should parents of bullies be held liable?

[scratcho]

60. Good post.

I think a familys social position including taking into account geographical location in a society is a strong determininant into causes of anti-social behaviour. The crime rate ,for example,would be miniscule on Martha's Vineyard as compared to south central LA. I suppose I'm stating the obvious here and I'm certainly not familiar with monoamine oxidase A. But I intend to become so.

Experiment on PBS had 3 and 5 month old babies observing 3 puppets,(looked like cute little Teddy Bears)one on each side of a small box with a lid that could be opened and one just behind the box that was trying to open the lid. The puppets on the sides of the box were identified by wearing little shorts differant only in color. One blue and one light red. Let's call the puppet on the left,the helpfull (good)puppet and the puppet on the right ,the unhelpfull(bad) puppet.

When the little CENTER puppet tried to open the box and was struggling and could not open the box,the puppet on the left immediately helped the center puppet open the box. Conversly ,not only did the puppet on the right not help the CENTER puppet open the box,but jumped up and slammed it shut,depriving the CENTER puppet from opening it and/or shutting it when it was partly open.

Hope that's clear. Now the 3 and 5 month olds,when the puppets were then put right in front of them in what could be recognized by even a baby as a "here=take one--86% of the time,the babies chose the helpfull puppet. The 3 month old shown wasn't even crawling,but could raise it's head up to watch and chose.

NOW,the maybe the other 14% is some kind of indication that those who study these matters should be interested in. Perhaps this could be indicative of a pre-determined behaviour that could manifest in an anti-social manner later on or on a continual basis as one grows. Why did 14% of the babies pick the one that slammed the lid instead of-------well you know.

There were other experiments on the show--but that's enough.