DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies used
to cope with conflict, anxiety, and disturbing emo-
tions, as well as to maintain social and emotional well-
being. The theory of defense mechanisms originated
from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical work. Chil-
dren can adaptively employ these defenses to help re-
solve conflicts that arise at the stages of psychosexual
development—the oral, anal, phallic, and genital
stages. As children reach milestones in their develop-
ment, they also learn to master their environment. In
this process they are likely to experience anxiety and
other negative feelings at various developmental
stages. Defense mechanisms are means to manage the
anxious, depressive, and angry emotions that can be
both normal and abnormal reactions to family, com-
munity, school, and peer environments. There are
numerous defense mechanisms, including withdraw-
al, repression, regression, denial, identification,
projection, reaction formation, fantasy, and displace-
ment. For example, a child who is having difficulty
learning fractions may employ withdrawal and not
participate in math class to cope with the frustration
and avoid failure. Children commonly use defense
mechanisms so that they can competently cope with
emotional conflict, fears, stressful environments,
abuse, and negative affect.
See also: THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
Bibliography
Burland, J. Alexis. ‘‘Current Perspectives on the Treatment of Neu-
roses in Children and Adolescents.’’ In M. Hossein Etezady
ed., The Neurotic Child and Adolescent. Northvale, NJ: Jason Ar-
onson, 1990.
Mordock, John. ‘‘Teaching Children Self-control through Coun-
seling.’’ In Judah Ronch, William Van Ornum, and Nicholas
Stillwell eds., The Counseling Sourcebook: A Practical Reference on
Contemporary Issues. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1994.
Rhonda Cherie Boyd
DELINQUENCY
Delinquent behavior, according to legal definitions,
includes such acts as robbery, assault, property dam-
age, drug possession, and other similar crimes com-
mitted by youth. Delinquency also includes what are
known as status offenses, which are acts considered to
be rule violations because individuals who commit
them are not of legal age. Examples of typical status
offenses include drinking alcohol, smoking, and tru-
ancy. Although delinquency is technically defined as
a single law-breaking act, researchers have found that
some youths’ delinquent behavior is of sufficient fre-
quency and severity to represent an identifiable pat-
tern of behavior that becomes apparent at an early
age. Indeed, as early as the 1950s, important research
by experts such as William McCord and Joan McCord
began to identify factors that helped explain an early
onset pattern of antisocial and delinquent behavior.
This research cited harsh parenting as a leading con-
tributor to the development of this pattern.The Early Onset/Persistent Pattern
Many experts have studied the early onset/
persistent (EOP) pattern because such youth are ob-
served to enter a ‘‘developmental pathway’’ to adoles-
cent antisocial and delinquent behavior by showing
aggression and other problem behaviors as early as
the preschool period and continuing a pattern of an-
tisocial behavior into adulthood. Children progress
on this pathway by displaying a progression of behav-
iors, including: having tantrums in preschool; fight-
ing with peers and defying adults during elementary
school; being truant, using drugs, smoking, and shop-
lifting in junior high; and committing crimes in
adolescence and young adulthood. This group consti-
tutes between 5 percent and 7 percent of delinquent
adolescents but tends to be responsible for the major-
ity of recorded delinquent acts. There are two other
important distinguishing features of EOP youth:
Their delinquent acts tend to be of high severity, and
they are likely to be antisocial in all arenas of their
lives.Current knowledge about the origins of delin-
quency is not complete, but a substantial amount of
information has been amassed over the last century.
In addition to identifying distinct patterns of delin-
quent behavior, investigators have made significant
discoveries about the factors that may place a child on
a pathway toward delinquent behavior. What follows
is a discussion of the types of factors that have been
reliably associated with delinquency at various devel-
opmental periods. These are factors that, when pres-
ent, increase the risk for involvement in delinquency
but should never be considered causal. This is an im-
portant point to grasp because, while strong state-
ments can be made about which factors increase the
risk for becoming delinquent, the present state of
knowledge does not allow experts to make definitive
statements about the precise ‘‘causes’’ of delinquency.
Studies frequently find that EOP delinquent
youth come from environments of poverty marked by
high levels of instability and life stress. Importantly,
experts have been careful to point out that these fac-
tors do not alone account for the development of de-
linquency. Rather, it is the effects that poverty and life
stress tend to have on parenting that make them pow-
erful risk factors. Parents in these environments tend
to have fewer resources and less social support thanDELINQUENCY 117