|
The key point is that we are still a long way from being able to predict how an individual child will respond to the particular environments in which they find themselves. One reason for this is that children actually create their own environments. Think back to the example of the ‘irritable’ baby: a baby like this is going to evoke different things from a mother than a placid baby, so their environments will in fact be different. Also, as they get older, children are active in seeking out and creating their own environments (which we may sometimes not approve of!). A good example of this is that there have been suggestions that a mother’s work satisfaction affects her baby’s development, perhaps because a mother who is less happy at work may find it more of a challenge to be bright and cheerful with her baby in the evenings. But it may be completely the other way around; recently it has also been found that mother’s work satisfaction may in fact be affected by her baby’s temperament. Again, one can see how this might happen; the stress of wakeful nights and not being able to calm a screaming baby is hardly likely to help the next day at work. I hope that these examples have shown that identifying cause and effect in your child’s development is not a simple matter. If a research study finds that untidy children’s rooms are associated with higher school performance later (this is not a real finding!), that doesn’t mean you should go in and mess up your child’s room once a week. However, if there was a finding like this, it is likely that it would be reported in the popular press in a way that suggests that there is a cause-effect link. You can read more about this in the sample extract from a chapter that I have recently completed with Jim Stevenson, of Southampton University, on the influence of temperament. This will be part of a new textbook for the Open University course ED209 Child Development.
|
