Charting the relationship trajectories of aggressive, withdrawn, and aggressive/withdrawn children during early grade school

The premises examined in this longitudinal investigation were that specific behavioral characteristics place children at risk for relationship maladju stment in school environments, and that multiple behavioral risks predispos e children to the most severe and prolonged difficulties. Aggressive, withd rawn, and aggressive/withdrawn children were compared to normative and matc hed control groups on teacher and peer relationship attributes, loneliness, and social satisfaction from kindergarten (M age = 5 years, 7 months; n = 250) through grade 2 (M age = 8,1; n = 242). Children's withdrawn behavior was neither highly stable nor predictive of relational difficulties, as the ir trajectories resembled the norm except for initially less close and more dependent relationships with teachers. Aggressive behavior was fairly stab le, and associated with early-emerging, sustained difficulties including lo w peer acceptance and conflictual teacher-child relationships. Aggressive/w ithdrawn children evidenced the most difficulty: compared to children in th e normative group, they were consistently more lonely, dissatisfied, friend less, disliked, victimized, and likely to have maladaptive teacher-child re lationships. Findings are discussed with respect to recent developments in two prominent literatures: children at-risk and early relationship developm ent.