Can habits be inherited?

[Flippinghecklike]

My dd, 3 is the image of my mum. She also does things she does that I have never seen anyone else do - when my mum is anxious she sort of extends her arms like a penguin and pinches her fingers repeatedly open and closed like a crab.DD not yet been visibly anxious but often gets hugely excited and does the exact same thing - she does spend quite a lot of time w my mum but not when mum is anxious and I dont think she would have seen her do this… it’s sweet and was wondering if genes can influence mannerisms and things as well as looks.

No. I wouldn't think so. I'd imagine she's seen your mum do it and has copied.

Are you sure it’s not stimming ?

Could well be form of stimming yes - just only seen this form with these two - work with kids who have lots of stims and never seen anything like it - think it is quite sweet

My stepson is the double of my husband and they share mannerisms. I wouldn't be surprised if they could be inherited.

Maybe. My SIL has a habit of shrugging her right shoulder when she's stressed. My dd does it too and it's like watching her aunt.

I think so, we don't live close to my family so the DC don't see masses of them and there are some physical behaviours they share. MIL says DS is very like her brother at times, he lives in another country and has never met DS.

I’m not so sure about physical things like this, but as I get older I think more is inherited than people realise/I realised.

I found out in my 30s that my father was different than who I’d grown up knowing was my father. Whilst I’d definitely not grown up feeling ‘different’ or anything like that, I do have a noticeably different personality to my parents and siblings I grew up with. More opinionated, bit louder and more straight forward maybe. When I met my biological father it all made sense, all these things that were just ‘me’ suddenly clearly came from somewhere. Outwith me, there’s lots of cases of twins separated at birth and find they’re very similar. Although clearly a vast amount of us is learnt and socialised, I think more is genetic than we can know.