Why do children do the things they do? Parents often wonder such things when they observe something unusual from their children. Because of people trying to understand the behavior of children, the “nature” vs. “nurture” question has been with us for a long time. Could all of a child’s characteristics be in-born and unchangeable? Or are children merely mirrors of whatever is reflected from their environment? Thankfully, research has been able to show that people’s behavior develops from a complex interaction of internal factors, such as genes and personality traits, as well as factors from the outside environment. It’s not one or the other, but both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From my own observations over many years of raising children and teaching as a substitute in Tooele County School District, I would agree that a child’s behavior isn’t only a matter of their nature or only how they were “nurtured.” I have seen in my children, and now my grandchildren, that each child has his or her own innate characteristics that start to show up while they are quite young. But I am also very aware that children are so influenced by the things they see around them. When they are very young, they will try to copy or mimic many things they see others do, if they can figure out how to do it themselves. But we can also see evidence of adults following what they see around them as we watch hordes of people doing the same things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am very convinced that the effects of one’s nature and one’s environment don’t apply only to children, but to all people, at any age. So there are inherent individual characteristics that affect each person and also things that happen around them or within their awareness that will influence them in some way. But as we age and as the influences on us change, our reactions to influences will tend to vary. Each day, we are a little different. So as adults we are very different from what we were as children. And in our old age, we’ll be different than we were in our twenties. Along with changes, though, there will be some elements of each person that seem to endure throughout life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of these are related to our genetic make-up, but I believe some are also part of what I call a “moral accent.” This moral accent is made up of patterns of reactions or attitudes that we learned while young that have stuck with us. I have heard that science has found that children have formed most of their values by age eight. I think this is the same concept. I believe it’s similar to the way someone who learns their native language, then later learns English. In most cases, those people will always have characteristics of their native language that come out in their English, which we call an accent. A significant thing to understand, then, is that what we teach children when they are young is pretty critical, because some of those things will endure throughout their lives, impacting their attitudes and behaviors. As adults, they can intentionally change some of those learned things, but they will have to be convinced there is a reason to change and then it will usually be difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is also important to understand that because children don’t have control of all of the factors that can lead them to undesirable behaviors, they aren’t fully responsible for their wrong choices. There are at least two important implications for adults: first, adults must realize that children will do wrong things at times and it doesn’t mean they are “bad” kids. Second, adults need to take control of changeable factors that children can’t control to help them learn and develop the best behaviors over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the factors that affect children, but where adults can’t do much about them include: a child’s genetic characteristics (this may include mental illness or other characteristics), innate preferences or dislikes (this could include natural tendencies to be with people or avoid them), norms of the culture they are in, their maturity level, their emotions, their level of self-confidence, natural conditions around them that provide opportunities or threats, past experiences, their expectations, and their personal values. These are things adults shouldn’t expect to change by their direct actions. Some of these cannot change at all, while others may change as the child learns and grows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there are some specific things adults can do to shape controllable influences that may help children develop the best behaviors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is not necessarily an exhaustive list, but these are significant things adults can do to improve the odds of children contributing their best to our world. Certainly, it’s easier to write all this than to do it, but any effort and determination from adults will be of more value than leaving children to figure it all out on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we do these various things to bring out the best in children, we need to do it without expecting quick results. It takes time for children to become mature people who make the best choices. In fact, I’d say learning to behave in the best ways can be a lifelong process for many of us. If adults in the lives of children consistently apply many of the items in the list above over the years as they grow up, I believe we will see better results than one might expect. We will bring more light into our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We just need to commit to do it. And this really applies to every adult who has influence in the life of a child. So what are we waiting for? There are children out there needing our guidance and positive influence!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why do children do the things they do? Parents often wonder such things when they observe something unusual from their children. Because of people trying to understand the behavior of children, the “nature” vs. “nurture” question has been with us for a long time. Could all of a child’s characteristics be in-born and unchangeable? Or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[214],"tags":[40,231,211,227,234,233,232,230],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children","tag-children","tag-growth","tag-guidance","tag-guiding","tag-influences-on-children","tag-influencing-children","tag-learning","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":516,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}