Primary school children’s vandalism. The problem of upbringing and interaction in russian families

The study is devoted to the problem of primary school children’s vandalism, and particularly its connection with child-parent relationships on the example of Russian families. We define the main predictors of a child’s vandal activity on the basis of psychological diagnostics of 228 8–9-yearold children and the assessment of the frequency and specifics of their vandal behaviour by their 228 parents. The children are classified into 3 groups by the extent of their propensity for vandalism. The complex analysis identifies personal and emotional factors influencing the frequency of a child’s acts of destruction and transformation of other people’s items, devaluation of their own and others’ things including those explained by the covert desire to acquire new items. The research findings confirm a significant role of the parent-child relationships in the formation of the child’s readiness for vandal behaviour. In particular, we prove that limitation of a child’s freedom by excessive strictness and hyper protection aggravates children’s propensity for vandalism.