Washington, Aug 18 : A new study has revealed that family quarrels and lack of free time can lead to headaches in children.

The research led by Jennifer Gassmann has revealed that boys who experienced more than one family quarrel per week had a 1.8 times higher risk of developing headaches.

The amount of free time available to them seemed to be even more important.

The findings revealed that boys who only sometimes had time to themselves had a 2.1 times higher risk of developing headaches.

Parents'' behaviour when their child complains of headache also seemed to play a major role.

Either positive or negative reinforcement from the parents teaches the child that he or she can gain certain advantages from headache symptoms.

The parents'' responses had a particularly strong effect on the frequency of symptoms in girls: reinforcing parental responses raised their risk of recurrent headaches by 25pct.

The study also showed that twice as many girls as boys had their symptoms at least once a week.

The study appears in the current issue of the Deutsches Ärzteblatt International. (ANI)