Some of us have accepted the differences between our girls and our boys as a given, many others have struggled against it, and not a few of us have wondered about our own hand in making it so. How critical is that first blue or pink jumpsuit in the life of a baby, the toy airplane mobile hanging above its crib compared with the beatific teddy bear beside it – and how much does all that amount to when paired against the confluences and constraints of human biology? The Nature vs. Nurture question is one that has captured our attention for centuries and continues to fascinate us to this day.

In certain circles however, it’s a question that can be hazardous to your professional health. Take the case of recently appointed senior White House economic adviser Larry Summers. When Summers last made national headlines, it was in 2006 as the first president in the illustrious 370-year history of Harvard University to be forced out of the school’s chief administrative post. His sin was nothing quite as juicy or salacious as sexual indiscretions with a junior faculty member, plagiarism, or secretly rooting for Yale’s football team at The Game.

Rather, Summers committed the unforgivable academic crime of wondering out loud (at an economics conference, no less) whether the female and male brain might be naturally predisposed towards different types of thinking. Within a few hours of his presentation at the conference, the writing was already on the ivy-covered walls. His resignation was a foregone conclusion.

A Legitimate Question? Academic politics not withstanding, though, the question seems a legitimate one. There are clearly biological differences between men and women (vive la difference!), so might it not also be the case that the sexes think differently from one another?

The sparks really start flying when politics enter the mix. If we could scientifically prove that the average woman were better than the average man at performing certain mental tasks or vice-versa, would we consequently be locked into policy decisions based on that knowledge, forever pigeon-holing the sexes into gender-specific roles?

The answer should be a resounding “NO”, especially when we remember that we are talking about averages. There is so much variability within the human population, male and female alike, that it would be extremely foolish to assign anyone to a specific career based upon their sex, height, eye-color, or any other single physical trait. Many would make the same argument regarding SAT scores – their predictive power for how someone will perform in a specific profession or academic field are poor at best.

To highlight the argument, let’s take the case of male professional basketball. The average height in the NBA is 6′6″, and height definitely does confer many advantages on the court. Based upon this singular physical characteristic, we might be tempted to professionally assign every male in America, 6′6″ and taller, to the NBA. But what percentage of these titans are actually good enough to play professional basketball? The answer is very few. On the other hand, there is no shortage of All Stars and NBA Hall-of-Famers who are much closer to the national height average and a few that are below that average. No matter what the averages say, variability in many different human qualities makes stars out of seemingly unlikely prospects.

Back to brains. While the average male and female brain are remarkably similar in structure, brain scanning and MRI technology have enabled us to discern some small but demonstrable differences between the two. For example, the average male adult brain when compared with its female counterpart has a slightly larger cerebrum and a larger amygdala, a small structure in the center of the brain associated with processing fear and emotion. The female brain contains thicker connective tissue that allows for more communication between the two brain hemispheres.

Could these very subtle structural differences cause discrepancies in the way men and women learn, laugh, and love – differences in the ways that a Harry and a Sally see and interact with their respective universes? And are these differences biologically predetermined, or are they changes that develop over time — the cumulative result of many years of either “thinking like a man” or “thinking like a woman”?

Toy Trucks, Toy Dolls, Toy Guns Over the last half century, the trend in the scientific world has been to downplay innate brain differences between the sexes and to emphasize the role of socialization — the notion that from an early age, girls and boys are taught how to think and how to behave through social situations. According to socialization proponents, society teaches boys and girls very different lessons and presents them with different models for approaching problems, so much so that over time, the average male brain and the average female brain develop different preferences, concerns, and strategies.

That societal prejudices and pressures could be influencing the direction of our children’s brain development has caused no lack of consternation among the progressive parenting crowd (many of whom grew up listening to and believing in Free to Be… You and Me.) Some of these parents have taken up the battle cry and gone full frontal assault against the socialization tide, attempting to shape their daughters into sword wielding, aggressive go-getters and their sons into more emotionally-open nurturers.

