Washington: Children who are aggressive in nature usually come from conflictive families, a leading psychologist has reaffirmed.

Psychologist Arantzazu Bellido confirmed the phenomenon for the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (CAV-EAE).

She undertook surveys with a number of families in the Basque province of Bizkaia. Bellido demonstrated that, effectively, there is a direct relationship between a child's behaviour and their family environment. She has written her results and conclusions for her PhD thesis, presented at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

The PhD thesis was entitled Family context and aggressive behaviour in 8-year-old children.

The researcher based her methodology on the ecological model; i.e. apart from the child, she took factors into account that have effect on the context in which he or she develops. Thus, the children, as well as their family members, friends and school mates, took part in the survey.

Amongst the 251 families surveyed, there were 15 children who showed aggressive behaviour and, of these, two were highly aggressive. As the psychologist explained, they are not very high figures, but underlying them she found some interesting data.

It is precisely the factors corresponding to the family context that are determinant in the child being aggressive, according to what can be deduced from the thesis. Besides the factor already mentioned (the absence of parents), particularly outstanding are: a restrictive paternal - but not maternal - discipline (educational discrepancy and restriction-permissiveness), lack of satisfaction of the child with his or her family environment and an unbalanced distribution of domestic chores which basically fall on the mother, who also works outside the home (stress).

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