To think that the way a person turns out is more nurture than nature?

[ethelfleda]

Being pregnant with our first child, I've found myself asking what sort of personality traits I would like them to have and whether or not they are a product of their genes or their upbringing. For example, I would like my son to have confidence as well as empathy... are they things that you can reach your child or is it completely down to genetic make up in your opinion? Have you or do you know anyone who has two or more children that were raised the same but are completely different?
I would imagine there is definitely an element of which genes they inherit but I have always thought the way a child is raised and their experiences shape who they are. I believe I am more like my father than my mother for instance but I believe that is because I followed him around like a puppy all the time and was MUCH closer to him than my mom.
Really interested to know people's opinions on this one!

Nature/genes. I have worked with children and have had my own children and I am fascinated by this. From what I've experienced definitely Nature or their genes.

I'm adopted & know my birth parents, so for me, it's a bit of both but veering more towards nurture.

Out of my two children, dd is very definitely like my mum: she has inherited her brilliance and zest for life, but also her anxiety and self doubt. She also has my MIL's sociability to some extent. What I have been able to add in the way of nurture, I think, are some life skills to help her handle herself.

We are very, very close, but polar opposites as far as personality and reactions (and looks) go. After 20 years of living with dd, I know how she is going to think and react, but that's experience, not that I could ever see myself thinking or reacting in the same way.

Ds otoh is someone who "makes sense" to me. I often find him infuriating but from inside my head there is some kind of logic to how he thinks and reacts. I see myself in him, but even more I see my brother in him.

Again, I am hoping that dh and I can add some life skills to develop the personality traits he has.

Confidence to me really means two things. It means a personality trait: the kind that makes one toddler march boldly up to something new while another one clings to mummy's legs.

But it can also mean the kind of confidence you get from knowing how to set about things, and from having tackled difficult things and won through. That is the kind of confidence you can help your child to develop, through letting them try things and giving them the right amount of guidance, and through modelling the right attitude in the face of difficulties. That is the kind of confidence I am increasingly seeing in my dd- despite the fact that her anxiety still requires medication.

Empathy, again, can be an inborn trait, but it is also something children need to be shown- and something that gets better through practising.

I suppose it's a bit like musicality: my dn was born very musical but he still needed a cello teacher to show him how to hold the bow, and he still needs to practice. He was born with the potential but needed to be taught- and to learn!- how to make the most of it.

I do think genes are important too but there are a lot of people here suggesting that siblings have the same nurture. They really don't.

Even in the womb babies receive different nutrition and stimulus. No one can make sure two babies get exactly the same. Even twins will be in different parts of the womb so be able to see an hear different things before birth. We don't really know how much effect this has.

With other kids they will be different to their siblings just through the fact of being an older or younger sibling and how their parents react to that. This is known to have strong effects on personality and achievement.

We don't know what minor things about a child's life could trigger very different personalities. Even when we think babies are born with certain traits, that belief can shape the way react to them, for example allowing the "noisy" one to cry longer before sorting them out because they are always more noisy and it's probably not as bad as if the "quiet" one was being so noisy.

I remember watching a documentary about psychopaths - apparently there brain scans are different but they only go on to be criminals if they have poor parenting as well.

That's definitely not true.

My siblings and I are all vastly different to each other. Academically two of us were very bright, one of us is very good at sports, one has social anxiety, two have awful tempers etc. Its a fascinating subject.

I think peers and schooling have a huge effect too if you look at how much time you spend in education. We all went to different schools due to house moves and the one who went to the "worst" of these did not achieve their potential.

Yes, I agree, Unihorn.

I think it's a three-way split: nature, nurture and culture.

You can steer your child and help them to develop their innate traits. But the country you live in, their school, their best mate in their teens, the social media of the day, the general 'feeling' of the times you live in... these all have an enormous effect on a child.

Plus, well, one of mine is autistic (and two of them are shortsighted, one has joint problems, one's very tall, one's ginger -- all genetic, all affect their lives to some degree).

super beagle - yes it is true, see my post about the same documentary up thread.

