Paul Tough's book, "How Children Succeed" [1] has a great section on how mothering style has a large effect on offspring throughout their lives:
"Parents and other caregivers who are able to form close, nurturing relationships with their children can foster resilience in them that protects them from many of the worst effects of a harsh early environment. This message can sound a bit warm and fuzzy, but it is rooted in cold, hard science. The effect of good parenting is not just emotional or psychological, the neuroscientists say; it is biochemical.
The researcher who has done the most to expand our understanding of the relationship between parenting and stress is a neuroscientist at McGill University named Michael Meaney. Like many in the field, Meaney does much of his research with rats, as rats and humans have similar brain architecture. At any given time, the Meaney lab houses hundreds of rats. They live in Plexiglas cages, and usually each cage holds a mother rat, called a dam, and her small brood of baby rats, called pups.
Scientists in rat labs are always picking up baby rats to examine them or weigh them, and one day about ten years ago, researchers in Meaney’s lab noticed a curious thing: When they put the pups back in the cages after handling them, some dams would scurry over and spend a few minutes licking and grooming their pups. Others would just ignore them. When the researchers examined the rat pups, they discovered that this seemingly insignificant practice had a distinct physiological effect. When a lab assistant handled a rat pup, researchers found, it produced anxiety, a flood of stress hormones, in the pup. The dam’s licking and grooming counteracted that anxiety and calmed down that surge of hormones.
Meaney and his researchers were intrigued, and they wanted to learn more about how licking and grooming worked and what kind of effect it had on the pups. So they kept watching the rats, spending long days and nights with their faces pressed up against the Plexiglas, and after many weeks of careful observation, they made an additional discovery: different mother rats had different patterns of licking and grooming, even in the absence of their pups' being handled. So Meaney’s team undertook a new experiment, with a new set of dams, to try to quantify these patterns. This time, they didn’t handle any of the pups. They just closely observed each cage, an hour at a time, eight sessions a day, for the first ten days of the pups' lives. Researchers counted every instance of maternal licking and grooming. And after ten days, they divided the dams into two categories: the ones that licked and groomed a lot, which they labeled high LG, and the ones that licked and groomed a little, which they labeled low LG.
...
The researchers ran test after test, and on each one, the high-LG offspring excelled: They were better at mazes. They were more social. They were more curious. They were less aggressive. They had more self-control. They were healthier. They lived longer. Meaney and his researchers were astounded. What seemed like a tiny variation in early mothering style, so small that decades of researchers hadn’t noticed it, created huge behavioral differences in mature rats, months after the licking and grooming had taken place. And the effect wasn't just behavioral; it was biological too. When Meaney’s researchers examined the brains of the adult rats, they found significant differences in the stress-response systems of the high—LG and low-LG rats, including big variations in the size and shape and complexity of the parts of the brain that regulated stress."
[1] http://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Succeed-Curiosity-Charact...
What can the child do once he starts to ask himself what the hell is wrong with him, and little by little, starts to associate some wrongs with his childhood? Is it possible to revert bad parenting?
As far as I know, the answer is "No, but".
No, you're never going to able to have no effects from your formative years with your parents. BUT, it's rarely impossible to deal with this productively. I suspect such a child will always be asking zirself what's wrong with zir, but hopefully ze can also develop an answer to that question, usually in the form of a reliable support network.
After having read your comment, I googled "zirself"... Is is a commonly used pronoun, or more of a quirk/very new feature of the language that gets used rarely? Interesting concept though!
It's an idea that comes from linguistic relativity, i.e. the philosophy that the language we use to talk about a subject defines the way we think about it. Thus, by using "he" as the gender-neutral pronoun, we're prejudiced towards a male-centred society.
No, "zirself" is not commonly used, but obviously proponents want to change that.
At the end of the day, it's just another branch of political correctness.
Is there anything wrong with them, they and themselves?
Using those doesn't give you a chance to talk about your political views.
It's bad grammar. 'He/she' is singular, 'they' is plural. On the other hand, I consider it a significantly lesser transgression than just introducing new words (with poor aesthetics, IMO).
No, it's not. It was made-up in the 1740s, and has never really been followed as a rule that closely.[1]
Or from Geoff Pullum[2]:
>"Avoid singular they if you want to; nobody is making you use it. But don't ever think that it is new (it goes back to early English centuries ago), or that it is illogical (there is no logical conflict between being syntactically singular and semantically plural), or that it is ungrammatical (it is used by the finest writers who ever used English, writers who uncontroversially knew what they were doing)."
1: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112896/tyranny-pronouns-f...
