Introduction

'I can't believe you got suspended, this is not how I raised you! Where are these actions coming from?' This was the reaction of Johnny's mother after she had to leave her job at nine o'clock in the morning to go pick her son up from the principal's office. He was suspended for ten days because he got into a fist fight with another boy in his first hour class. Not only was Johnny starting to get into fights, his grades were beginning to drop. And his attitude towards many things began to change. 'I can't understand what's what's going on with you, first your grades start to drop and now you are getting into fights. Where did I go wrong?'
Most parents often blame themselves for their children's outcome in life. Parents tend to receive credit for their child's successes, but when their child's behavior isn't whats expected parents wonder where the actions came from, and often pitty themselves.

The Quest

What factors shape the behavior of teenagers?

The Process and Resources

In this WebQuest you will be working together with a group of students in class. Each group will answer the Task or Quest(ion). As a member of the group you will explore Webpages from people all over the world who care about are Child behavior. Because these are real Webpages we're tapping into, not things made just for schools, the reading level might challenge you. Feel free to use the online Webster dictionary or one in your classroom.

You'll begin with everyone in your group getting some background before dividing into roles where people on your team become experts on one part of the topic.

Phase 1 - Background: Something for Everyone

Use the Internet information linked below to answer the basic questions of who? what? where? when? why? and how? Be creative in exploring the information so that you answer these questions as fully and insightfully as you can.

• Big Five Personality Factors - In this link you will find general information about personality. This link discusses some of the reasons why psychologist study personality. In this link you will also learn about the the big five theory, which suggest that there are mainly five personality traits that captures the essence of our individual differences in personality.

Phase 2 - Looking Deeper from Different Perspectives

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Individuals or pairs from your larger WebQuest team will explore one of the roles below.

2. Read through the files linked to your group. If you print out the files, underline the passages that you feel are the most important. If you look at the files on the computer, copy sections you feel are important by dragging the mouse across the passage and copying / pasting it into a word processor or other writing software.

3. Note: Remember to write down or copy/paste the URL of the file you take the passage from so you can quickly go back to it if you need to to prove your point.

4. Be prepared to focus what you've learned into one main opinion that answers the Big Quest(ion) or Task based on what you have learned from the links for your role.

Parenting styles that correspond to behavior

Use the Internet information linked below to answer these questions:
1. What are the parenting styles?
2. Compare/Contrast the three different parenting styles?
3. Predict the outcome of a child based on each parenting style.
4. How effective are today's parenting styles opposed to yesterday?
5. What are some characteristics of a democractic, permissive, and authoritarion parent?
6. Explain how each parenting style correlate with eachother.
7. How does each parenting style believe in discipling their children?
8. What does each parenting style value?
9. Analyze the differences between a democractic parent and a permissive parent.

• Effective parenting styles - This website brings about the issue about whether or not parents should continue to use the parenting styles that do to raise their children. Modern research is questioning whether or not the parenting styles of yesterday is actually preparing children for the future.
• Impact of parenting styles on children - On this website you will find a chart conducted by psychologist Alfred Adler's institute of psychology. This site shows a chart of the many different parenting styles, the parents attitude and the child's response towards their parents attitude.
• Parenting Styles - This website has information on the the three major and most commonly used parenting styles. Authoritarian, permissive and democratic...

Disciplines that shape behaviors

Use the Internet information linked below to answer these questions:
1.Synthesize the ways each article describe positive discipline?
2.Compare your discipline techinques to the ones mentioned in this in these articles.
3. How does neurobiology correlate with behavior?
4. How does positive discipline differ from negative discipline?
5. Explain positive discipline.
6. Define the I circuit mentioned in the neurobiology and behavior article.
7. How can guiding preschoolers toward self-discipline benefit the child when they become a teenager?
8. Compare/Contrast the information between each of the following articles.
9. From the information given below analyze the type of discipline that best suites each behavior.