The researcher did MRI scans of convicted puscopaths and found that a large number of them had a disctinct brain pattern not often found in the general population.
He then scanned abotu 20 of his own family and extended family, as part fo the same research, and discovered that he had that disctinctive brain pattern, which, in some people is a pre disposition to psycopathic behaviour. But he was a normal, well adjusted, successful, happily married man. the point being that the genetic structure is a predisposition, that people with it, when triggered, are much more likely to become psycopaths, but that with good upbringing, that is much less likely to happen, and your predisposition does not inevitably lead to psycopathic behaviour.

It isn't exactly a surprise, the same is true of schizophrenia, they know there is a genetic disposition, but exactly why it is triggered to become active in some people and not others isn't clear

I don't believe that steppermum. I had a therapist say that about my child's autism.

The therapist believes autistic children have a genetic predisposition but it is set off by poor mothering.

He believes it is set off by cold and empty interactions. If that is true why don't all my other children have autism?

I think it's a really hard conversation to have, because so many parents get incredibly defensive at the notion that their parenting may have contributed to their child's problems.

One thing I find helpful is to remember that "environment" which a lot of studies use instead of "nurture" is much larger than parenting. It can be school, friends, diet, exercise - loads of things.

My daughter has no oxygen at birth and I think that contributes to her having a learning disability. Therapist still thinks it is always poor mothering.

steppemum, one example of one particular kind of predisposition under one particular set of circumstances does not allow one to generalise about all predispositions and all circumstances

and that is before we get to the fact that parents and family are not the only influence on a vulnerable young person

we have several examples of MNers whose children, often on the autistic spectrum, have been introduced to weed at an early age and gone off the rails in connection with this, despite the very best parental effort

other children have had good families but still behaved in inexplicable ways without any evident connection to peer influence

I will say the NHS obviously do not agree with the therapist

I agree with whoever said that nature loads the gun and nurture pulls the trigger. How anyone turns out is dependent on multiple factors- genes, early years experiences, poverty, friends, losing a parent as a child, external events such as wars, how well off your family are etc etc.
It always annoys me when people say that anyone can be a millionaire if they just try hard enough because they really can't. For a start, not very many poor children from families who don't value education 'make it'. Not everyone has the resilience or the drive to be Alan Sugar, it's just not in their nature.
And I agree that nature and nurture interact - I was a gawky, self conscious and quite 'difficult' child. Every photograph of me as a child shows me either looking solemn or scowling. My DB OTOH was a chubby faced blond cherub who was constantly beaming. He was such an appealing child that people were naturally drawn to him and beamed back and pinched his cheeks which reinforced his happy feelings.
I got very little of that because I always looked so miserable which probably made me feel less lovable.
There is research looking at children who have had difficult starts il life and what can help to overcome this and there is definite evidence that children who are more physically attractive tend to have better overall outcomes.

Winnie - Do you think diet, exercise, school and friends give children autism and learning disabilities? I really don't think it can be true.

I know the therapist thinks this and it really bothers me.

I have raised twins in exactly the same environment, with exactly the same nurture (I have CDs showing me cuddling and playing with one, putting him down and then doing the same with other) and through the same womb environment obviously. I believe it's essentially nature but lack of/bad nurture can turn a good natured kid bad and vice versa and early childhood is key for this.

summer - that is a massively old and outdated view of autism, and I agree it is offensive to suggest ot is parenting skills.

But syaing it isn't true of one thing, doesn't mean that ther aren't genetic predisposition which can be triggered or not triggered.
We have no idea at the moment how far and how important some of these triggers may be.

Cory - I wasn't generalising about all predispositions, I was replying specifically to a poster who didn't believe the documentary about pyschopaths, and explaining where it came from.

I don't make any generalisations abotu al predispositions, but I do think that there are veyr complex interactions goign on all the time, and we are not aware of most of them as we have so little knowledge and understanding of the brain.

he is another interesting one. Some of the research around attachment disorders in kids in care suggests that if they have had poor attachment care int her first year then certain parts of the brain do not develop,and then never develop.

So, no matter what the kid has been born with, in that specific case his/her nurture has caused significant change, the out caome of which may be life changing - or not.

I agree with a pp who said that actually 3 kids in one family are not all raised the same.

They have different siblings, so my quiet dd1 was a strong dominant ds older than her who she has had to relate to since she was born.
dd2 has he direct older sibling as my quiet dd1 who is caring and supportive, and also has that strong ds in the family.

