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29 Av 5762 - August 7, 2002 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
Nature vs. Nurture
by A. Ross M.Ed.

Parents gaze fondly at their newborn baby, especially a first one, and try to visualize his future. Proud grandparents apparently see familiar features to an amazing degree. "He has my ears, your nose, his father's height..." His looks change as he gets a little older and he begins to manifest signs of a budding personality. Now the comments are often, "He has your temper, my brains (to which an irate father reportedly replied, `Definitely yours. I still have mine'), my artistic abilities..." The list is endless.

Each person is born with his own genetic code, in which instructions for building proteins are `written' in the genetic material called DNA. Chazal tell us to look at a prospective wife's brothers, as children are likely to grow up like them. R' Moshe Chaim Luzatto writes quite clearly that a person is affected both by his genetic code and his environment.

Within the last seventy years, there have been some fascinating experiments with identical twins who were separated at, or near, birth for some reason, and brought up in different social environments. Their likes and dislikes were similar, their taste in clothes was quite similar, too, as, of course, were their looks. However, their character traits, which we would call middos, were not identical at all. These were not real experiments, they are anecdotal; nevertheless, it is a pointer to how family and environment can and do, affect a person.

Family background, school, teachers, friends, and the local culture, all have a profound influence on the development of a child. We cannot always monitor any undesirable influence and just have to make sure that at least the ones we can choose are the ones which are going to help develop our children the way we want them to grow.

A child may be inherently shy. He enjoys playing alone and loud noises may bother him unduly. If the parents, or even just the mother, are outgoing and enjoy company, some of this might rub off onto the child. If she encourages him to go and borrow things like sugar or eggs from a neighbor, and to invite friends in to play, he will find it easier to relate to others. Nevertheless, he might always be a loner and prefer his own company and the company of his immediate family.

Someone who is a born leader may become an asset to the community, or he may become a nuisance in the classroom from an early age. If his energies can be channeled to make him feel good about himself within the confines of the classroom, if he is given enough responsbility to feed the urge to be `doing things,' he will thrive.

There are possessive children who will not let anyone else near their belongings. If they are in a nursery or play group, they might try to monopolize two or three sit-and-ride toys, although they can obviously only enjoy one. This is often a social problem which many children outgrow. Some children appear possessive but actually, they are terribly sensitive and just like their surroundings to remain exactly the same at all times. Thus, they throw a tantrum if someone moves one of their things.

Some children have a natural fluency of speech and are particularly articulate from a very early age. Others may be late starters but may still have an inherent ability to expound. However, the development of this ability depends very much on the environment. In some homes, they use a large varied vocabulary; "Look at that enormous grey spider." In other homes they might express the same by saying, "Ugh, a juk!" (denoting any kind of insect, in Israel).

Although intelligence is a genetic trait, the environment can definitely promote its growth. Children from the Third World could not compete with Western children in intelligence tests. Nevertheless, some will be more intelligent than others. In their own environment, inner strength and self reliance are often part of this intelligence. Here the `environment' must take care not to destroy this independence; on the other hand, it must be supervised. If a child undertakes a task, leave him to it. If he says it is completed, believe him. However, if, for instance, a girl of nine says she has washed all the dishes and you have to wash them all again, it is worth demonstrating before she does it next time, and reminding her that if she does something, she has to do it properly.

This leads straight on to efficiency, which is definitely an inborn trait. That does not mean that inefficiency cannot be reversed and mitigated. And like all other traits, efficiency can have a down side to it as well. Super-efficiency often dominates a person's life and minimizes acts of kindness, perhaps, while inefficient people have more time to chat or listen to others, because they are more easy-going about their daily schedule. Organizational skills are also inborn. Many children cannot follow two commands at a time, and this needs careful training. If a mother gets impatient, perhaps because she sees herself in the child, it will only aggravate the situation.

We are born with a wide range of traits like a sense of humor, honesty, a sense of fair play, all of which are shaped by our surroundings. For instance, each country has its own sense of humor and not surprisingly, we develop our humor according to the country in which we are educated. A lack of or poorly developed sense of humor is something difficult to change.

On the whole, most traits, both negative and positive, can be guided and molded by parents, teachers and older siblings. There are one or two traits which are a gift from Heaven, which a person either has or hasn't. One of them is charisma, chein: one cannot learn it nor develop it. Whatever your children have, appreciate them for what they are and help them develop their full potential.

 

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