2: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=89
It's ambiguous.
"You are in a dark forest. A disembodied voice speaks to you. They want you to follow."
How many voices? Would it have been more correct to say "They wants you to follow"? Should you contort the sentence to drop agency, saying "You should follow"? Is the pronoun referring to some group of people not included in this paragraph?
s/They want/Ze wants/ solves all of these questions immediately and simply.
In most cases, it comes down to stylistic preference. Some people like to use "it". Some people like to alternate "he" and "she". My preference is ze/zir/zirself. Some people feel threatened by it, as if someone else coding in a new language means their old standby of C90 is not good enough.
> s/They want/Ze wants/ solves all of these questions immediately and simply.
Hardly 'simply', as it prompted the GGGP to go and Google the term. You're changing some very significant terms in the language, and it's only simple if everybody is on board with the change.
And he understood it immediately after Googling the definition, just like any other neologism.
The alternative is not having any solution at all.
> And he understood
You mean "ze"?
I'm pretty sure you're male.
"It". A disembodied voice in a dark forest, regardless of whether you can deduce gender, is most definitely an "it". An "it" I would run away from.
No, it's not common. Language drift happens through usage, though. I happen to like gender-neutral pronouns, because I like messing with linguistics and conlangs, so I use them in hopes that other people will use them, just like any other neologism.
Albert Ellis has already proven the answer to this is "yes". In short, we are the ones typically responsible for our own neurosis as we maintain flawed thinking or understandings of reality. People with loving parents have turned out screwed up kids, just the same.
I’m sorry, but your comment is quite confusing. Would you mind clarifying your points?
My point is, if you had bad parents, or no parents, you can change your behavior and thinking patterns and end up better off than kids who had good parents.
"People with loving parents have turned out screwed up kids, just the same."
This simply does not matter if there is a statistically valid conclusion saying the opposite.
There will always be outliers and anecdotes. You should be looking at the statistical trend, not individual cases.
I'd say it's valid if science says otherwise
Now you're just being silly.
I read about a different study some time ago (apologies, I've completely forgotten the title, authors or even field) which basically said that twins separated at birth ended up with relatively similar abilities and personalities regardless of whether they were raised in different households with different income levels, parenting styles, diets, etc.
In other words, much of it comes down to genetics. I have no idea the relevance of this idea or even of its validity, but it makes me wonder if the causation they speak of here between parents of a certain personality and their children has any ties to the inherited genetic characteristics rather than the nurturing of the child.
And yes, some of your personality traits may have been affected, but you will be a different person every 5 years anyway; walk in that direction and you will get closer to where you want to be.
The research on mothering style may be highly predictive, but unless I'm missing something, it isn't actionable or "useful."
It's useful to parents.
Because bad parents will become more nurturing after reading an article?
Or parents who want to be good parents will have one more data point.
Sorry, I don't have a link for you, but I've recently read that one of the problems that many parents who live in poverty have is that they simply do not know what is necessary to be a good parent.
The specific example was with respect to talking to infants - that talking to children who do not yet have the power of speech makes an enormous difference in the development of verbal and cognitive ability. Rich infants heard an order or two more words per day than poor infants due only to the fact that poor parents didn't know that it was important. There was no intent to neglect, just ignorance.
The overwhelming majority of parents want to be good parents, some just need better information on how to do it.
I'd like to see your data on this and whether the studies they did corrected for genetics. A lot of these studies like where parents talked to their kids more and the kids ended up being smarter ended up being proven false because there was no 'control' in these groups, children who were adopted, etc. Check out Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate. This talk sums it up pretty well:
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_b...
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/the-power-of...
Sorry, I don't have time to watch an entire video. Is there a transcript?
I just watched the TED talk you linked to. Professor Pinker seems to completely dismiss the idea that parenting has a significant effect on the child. I wonder whether this study with rats has changed his mind - here's the relevant quote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5722596
Overly enriched environments might or might not matter. But deprived environments in early childhood demonstrably hurts. A lot.
The cause is that in the first few years of life we lose unused connections between neurons. If a child does not have a primary care giver, then a lot of the connections lost are necessary for proper social and cognitive development, and the child is impaired for life in ways which are clear in the physical structure of the brain.
This has been known for decades, yet still periodically someone somewhere that still has orphanages rediscovers this basic fact. (The most recent example that I heard about involved children in Romania.)
A lot of people who had bad parents want to be better parents than what they experienced. Articles can definitely affect their behavior.
How do I know this? Because I'm one of them!
You're right - I had my blinders on.