Friends of ours in Connecticut, die-hard conservatives no less, tell the story of how they decided to purchase a toy truck and a toy tool set for their young daughter, in order to encourage her constructive play. Imagine their surprise when they found their daughter gleefully cradling the truck, cooing at it and calling it “baby”, while lovingly using the toy wrench as a “bottle” for feeding. I didn’t have the heart to ask them if she burped the truck and changed its diaper as well.

The case with boys is no less exasperating. Take for example the millions of “enlightened” parents who have attempted in vain to reign in their boys’ fascination with guns. Miami Herald humorist Dave Barry, who once enacted a failed toy-gun ban in his own home, suggested in one of his columns that two boys abandoned together on a desert island with only their wits to help them survive would immediately begin making toy guns out of driftwood. Along these same lines, we highly recommend this humorous and informative blog entry by Alice Bradley about 101 ways to “die” at the hands of your boy toddler.

The anecdotal evidence above, as well as a vast body of empirical evidence, suggests that boys and girls engage in very different modes of play — modes that address the needs of their very different social worlds.

It’s worth noting here that these stories call into sharp relief the use of the term “nurture”, in the Nature vs. Nurture debate. While the word “nurture” conjures images of a loving home environment that shapes our children’s behavioral development, these stories suggest something else entirely: that socialization through peer groups may be much stronger than our concerted efforts as parents to mold our children’s character. (This, in fact, is precisely the argument made by Judith Harris in The Nurture Assumption, her biting and controversial critique of the field of developmental psychology.)

Autism and Male Brain Theory While over the last 50 years socialization has been the generally preferred explanation for differences in boy-girl behavior, recent studies have suggested that biology may play a larger role than was previously acknowledged. These come from an unexpected source — studies on autism.

Enter Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology and Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University. (No, he’s not the brother of Sacha Baron Cohen — the comedic evil genius behind the characters of Borat and Ali G. — he’s his first cousin.) One of the world’s most respected autism researchers, Baron-Cohen’s team was the first to publish research demonstrating that children with autism lack or have a greatly impaired theory of mind – i.e. they have particular difficulty in understanding that another person can have an individual perspective separate from their own. This in turn makes it very difficult for autistic children to read other people’s emotions and develop empathy towards them. Theory of mind impairment has since become widely accepted as one of the standard diagnostic features of autism.

How does this relate to Harry’s brain and Sally’s brain? We mentioned before the subtle structural differences between adult male and female brains, but your typical Harry and Sally will perform differently at certain mental tasks as well. For example, Harry will score higher on-average than Sally on map-reading tests and tests that ask him to visualize 3-dimensional objects being rotated. Sally will typically score higher than Harry on certain tests of language ability, and recognition of other people’s emotional states. Baron-Cohen has taken this and other evidence and condensed it into a very simple, reductionist and highly controversial formulation that he published in his 2003 book The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain. He claims that the typical male brain is more adept at systemization, while the typical female brain has an affinity for tasks that require empathy. (Does anyone feel the ghost of Larry Summers in the room?)

In fact, Baron-Cohen has set the scientific world on its ear with his latest theory that autism is nothing more than a person exhibiting an extreme “male type” brain. This is based on their recent finding that among the parents of autistic children, there is a strong tendency for both the father and mother to have more systemizing brains than empathizing ones. These parents score highly on systemizing tests and more poorly on empathy tests, indicative of strongly “male” cognitive bias. Roll the genetic dice and two such parents have a much higher chance of giving birth to a baby with an extreme male brain, displaying “a particularly intense drive to systemize and an unusually low drive to empathize.”

This, suggests Baron-Cohen cautiously, may be the real cause of autism: a preoccupation with one type of brain activity — one that constantly seeks to arrange stimuli into rationally ordered patterns — to the exclusion of another type of brain activity that involves language acquisition and understanding that other people have different perspectives. The ramification is that autism — as debilitating as it can be — is not really a brain “disorder” at all, but the logical manifestation of a person being at the extreme, far “male end” of the brain continuum.

