For parents, this week's headlines were gloomy. It wasn't just “Gang life replacing family life” that appalled, but stories earlier in the week suggesting that it was all our fault.

According to the Children's Society, children are not acquiring basic moral values. Consumerism and celebrity culture came in for blame, of course, but so did adults for failing to engage with their children.

Sure enough, just two days later, a leading chief constable was quoted as saying that parental role models had been supplanted by gang leaders. Tribal loyalty had replaced family loyalty, creating a culture based on violence and drugs.

Of course, this is not the first time that authorities have said that the next generation is going to hell in a handcart because of feckless parents. It is a refrain repeated in every age. But you do wonder about today's crop.

For instance, a report this week from the British Association of Dermatologists revealed that 1 in 20 schoolchildren, some as young as 11, is regularly using a sunbed. Pardon? Just where were their parents?

One of the key features of adolescence is the move from a world in which parents are central to one in which peers have greater influence. This is normal and part of the preparations that must take place for adulthood when we parents finally shove them out of the nest (chance would be a fine thing, I hear some of you groan).

Children and teenagers differ in their susceptibility to peer influence. These differences have been shown empirically to increase with age, reaching a peak at about 14. Resistance to peer pressure then develops, reaching adult levels at 18 or so. But studies have shown that it is those teenagers who are most susceptible to peer pressure who are among the most likely to adopt risky and antisocial behaviours.

Why are some more susceptible? Researchers are now suggesting it is because their brains have become different. They did not start out that way, but the brain is extraordinarily plastic and continually shaped by experience.

A poor start in life combined with a lack of positive engagement - learning, good experiences, parental warmth - means that the neural networks that support good social interactions are not built up to the same degree as in those with these advantages.

That we now know these things is largely because of new techniques for brain scanning. The findings suggest not only that we need large-scale interventions, in which children from particularly deprived backgrounds are given emotional and material support, but that the effectiveness of these approaches should be evaluated using brain-scanning techniques.

It sounds a radical step to take, but the fact that we need to do something to help these children is beyond doubt.

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