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Nature and Nurture: Relationships and Risk Factors
Current scientific research and debate has moved beyond overly simplistic views about the polarization of genetics (nature) and environments’ (nurture) role in shaping children’s growth and future success. Today, researchers are trying to understanding “how genetic makeup, combined with children’s previous experiences, affects their ongoing interactions with their environments during the early years and beyond.”[1]
No matter the combination of genetics and environments, studies such as Neurons to Neighborhoods, find that children’s primary parent/caregivers and the choices they make for their personal lives, their children’s lives, and the relationships between them, set the stage for healthy development:
Parents and other regular caregivers in children’s lives are “active ingredients” of environmental influence during the early childhood period. Children grow and thrive in the context of close and dependable relationships that provide love and nurturance, security, responsive interaction, and encouragement for exploration. Without at least one such relationships, development is disrupted and the consequences can be severe and long lasting. If provided or restored, however, a sensitive caregiver relationship can foster remarkable recovery.
Children’s early development depends on the health and well-being of their parents. Yet the daily experiences of a significant number of young children are burdened by untreated mental health problems in their families, recurrent exposure to family violence, and the psychological fallout from living in a demoralized and violent neighborhood. Circumstances characterized by multiple, interrelated, and cumulative risk factors impose particularly heavy developmental burdens during early childhood and are the most likely to incur substantial costs to both the individual and society in the future.
Neurons to Neighborhoods[2]
Building off the previous modules, Module 3 examines psychological, biological, and environmental risks to early development to show that relationships are constantly shaped by external inputs that elicit behaviors and responses from parent/caregivers and children individually, affecting their attachment and children’s growth. Moreover, Module 3 shows that risk factors often do not occur in isolation. Separately and combine, risk factors pose distinct compromises and compounded consequences that can be detrimental to young children’s growth and understanding of how to function in the world.
There is a tremendous amount of information on risks and their threats to healthy development. To explore any one area in-depth is beyond the scope of this Training Program. This Module introduces a few significant factors to root your development perspective in the reality of children’s circumstances, the burden of abuse and neglect on young children, and their resulting unique needs.
<<Back to Module 3 Goals Page 2 Continue to Page 3>>
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