The good news? Kids are apparently way more resilient than we tend to think they are. At least some kids are. A 2009 study shows that how a child reacts to parenting stimulus is greatly determined by the temperament of the child. The better news is that the one really, really important thing you can do to help your kids thrive is love them a lot. Kids who feel that their parents are present and reliable in their lives do better, no matter what their temperament.
Temperament does have a huge impact on how kids react to different parenting tactics though. Like to let your children learn from their mistakes? That may work out great, but a 2007 study showed that about 30% of kids have a genetic variant that leaves the brain with few dopamine receptors, which is linked to a lowered ability to avoid self-destructive behavior and makes it difficult to learn from mistakes. That means some kids really do need to have the consequences of their actions, and the logic behind the right course of action, explained to them.
Rewarding kids for good behavior can indeed help your children become upstanding, well behaved teenagers and successful adults. But there is only an 11% difference between the levels of delinquency in kids who are rewarded for good behavior and those who are not. Being firm but loving and setting lots of boundaries and limits offers the same level of statistical improvement. Authoritarian parenting has a negative impact on kids, but only by about the same percentage point in the long term (12% more children with authoritarian parents became what the study considers “delinquent”).
However, none of this means that you don’t have any influence over how your children turn out. ”A mother is a different mother to every child she has, depending on that child’s temperament and disposition,” psychologist Roni Cohen-Sandler, told the Daily Beast. Cohen-Sandler also points out, ”is in turn a function of the environment, which mothers have a huge influence on.”
Basically, what it all boils down to is that kids who grow up in a loving, secure environment tend to be able to over come genetic dispositions and become loving, secure adults. How you provide that environment doesn’t matter as much as the fact that your kids know that you’re there for them, no matter what.