And ... good for you!
Either that or you're a narcissist and insist on everything being about you. "What's with the baby clothes section on Amazon? Babies can't buy clothes."
I can't remember where I read it, but I like the quote: family goal is not creating good children, but good parents.
More like so-so parents might try to become better parents. It's a continuum. There's a whole cottage industry around how to be a better parent. Presumably a lot of parents are buying those products.
I think parents believe certain things based on what they're taught and their gut instincts; many parents have an opposite view than this one, thinking that "tough love" and high pressure childhoods make the children grow up to be better adults.
This research basically disproves that, saying that nurturing and loving upbringings have that effect, while cold tough upbrinings are detrimental.
Having that kind of evidence is extremely helpful—either parents who read it might change their mind, or it could be discussed in parenting groups.
Either way, the point is that it's scientific evidence. People may eventually come around to it, leading to a better world with more nurturing parents and better childhoods and therefore better adult lives for a great many people.
Will it happen soon? No. These beliefs are often so dogmatic and almost religious in nature that it's unlikely to affect the people who hold them. But maybe it will reach their children.
I disagree with your definition of tough love. Most people view tough love as not willing to spoil your child. Allowing them to know what consequences are for unacceptable behavior. But that doesn't automatically add "negation of all parental care" into the term.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but what I tried to indicate was a philosophy of punishment and negative reinforcement. They can coexist with love, but they're detrimental to it.
My mom studies animal behavior in dogs (read: she's a really good dog trainer) and the science behind positive reinforcement methods is overwhelming. Yet, people still use negative methods and get burned for it... more agressive behavior, less predictable behavior, conditioning that doesn't stick, and long-term trust issues with their dog. Positive methods are self-reinforcing, while negative methods require constant reinforcement to remain effective; at the same time, positive methods build your relationship with the dog and create a happier, healthier animal, while negative reinforcement causes extreme unintentional side-effects in both the long and short-term.
It's the same with kids; we're just animals in the end and the behavioral science applies nearly exactly the same. It's a no-brainer and proven by science, but for some reason people still think you need to whip a kid with a belt to teach them to behave.
Merely "not spoiling your child" is just a minor parenting choice; and surely you can't always be positive when there have to be negative consequences. But I'm talking about far worse negativity and lack of nurturing that's far worse and really is a core belief of a good portion of society.
No, because well intentioned parents can make better choices for their children.
Think of questions like: - Should a parent take a promotion that will result in longer work hours? - Is it worth taking a compensation hit for a parent to stay home or reduce working hours? - Should a parent place a child in a daycare or hire a sitter/nanny? - To what level should grandparents be involved in the raising of a child?
All of these questions have multiple answers that have different impacts on your ability to support yourself and nurture your child. It's a balance.
did they isolate correlation from causation yet though..?
Funny you should mention that. Here's an extra bit from the book:
"Meaney wondered if a dam’s licking-and-groorning frequency was just a proxy for some genetic trait that was passed on from mother to child. Maybe nervous dams produced temperamentally nervous pups, and those dams also coincidentally happened to be less inclined to lick and groom. To test that hypothesis, Meaney and his researchers did a number of cross-fostering experiments, in which they removed pups at birth from a high-LG dam and put them in the litter of a low-LG dam, and vice versa, in all kinds of combinations.
Whatever permutation they chose, though, however they performed the experiment, they found the same thing: what mattered was not the licking-andgrooming habits of the biological mother; it was the licking-and-grooming habits of the rearing mother. When a pup received the comforting experience of licking and grooming as an infant, it grew up to be braver and bolder and better adjusted than a pup who hadn't, whether or not its biological mother was the one who had done the licking and grooming."
What would interest me is what effect this has on parents. I would suspect that caring for a child has an equally good effect on the parents as it has on the child.
I don't think that the parents could tell you, and I am not sure how researchers could. To raise a child even from birth to first grade takes about six years, a period that will change anyone, parent or not. One does learn many things in caring for a child, though I can't say that is the only way to learn them.
Because you cannot immediately think of a study does not mean one is not possible.
Consider: Measure changes in parents during child-rearing and correlate with measures of amount and style of "care" given to children. Are those that are more caring parents happier, on average, than those who are not? Control for anything you can think of controlling.
It's totally actionable- moms should lick their kids more often.
I think that pretty much sums up most social sciences research in general. It turns up lots of data with lots of correlations, but, since the issue of causation probably fundamentally can't be resolved through observational studies (or, very often, any conceivable kind of study), the analysis is sometimes interesting, but rarely, if ever, actionable or useful.