Risk Factors and Behaviors

By Dr. Charles Fay


 

Signs That a Child and Family Need Help

  • Any disruptions in first-year-of-life bonding and attachment
  • Lack of guilt or genuine remorse when child hurts others
  • Fire setting and other destructive behavior
  • Cruelty to animals
  • Chronic arguing with parents, teachers, and other authority figures
  • Lack of positive friendships with same-age peers
  • Hyperactivity
  • Perceives self as a victim
  • Chronic refusal to do chores
  • Hoarding of uneaten food
  • Outbursts of severe anger when adults set and enforce limits
  • Encopresis and/or enuresis
  • Chronic lying in the face of the obvious
  • Suicidal or homicidal statements (Take all of these seriously!)
  • Abusive, violent parents
  • Parents who belong to gangs
  • Tobacco and other drug use, as well as association with peers who use these substances
  • Obsession with violent movies, music, video games, internet sites, etc.
  • Violent, gory, or suicidal content in drawings, school writing assignments, etc.

Children who display one or more of these characteristics…

  • should be closely supervised
  • need their parents to remove weapons and other dangerous items from the home
  • are screaming out for love, limits, and professional help

 

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©Charles Fay, Ph.D.
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For more information, call the Love and Logic Institute, Inc. at 800-338-4065.