(For an elucidating discussion of Baron-Cohen’s theories by several of the world’s leading scientists, we highly recommend this article in Edge.)

One other major discovery by this cutting-edge team of scientists. They have found evidence that the differences in male-female brain activity may exist as early as at childbirth. In a study of babies less than 24-hours old, Baron-Cohen and team found that when newborns are presented with a live human face alongside a mechanically moving mobile, the males spend significantly more time looking at the mechanical mobile than the females, who spend more time looking at the human face. This supports the hypothesis that baby boys are more attracted towards systemizing brain activity — in this case recording and analyzing mechanical motion — while baby girls are more attracted to empathy-related activities — searching for emotional expressions in the facial features of others.

While this much criticized study still awaits replication by an independent team of scientists and further elucidation, it certainly bursts open a new door of inquiry into whether boy brains and girl brains might start developing in different ways before socialization ever has a chance to kick in. Score one (tentative) point for Nature.

What’s a Parent to Do?

So where does this leave us parents, struggling to raise our kids the best way we know how? Is there a point to our trying to nurture our kids towards or away from society’s expectations, or ultimately are our kids fated to be whatever their genes have already decided?

Without being too preachy (or giving a definitive answer), we are firm believers that our children are innately blessed with a multitude of potential talents. From the very outset, their brains are wired to learn, learn, and then learn some more – and this is just as typical for girls as it is for boys. Both our girls and boys are blessed with a wonderful curiosity that drives them to constantly explore and try to make sense out of their growing universes. That they tend to do so in different ways shouldn’t trouble us or surprise us too much.

And while X and Y chromosomes may (or may not) predispose our children’s brains towards fairies or super heroes, tea parties or swashbuckling adventures, the desire to learn new things constantly exists. It is our job as parents and teachers to help unlock and feed that curiosity in as many different directions as possible: the sciences and music; poetry and math; sports and crafts; comedy and drama. The possibilities are as limitless as our children’s minds are broad.

We encourage parents of young children, especially during the early grade school years, to vary their children’s extracurricular activities. Give them as many opportunities as possible to explore some of their own potential talents and try to avoid locking them into any specific one at this early stage. And it is precisely here that it is important for parents not to be afraid to cross the gender divide. Interspersed with computers and football, you can encourage your boys to try out gymnastics or movement — just call it something cool like capoeira. And for the girls, between the ballet classes and soccer practice encourage them to have their scones and tea over a stimulating game of chess or, if they prefer, the board game Risk. World domination is just a few rolls of the dice away.

It’s not so much about defying society’s expectations, but about giving our children the opportunity to learn as much as they can about themselves, to learn what sorts of activities they truly love doing. It’s about tapping into their natural enthusiasm. It’s about showing our kids that we believe in them whatever they choose, and teaching them that they should believe in themselves, too. For when our kids believe in themselves and love what they’re doing, there’s no limit to what they can achieve.

And whatever they eventually do choose, it’s far more significant than that pink or blue jumpsuit, or the airplane mobile that once hung over their crib.

Empathy + Empowerment = EMPARENTING!
http://www.emparenting.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Elli_Sacks

“Oh, don’t worry about him. He can do it by himself. Usually he does quite a good job,” I said, not budging from the comfy sofa.

My sister insisted I checked on him anyway. I relented, not because I didn’t trust my son’s ability but he might be unfamiliar with my sister’s bathroom. I asked my son if I could help, to which he promptly replied, “Done, Mummy!” I gave him a hug and told him that he did a good job.

Young children need to learn to answer nature’s calls independently at their own pace. While I am not a strong proponent of Sigmund Freud’s work, his convictions of the anal stage of children might worth knowing.

During the anal stage, Freud believed that the primary focus of the libido was on controlling bladder and bowel movements. The major conflict at this stage is toilet training, when the child has to learn to control his or her bodily needs. Developing this control leads to a sense of accomplishment and independence.

