According to the study's author, Professor Peter Fonagy, chief executive of The Anna Freud Centre for child psychotherapy, inadequate social support for teenage mothers means their offspring often fail to develop self-control.
Children learn self-control through a positive relationship with their mothers, he said, adding that mothers need support if they are to have positive relationships with their children. Teenage mothers are particularly subject to social exclusion, which undermines their ability to relate to their offspring.
"A (separate) study in Pittsburgh of 1,500 boys showed that those that remained on a violent trajectory from the age of five to 15 were more likely to have teenage mothers," said Fonagy.
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