ABSTRACT
Myths about community safety and dangerousness are common and often are created deliberately by false information. The two most common false assumptions are, first, that a single cause can be found, and second, that because something is often found to accompany a disorder or happened shortly before the disorder is noticed, it's the cause. Some children are particularly vulnerable to some causes and seem to develop disorders under circumstances that most children seem to take in stride. No reasonably well-informed person doubts that biological factors can and often do contribute in some way to children's mental health problems. Children's families obviously affect how they feel about lots of things and how they act and react. Schools can contribute to causing emotional or behavioral disorders by teaching students useless things or failing to teach them important things. Furthermore, as in the case of respiratory disease, one factor seldom, if ever, works alone to cause an emotional or behavioral problem.
