About Conduct Disorder
What does it look like?
How common is it?
What causes it?
How long does it last?
What treatments are effective?
A review of the evidence
What's new?
Resources

What causes it?
Both genetics and environment play a role.  There is some evidence that children with CD have deficits in their ability to understand social interactions or the social use of language. The same symptoms are often seen in their parents, making it difficult to sort out whether it is genetics or the environment that is at work in producing the condition.

Children who are treated aggressively or punished or criticized harshly are more likely to show symptoms of conduct disorder. Parents may react to their child’s challenging behaviours by using inappropriately aggressive discipline because that is how they were treated as children.

Other risk factors include rejection by the mother during infancy, institutionalization, and parental mental illness such as depression, or parental drug abuse. Children who suffer neglect or who are not adequately supervised are also at risk.   Children born into poverty are more likely to develop the condition.[1]

^top

 

1.	Waddell C, McEwan K, Shepherd C, Offord DR, Hua JM. 2005. A Public Health Strategy to Improve the Mental Health of Canadian Children. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry; 50:226-233.