In a prospective epidemiological study with assessments at ages 8, 13 and 18 it could be demonstrated that if all risk factors are analyzed at the same time recent stressors are more important than stressors and disturbances in early childhood. But from a chronological point of view early stressors were found to be at least as important as later ones because the early stressors play a role in the development of some of the later ones. The effects of stressors were sex-specific to some extent: Boys were more seriously affected when of elementary school age, whereas girls were more affected in early childhood and in adolescence. Chronic stress proved to be more important than acute life events, the later being not only a cause but also a consequence of emotional disturbances. Children with early disturbances sometimes even had lower rates of disorders in adolescence if they had been brought up in an overprotective manner.