is growing then it badly impact and
influence their development.
Complimentary and Contrasting Examples
Examples that relates to the interruption of children development are as follows:
 when a child does any good work, his parents instead of giving him any reward for the
same, gave him lots of praising. The child did not understand the behaviour as he was
expecting a gift. So he got angry and started showing tantrums to get gift in return.
 when the child is developing its skills and growing, his parents decided to get divorced
and live separately. This causes interruption in the positive growth of the child and also
this mentally disturbs the child with the change in the environment and surroundings.
This causes offending behaviour as the impact of the situation so arise.
 parents have only one child and he was getting all the attention and pampering. After few
month when a baby girl was born, she started to get all attention as she was an infant.
Noticing this, the child though that his parents are no more attached to him. This is the
interruption that may lead to the failing of development.
There are many ways in which the development can be interrupted but a person have to
figure out different ways through which such an interruption do not adversely impact the
development of a child or an adolescent.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that, the child from his birth till adulthood is
continuously in a stage where they are growing and learning. There are many theories which are
used upon the children so that they are developed in a well systematic way. When a child is
growing they sometimes develop offending behaviour which often results in the interruption of
their positive development. For this there are theories used like: behaviourism theory,which
mainly focuses on the adoption of the behaviour in a child, cognitive theory, which is related to
keeping track of the development of children in various stages of his life and attachment theory
which helps in development of attachment in children in a positive way so that they can trust and
feel secured. With the help of all these three theories the offending behaviour of the children can
be developed into positive behaviour.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Barnes, E. and Puccioni, J., 2017. Shared book reading and preschool children's academic
achievement: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Birth
cohort. Infant and Child Development, 26(6), p.e2035.
Chaput, J.P., Saunders, T.J. and Carson, V., 2017. Interactions between sleep, movement and
other non‐movement behaviours in the pathogenesis of childhood obesity. Obesity
Reviews, 18, pp.7-14.
Courcy, I. and des Rivieres, C., 2017. “From cause to cure”: A qualitative study on
contemporary forms of mother blaming experienced by mothers of young children with
autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Family Social Work, 20(3), pp.233-250.
Mermelshtine, R., 2017. Parent–child learning interactions: A review of the literature on
scaffolding. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(2), pp.241-254.
Özduran, A. and Tanova, C., 2017. Manager mindsets and employee organizational citizenship
behaviours. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Sisson, S.B., Smith, C.L. and Cheney, M., 2017. Big impact on small children: Child-care
providers’ perceptions of their role in early childhood healthy lifestyle
behaviours. Child care in practice, 23(2), pp.162-180.