ABSTRACT
Young children’s conduct problems typically involve simple aggressive, disruptive and non-compliant behaviours that produce immediate consequences, whereas the replacement behaviours, cooperation, compliance and self-regulation, are complex and harder to learn. Conduct problems comprise the single biggest source of referral to child mental health services and are extremely costly to educational, health, social care and justice systems. Several environmental variables are associated with early childhood behaviour problems and it is possible to recognise factors that place young children at increased risk of developing conduct problems. There is evidence that the greater the number of associated risk factors present in the child’s living environment, the higher the risk for the child. Family/social risk factors for poor outcomes include socio-economic disadvantage, disrupted families, e.g. divorce, and large families. Different risk factors become salient at different stages in children’s development. The risk factors, there are other factors operating in the child’s life that can help to counter the adverse influence of multiple risk factors.