According to Freud, success at this stage is dependent upon the way in which parents’ approach to toilet training. Parents who praise and reward for using the toilet at the appropriate time encourage positive outcomes and help children feel capable and productive. Freud believed that positive experiences during this stage served as the basis for people to become competent, productive, and creative adults.

However, not all parents provide the support and encouragement that children need during this stage; instead some punish, ridicule, or shame a child for accidents. According to Freud, inappropriate parental responses can result in negative outcomes.

If parents take an approach that is too lenient, Freud suggested that an anal-expulsive personality could develop in which the individual has a messy, wasteful, or destructive personality.

If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed that an anal-retentive personality develops in which the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive.

Well, this anal-retentive personality theory might not hold water because my sister’s 14-year old son is on the opposite spectrum of “stringent, orderly, rigid and obsessive”. His nanny had him potty-trained when he was a newborn. When I casually asked if it might be a bit early, she said, the earlier the better!

Nevertheless, we take on the good bits of the theory and use them to our children’s advantage.

Two minutes later, he had removed his pyjamas on his own and he asked what he could wear for the day. I remarked that he was indeed growing up because he could do so many things by himself.

“This calls for a party. We should celebrate all the things you can do by yourself, ” I said spontaneously.

“A party? When?” he asked excitedly.

“How about after breakfast? Go pick up something you would want to wear at a party,” I replied.

Before I could get going with my routines of washing up, he paraded in my view in his chosen attire. He had dressed himself in his favourite Ben Ten T-shirt and a Power Rangers shorts.

“Wow, you can dress yourself so well. I am so proud of you. Go have your breakfast and the party will begin as soon as I return from the market, okay?”

“Okay!” he turned and shot off.

My husband was listening to this conversation and was concerned if I could really carry out the task. I told him not to worry because I usually have some party tricks at home; balloons, special sweets, bubbles, etc.

Later in the morning, my boy and I spent about an hour blowing up balloons and playing with them, ate our sweets, played with some playdough and made a video recording of him singing some songs he had learnt in school. We also spent some time making a card for his school in conjunction with its 14th anniversary.

It was a well spent morning. My boy enjoyed himself immensely and I shared in his joy as well. By rewarding him with a simple activity, his self-confidence has soared up a notch. Prior to this morning, I have taught him to dress himself through small, achievable steps. But before I could show him how to remove his slip-on pyjamas, he has figured it out himself.

M.E.P. Seligman (1995) in The Optimistic Child says, to teach children optimism and a sense of being worthwhile, we need to teach them to solve problems rather than turning away from difficulties. He offers some guidelines which include:

• Don’t solve every problem for your child;

• Once you give your child space to solve his own problems, you must not be overly critical of his attempt;

• Model a flexible problem-solving strategy yourself.

The last point is crucial because Seligman reminds us that on the other side of the coin, pessimism in children is not inborn. “Nor does their pessimism come directly from reality. Many people living in grim realities: unemployment, terminal illness, concentration camps, inner city, remain optimistic. Pessimism is a theory of reality. Children learn this theory from parents, teachers, coaches and the media, and they in turn recycle it to their children. It falls to us to break this cycle.” (pg 51)

My childhood friend, Rayvathy never failed to say “I will go and come back” in Tamil to her mother as she walked with me to school. In reply, her mother would say, “Go and come back.” I heard it so often, I could still say those phrases over 20 years later. It seems an appropriate way to say good-bye. Although I have never taught it to my children, for some reason, my four-year old son has taken to standing next to his sister to wave good-bye to me and call out, “You come back later okay?” It has become his mantra.

It never quite occurred to me how big a challenge is saying good-bye for children until I worked with a globally-developmental delayed five-year old a few months ago. It became apparent how that difficulty was “acted out in inappropriate manner”; usually termed as tantruming or having a “meltdown”.

