Nature vs Nurture....parenting, the perennial headache

Some findings from a research with mice done at Uni of Wisconsin-Madison…..and its connection with the human world. One of the purposes is to gain insights on child neglect, its causes and effects.
Findings…

1. Negligent parents seems to have genetic and non genetic influences.
2. Good mice (those that nurture the kids) took care of their pups. Neglectful mice nursed for a day or two but then parental care ceases. This indicates that biological factor has a role.
3. Then the researchers took the pups of 2 sets of parents; the good and neglectful parents and put them with another set of good mothers. Findings: The good mothers cared for foster pups from the other good mother but some became more neglectful of the foster pups from the neglectful parents….in some cases the good mothers would scatter those pups from the neglectful parents. This suggests a lack of positive response or a negative responsefrom those second set of pups. And that parenting is also affected by the response of the kids.
4. Finally when the pups were all grown….some of the neglectful parents did successfully raise some of the pops born of nurturing mothers but lasting effects were seen such as low body weight and hyperactivity. And when they become parents themselves…they are more likely to become neglecting parents.
   

Back into the human world, it has been shown that parental care is also a motivated, reward-related behaviour. Parents become more motivated when children 'motivate' or 'reward' them in various ways. Sometimes child neglect in humans could be because of the lack of reward of their children to the parent.

We often hear of children gone astray and very often our first response would be the parents must be really bad. The point here is, sometimes it is not due to the parents that a child goes bad. Sometimes, it is actually the child him/herself who is the reason….negative cues and lack of positive cues are contributing factors. But when a child whose parents do care fail in life, it is a tragedy…because the world is laid before them…only that they fail to see it.