Curious George and Delinquency
There are some criminologists who cite low self-control brought about by faulty parenting as the root cause of delinquency. I have found that the Curious George series of children's books illustrates this concept rather clearly. You see, George's guardian, the Man in the Yellow Hat, is constantly leaving him unattended, during which times George gets himself into enormous amounts of trouble. In fact, in the inaugural Curious George story, George lands himself in prison, no less, for accidentally summoning the fire department while imitating the Man in the Yellow Hat using the telephone. He also smokes a pipe, an additional habit picked up from his guardian. In every book, George's behavior is credited to his unyielding curiosity (low self-control?), which, despite his best efforts to "be good," always seems to draw him into delinquent behavior, including painting jungle graffiti all over an unsuspecting lady's apartment and taking an entire block's worth of newspapers and making them into paper boats instead of delivering them. Yet, in the end, George always wins the authorities over, either by the skills only a monkey has (four hands are handy!) or by somehow doing something good. Perhaps human juvenile delinquents should take George's methods to heart!
Well, Micah is really into Curious George these days, watching the PBS cartoon daily and reading every story the library owns (well, I read them to him - over and over and over and over again!). The Minnesota Children's Museum currently has an exhibit on Curious George, which the hubster escorted Micah to last week. Sounds like it was pretty cool. An interesting fact learned there was that H.A. and Margaret Rey, creators of Curious George, were Jewish refugees who fled Paris a few hours before it fell to the Nazis in WWII. One of the few things they took with them was their first Curious George manuscript. Seems like that was a good thing to pack...