Word: behavior
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...present, both often have demanding jobs and are absorbed in their own concerns. Sometimes the parents are strung out on alcohol or drugs. The result is that children do not get the nurturing, guidance or supervision necessary to instill a set of values and a proper code of behavior...
...formation of values. Today's children, unlike those of earlier generations, are fed a steady diet of glorified violence. Television cartoons feature dehumanized, machinelike characters, such as the Transformers and Gobots, engaged in destructive acts. But viewers see no consequences. Victims never bleed and never suffer. Youngsters mimic the behavior with toys based on the shows. Later they graduate to TV programs and movies that depict people killing or degrading other people. By the age of 16, the typical child has witnessed an estimated 200,000 acts of violence, including 33,000 murders. Inevitably, contend many experts, some youngsters will...
Such solutions offer only illusory security. Parents contend that they cannot control their children. And most youngsters are eventually released from jail. Many return more hardened than before. "You need to break delinquents from the group where antisocial behavior is reinforced," explains psychologist Michael Nelson of Xavier University in Cincinnati. "But we're caught in a catch-22 dilemma. We place delinquents in reform schools, where they have more access to individuals who are poor role models...
...some programs, youngsters discuss or write up their own cases in an effort to identify the behavior patterns or situations that are liable to trigger hostile actions. For example, sexual offenders are advised to avoid baby-sitting. In the program operated by the Justice Resource Institute in Massachusetts, members concentrate on overcoming aggressive thinking patterns -- for instance, assuming that they are the butt of the joke whenever people are laughing...
Surrounded by sacred cows, O'Rourke lives on a diet of hamburger. He considers it bad form to criticize one society when, with very little effort, two can be skewered: "The same polite behavior that makes you a welcome guest in the drawing rooms of Kensington is equally appropriate among the Mud People of the fierce Orokaiva tribe of Papua New Guinea -- if you have a gun." Closer to home, he examines every appalling aspect of modern life. Under the heading of "Rebuffs," he notes that "at one time the 'cut direct' was delivered by looking right at a person...