The Science of Raising Children: Pt 1(11/10/2001)
Science is finally delivering the answer to the oldest question of parenting - how important is the environment in which my child grows up? How much of a difference does parenting make, or have genes pre-determined the outcome?
This three-part series is essential viewing for all parents concerned about whether they are doing a good job. As Rebecca Gorman reports, science does have the answers - and the findings have major implications for how parents raise their children, and government policy on how we treat or young.
Part 1 - Investigates the growing body of research that is delivering the hard science of early childhood brain development. Science is showing that nurture is a key factor in early childhood development, having a major influence on the development of neural networks, which appear to determine how our brains are wired.
Narration: Something has gone very wrong with the way we're raising our kids. We take away from parents the capacity to be a parent by making it more difficult for them by giving them longer working hours, by putting stress on them.
In the past 25-30 years our families have become incubators of problems.
Well I think we're living through a really difficult society - what some people call a toxic society. Our children are obese, chronically sick with asthma and diabetes, they're aggressive, hyperactive and prone to drug abuse, crime and - killing themselves.
And now advances in brain science show a clear connection between these outcomes and how your brain grows in the first three years of life. You have a window of time and it may last for a few years where you can correct things, but after that it does become more challenging for the brain. For those who have devoted their lives to working with children, this new evidence comes at a time when, like many of us, they are overwhelmed by what they see.
And who feels like they have the capacity to change any of that - families are very busy things, especially with a newborn. We live without our extended families, we work longer hours - if we've got a job, but in the coming weeks on Catalyst we'll show you how science is coming up with the most promising solutions yet.
Solutions begin with this fact: to make sense of the world babies respond to emotional cues from an early age. This is clearly demonstrated by what's called the straight face test. Here baby is attentive to mum's familiar singing and smiling face.
But when mum drops all expression from her face, baby is immediately confused and distressed by the emotional withdrawal.
Louise Newman: And if we look closely at those babies they actually initially go through a stage of being quite distressed by that and protesting, but after a certain period of time if the situation goes on they'll actually withdraw themselves.
Narration: Louise Newman's expertise is child psychiatry, and she can easily spot a thriving one. But Louise explains that structural differences exist in the brains of infants who are emotionally deprived.
What it actually means is that babies need the right sort of emotional and social stimulation and care. The right quality of care at the right time, if they're going to develop the right sort of connections and nervous pathways that we need. As any artist knows, nurturing what you're born with is vital to fulfil potential.
Many Australian families get this nurturing right. Mystee Unwin has grown up to emerge as a happy young adult.
Mystee Unwin: I'm very optimistic. I'm open minded and I can see everyone's point of view, but also make my own judgements from what I really feel
Narration: But we also know genetics has a key role to play in personality, which begs the question: What if Mystee had been born a less likable child? The connection between the early years and who we are as adults can be found in a remarkable 20-year study.
Based at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, the internationally recognised Australian Temperament Project study started tracking two thousand babies in the early 80s. So far researchers have followed them all the way to their 20th birthdays - Mystee is one of those babies.
The project was set up - to ask this question: How important is the personality we're born with in determining the adult we become? For example those children born with a shy temperament are more at risk of developing depression as an adult.
And it's the same for aggression. The study found that aggressive teenagers had been born with difficult temperaments, were aggressive from a young age and often had difficult relationships with their mothers. But if parents are aware of this link, they can do something about it - preferably early on.
Margot Prior: So if you get a difficult child who is well managed the parent understands makes adjustments, adapts the family life to cope with the child, then that difficult temperament may not be a risk factor.
Narration: It is possible to rescue a child if the genetic lottery delivers a difficult temperament. The trouble is, these kids are less endearing and therefore harder to parent.
Margot Prior: The temperament of a child makes a difference in terms of how other people react to the child and what kinds of situations the child experiences. So if our babies are dependent on reaction and response how can we give it at a time when there's no time to be a good parent. Some people can afford to slow down - but most of the workforce has no choice but keep up the frantic pace.
Narration: Tell me you haven't hustled through the crowd and beeped at a driver going too slow - they're only looking for a park, and then you're expected to go home and deliver calm, confident fun filled parenting - it doesn't fit does it?
Margot Prior: I think we've done very poorly on the social capital front in this country, an even stronger ethos of individualism, less of a ethos of communities working together. And for children and families it is absolutely critical that there is a good community culture for them to grow up in.
Narration: So the big picture now being drawn by science highlights the importance of early intervention in the first three years in shaping the adult that emerges.
In Part 2 of this study, we look inside the baby's brain, and reveal just how early problems can be detected.
- Reporter: Rebecca Gorman
- Producer: Joady Weatherup
- Researcher: Claire Absolum