But the study also says the link that it shows between aggression in early childhood and adolescence is likely to be conservative, if anything. The team used only those women who stayed in the large study for this analysis. Those who fell out were more likely to be poor, have lower levels of education, or to have been teenage mothers when the study began, and such mothers were more likely to have aggressive children. Previous studies overseas have found that as many as 50 per cent of children who develop aggressive behaviour in preschool will continue to show the same problem behaviour through childhood and into teenage years, the Australian study says. Dr Bor said the best results had come from teaching parents how to manage aggressive behaviour by paying attention to positive behaviour and using non-violent discipline.
Parents can get into a cycle of criticising bad behaviour and being very punitive in punishments.