• Guiding Preschoolers Toward Self-Discipline - This article discusses the way that negative and positive discipline shapes a child's future.
• What is Positive Discipline? - In this article you will find information about the way that positive discipline is a process that helps shapes a child's self worth and helps build their character.
• Neurobiology and Behavior - This article discusses the factors that the way a child acts correlate with the childs brain connections.

Environmental/genetic influences on behavior

Use the Internet information linked below to answer these questions:
1. How does a child's eating pattern correlate with their behavior?
2. A child's developmental growth effects the way they eat and what they eat so explain how this correlates with the wayh they behave?
3. Describe the ways a family eating behavior affects a childs behavior?
4. Define the research techniques used to research the genetic influence on behavior.
5. Explain how great of a role does environmental influences have on behaviors?
6. Compare/Contrast the differences between environmental influence and genetic influence.
7. Analyze the reasons why identical twins don't share the same genetic influences.
8. Name and explain some of the problems found due to genetic traits.
9. What are the primary influences on emotional development?

• Topics in Nutrition - Did you know that a child's eating patterns has a lot to do with the way a child may act as they become older. A child's eating pattern helps shape their behavior.
• Environmental Theories - On this website you will find information about some of the many theories there is that discuss the environmental influences that help shape behaviors.
• SOCIOCULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROCESSES - This information deals with the social and cultural influences that help shape our behaviors, and the way we handle everyday situations.

Parents receiving blame for their child's behavior

Use the Internet information linked below to answer these questions specifically related to parent:
1. Synthesize the reasons why parents shouldn't be blame for having a child with birth defects.
2. When a child is born roughly how many genes are passed to the child from their parents?
3. How does genes play a role in which environment a child picks?
4. Analyze the reasons why 'parents to blame for 'Little Butterballs'' correlates with the other articles in this section.
5. Explain what determines personality.
6. Why does Harris believe that peers leave the most impact on children?
7. Synthesize the reasons why Harris says that parents end up having 'false guilt.'
8. How might 'good'parents protect their child from bad influence?
9. Analyze how a parent may fail to intervene and prevent a child from being wrongly influenced?

• Stranger in the Nest - This article brings about the argument of wether parents really deserve the blame of their child's sucess and or failures in life.
• Parents to Blame for 'Little Butterballs' - This article talks about the factor of parents always receiving the blame for their child's behavior, but research shows that parents aren't the only ones to receive blame because schools also has a major impact on the way a child behaves.
• Parents Do Matter - This article discusses that parents deserve some blame for their child's behavior but the not the entire blame because the child has so manyh other factors that help to behave the way they do.

Phase 3 - Debating, Discussing, and Reaching Consensus

You have all learned about a different part of are childrens and adolescence behavior. Now group members come back to the larger WebQuest team with expertise gained by searching from one perspective. You must all now answer the Task / Quest(ion) as a group. Each of you will bring a certain viewpoint to the answer: some of you will agree and others disagree. Use information, pictures, movies, facts, opinions, etc. from the Webpages you explored to convince your teammates that your viewpoint is important and should be part of your team's answer to the Task / Quest(ion). Your WebQuest team should write out an answer that everyone on the team can live with.

Phase 4 - Real World Feedback

You and your teammates have learned a lot by dividing up into different roles. Now's the time to put your learning into a letter you'll send out for real world feedback. Together you will write a letter that contains opinions, information, and perspectives that you've gained. Here's the process:

1. Interview a school psychologists to find out what kind ways might be best for a parent to handle a teen with behavior problems.
2. Conduct a parent-teen survey for teens and their parents to find out how many teens share the same personality traits as their parents. Also make a graph comparing the responses.
STATE THE TASK / QUEST(ION) AND YOUR GROUP'S ANSWER.

Your Contact is: Charissa Banks

Conclusion

After Johnny's mother took him home, she gave him the third degree because she was very determine to find out what has been influencing her son to act the way he was acting. As you have witnessed from this webquest a teenager's behavior can occur from many different aspects involved in a teen's life.