The current article primarily concentrates on the description of the developmental environment, ie social system and problems of the youngster who has violated the law, dwelling briefly also on the young person’s, the subject’s, own meanings and interpretations of the occurred events. Although the existence of subject vision at schools or juvenile commissions will be treated relatively little below, it is not a marginal problem. According to Schutz’s (Schutz, 1967) theory of the phenomenology of the social world, the deed (in this context the youngster’s offence) is objective and commonly understandable for all, however, the subjective meaning of the deed, the meaningful context could remain for us, the adults, who play a crucial role in the youngster’s develop- mental environment and who make the decisions, unknown, incomprehensible. The developmental environment of the young person includes adults (parents, teachers, coaches, doctor etc), with whom the youngster is in constant reciprocal impact. Their attempt and ability to act understandingly and considering the subject, is the prerequi- site that the young person receives pertinent support, they are able to find and see the individual’s own strengths and relying on these the youngster’s development is also supported – we refer hereby to the strengths perspective and the resilience-building strategies (Early, GlenMaye, 2000;  Garmezy, 1993).

    The adolescent age is frequently described through developmental theories. Erikson (1963) describes the younger school age (6–12 years) as the central conflict between sedulity, diligence and inferiority. And age 13–18 as a conflict between identity and role diffusion. Other authors (Newman, 1975) also see sedulity and diligence as the important task of development of the school years. Only after that the acquisition of various culture techniques (eg writing, calculating, reading) are considered important. Hence, school establishes new develop mental tasks for the child, which raises the topics of school competency and school grades. Currently it is known that the preconditions for successful school work do not ripen but depend on the influences received from environment and the character of interaction during the first years of one’s life. Thus, school competency rather than school maturity is spoken about. But even this term is slightly misleading, since it makes us believe that the child gets a bundle of achievements and skills, which correspond to the ones needed at school (Oerter, 1995). However, school competency means that the child is presumably able to fulfill the tasks, which are set to him at school and that he is able to adapt to the social life of school. Hence, school competency is closely connected to socio- cultural norms of development. School competency is not what the child can do, but what the environment demands from him. The latter includes not only cognitive skills, social competency, but also the attitude to work and motivation. However, the tests of school maturity describe, as a rule, only cognitive achievements.

    Research indicates that the level of children’s school entering and teachers’ expectations are reciprocally affected. The higher is the level of children entering school, the more is expected from them and, therefore, at present the children entering schools are expected to be at the level that was earlier achieved at school (Oerter, 1995). The school often sets the children equal normative requirements and expectations, disregarding the different social backgrounds and learning potentials (Klefbeck, Ogden, 2001).