So 2 very different emotional contexts

my dcs went to a small village school. Ds had 1 other boy of his age in a mixed age class, and some strong characters who were older. He struggled to make friends, was always desperate to be included and fit in etc.

dd1 wen to the same school. he mixed infant class had a lovely group of 5 girls. they were best friends and it was an idyllic situation.

Then we moved and the situation was reversed. Ds suddenly had boys to be friends with and blossomed in the bigger school. Dd1 found a class where the friendships were already established and she couldn't break in. Added to that and her quiet personality was drowned out in the bigger school

These experiences effect their confidence, their life skills, their self esteem etc

I agree with PP that nature loads the gun and nurture pulls the trigger. I am adopted and have 7 biological siblings, the oldest four remained with our birth parents whilst I and my other siblings were removed from birth. My wonderful parents adopted all four of us to keep us together. My biological parents both suffered from schizophrenia. My elder siblings sadly suffer from mental health issues whereas I and my siblings who were also adopted have careers, have been to university etc. and have no mental health issues. It's sad to think that my adoptive parents would not have been approved for adoption if the criteria were as strict in the early 90's as they are today as they are both obese, were smokers and we were relatively poor.

steppemum You're basing your information off one documentary, and one biased subjective researcher.

Many psychopaths - even notorious ones - are raised in loving homes and under normal conditions, but go on to behave in ways predictable of psychopaths. Not killing someone, or not committing an overt "crime", doesn't mean that they haven't behaved in ways that non-psychopaths would be less inclined to.

summersun80 - I don't know enough about autism. I think it's definitely true in other cases - I have had massive MH issues with schizoaffective bipolar disorder aalthough I have great parents. But I do think things such as school bullying acted as a trigger, and even today I find that managing my diet/sleep pattern/exercise is key to staying well.

That's been the case since my early teens and anecdotally seems pretty normal for many people with MH and PD issues.

I think this is a false dichotomy, really. Both nature and nurture are extremely significant!

I can see in both my children similar personality traits to me and DH, which comes down on the "nurture" side.

DS is musical, impatient, focussed, competitive, with lots of oomph. He can't eat a few sweets and save the rest, he has to wolf the lot in five secs flat. Like me.

DD is an artist, gentle, observant, slow, methodical, has no competitive gene and is a measured person. She will have one or two sweets and save the rest. Like DH.

However, I think the way we interact with others relationally is much more down to nurture and replication of childhood relationships/dynamics. Your attachment style (secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganised) will derive not from your genes but from your relationships with significant carers in infancy.

Finally a word on "we had exactly the same upbringing" so differences MUST be nurture. Hm. Of course two children being raised in the same house will have many similarities in their experiences - same parents, same physical environment, same parental philosophy.

But beyond that each child has an individual experience, shaped by birth order and what is going on in the parents lives as time marches on. Superficially you would say my sister and I had the "same" upbringing - same house, same village, same activities, same school, same parents, same parental attitudes, same holidays.

Actually, my sister and I had quite different upbringings. I was the eldest by 7 years, born to young and optimistic parents, I was an only child, the sole focus of parental love and expectation, etc etc. My sister followed my brother who died neonatally when I was four, and she was born to quite different parents who were bereaved, anxious and who had suddenly realised very immediately how precarious existence can be. She also had a precocious and bossy elder sister. For her it was like growing up as a very small person with three very big people in the family looking down on her. Whereas for me it was like growing up on a stage all of my own, with two adoring adults in the audience.

I mean, the personality traits is in the "nature" side of course ...

I think if you take nurture as including life experiences as well as parenting then it does have a more tangible impact on personality than genetics. I was a very confident child, very happy and active and social until I started getting bullied, it went on throughout primary, secondary and university and it destroyed me. I have very little confidence or self esteem left now as an adult. However, I was also suffering from depression and what I now recognise to be manic episodes, my grandfather is bipolar. I don't know if I would have become ill if I hadn't have had the negative experiences that triggered it or whether it was predetermined I would be like this because of genetics.

My parents treated my DB and I very differently, and this is also a factor to consider. Studies have been done that show that we treat girls and boys differently from birth and this is a huge factor in how people turn out I believe.