Raising Caring, Competent and Confident Children

By Carolyn Ross Tomlin

Five-year-old Jason marched to the front of the stage and recited a poem he learned for Parent's Day. Afterwards, he looked at his proud parents, winked and gave a "thumbs up" to they roar of the audience. Off stage, Alice waited her turn. Before she walked to the platform, tears streamed down her cheeks. Her mom exclaimed, "I don't understand what happened! We've been over this short rhyme dozens of times and she knew it perfectly."

What's the difference? Both children come from similar backgrounds-- including education and socio-economic. And both youngsters have other siblings in the home.

However other factors, seen and unseen, affect behavior.

Nature vs. Nurture Theory

Researchers have debated for years whether nature (inherited characteristics) or nurture (environmental factors) had the greatest impact on the individual. And some believe that genetic tendencies may exist, yet support the theory that ultimate it doesn't matter that our behavioral aspects originate only from the environment factors of our childhood. Through the years studies on infant and children's behavior have revealed the most crucial evidence for nurture theories.

Historically, even Aristotle and Socrates addressed this topic. Years later, J.B. Watson's (Watson and Rayner, 1920) in his study of the orphan boy, Albert, stated:

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed and my own specific world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and race of his ancestors.

In the 1950s, B.F. Skinner, a Harvard psychologist, produced pigeons capable of dancing, performing a figure eight and playing tennis. Known as the father of behavioral science, he eventually proved that human behavior could be conditioned in much the same way as animal studies.

An article published in New Scientist(Powell, 2003) suggests that a sense of humor is a learned trait, influenced by a child's family and cultural environment and not genetically determined.

Twin studies have been closely studied to investigate the nature/nurture questions. It is assumed that since identical twins have identical genotypes, differences in their intelligence may be contributed to environmental influences. Genotype refers to the genetic structure inherited at conception. Phenotype refers to observable characteristics in the offspring at any point during its development.

Most twin studies involve the administering of tests of intelligence (usually standardized IQ tests) to identical twins who have been reared together and identical twins reared apart. The classic twin studies including those by Newman (1937) and Shields (1962) have indicated that identical twins score similarly whether they are reared together or apart. In fact, the similarity is greater for identical twins reared apart than for fraternal twins reared together. Fraternal twins are not more alike than non-twin siblings, but if raised together, they have shared a similar environment. These results have been interpreted as supporting the theory that intelligence is primarily influenced by heredity.

Regardless of the nature or nurture theory parents support, all children need homes that help the child developing into caring, competent and confident individuals. While you cannot change inherited characteristics, you can made a profound modification in the environment. Parents are a child's first teacher. You can make a difference!

Raising Caring Children