My son used to insist I sent him right up to his classroom. The good-bye would only happen after he has changed his pair of shoes (the children have to wear another pair of “indoor” shoes upon arrival), place his notebook (used as a communication book between parents and teachers) on the teacher’s desk, park his water tumbler at a designated corner and hang up his little knapsack.

After 10 weeks of school, I decided to nudge my son towards another mini milestone: to say good-bye at the school lobby. Since day four when school first began in January, most four-year olds were dropped off at the lobby where they would remove their shoes and walk themselves to their classrooms. My son hadn’t been ready for this. I tried it once; I asked him if I could drop him instead of walk him to the classroom. There was silence. I asked him to give it a try. Reluctantly he said yes. Unfortunately, the teachers on duty that day were unfamiliar to him and they greeted him in Mandarin and Malay. He hollered unashamedly as I drove off. I had to park my car and walk him to his classroom.

A few days later, I asked him again. He looked stressed. He sat very still when the teacher opened the car door for him. I told him to get down and I would come to him after I parked the car. He got off but wailed again.

The next week, we tried again. He put on a brave face. Fortunately, the teachers on duty were familiar to him. Then he quickly asked me which way to his classroom. “Turn left as you walk in. If you are not sure, just ask okay?” I said. He nodded and repeated, “turn left” and hopped off as a teacher came forward to help him. He didn’t wave. I guessed he must have been pre-occupied with the flurry of activity around him; the teachers were greeting him and there were other kids sitting on the steps removing their shoes. It didn’t occur to me that I had used a different entrance when I walked him to his classroom. No wonder he was being apprehensive about his sense of direction.

The following day, I asked if I could drop him off again. He said yes more confidently. As we approached the lobby, I asked if he remembered to bring his “good manners” with him. “Yes, I got it”, he replied. Previously he would be tongue-tied whenever his teachers offered him a greeting. I would usually say softly in his ear, “Oops, you forgot to bring your good manners. Don’t forget to bring them with you okay?”

For the past few days, each time I asked if I could say good-bye at the lobby, he would say, “Mummy, yes, you can always do that. Always. And, I also remember to bring my good manners with me.”

I beamed happily.

“Why are you smiling, Mummy?”

“Oh, I feel very happy to hear that I can always drop you off at the lobby. It means that you have grown up a little,” I said hugging him. He rewarded me with a broad grin.

So for my son, the difficulty of saying good-bye for him was further compounded by his awareness of his inability to communicate in foreign languages and a host of other new experiences. This understanding didn’t occur to me until I began to reflect on my work with my five-year old student. As his teacher cum therapist, I was ever so mindful of all my responses and reactions to him during my nine-hour per week sessions with him. Due to his challenges, I could see very clearly all the antecedent factors leading to his “meltdowns” (tantrums). Working with this boy required my full awareness of his moment-to-moment responses and reactions. Although I only worked with him for a short term of three months, the experience and lessons I learnt were worth a lifetime for me. In reality, he was my teacher.

When mum leaves the house (e.g. out to the shop), the toddler hollers. In my case, my four-year old still wails his lungs out when he wakes up without mum in the house. It can be exasperating and stressful for mum and the caregivers (who looks after junior whilst mum is away).

While my son handles “TV time’s up” and “Let’s go home” pretty well, there have been other trying times when supreme patience comes into play. When he first started pre-school early in the year, he became resistant after two days. Going to school had been something he was looking all forward to since we took him to the school for registration.

He gave all kinds of excuses and even said he preferred to be at home. And because my boy has the ability to “reason” with me, I quickly found out the reasons he was refusing school. Before he attended school, he could only understand English. So, when some teachers and friends started communicating with him with Mandarin and Malay, he was stumped and he reacted by “clamping up”. He would tell me that he didn’t want to go to school because he could not draw, write and read; probably inferred from observing his older siblings (aged 10 and 8 years) reading and completing schoolwork. So, the poor boy was all stressed up over the new experiences and at his age, obviously his brain didn’t have the capacity to cope with such challenges.* I communicated this to his three teachers (particularly the ones who speak Mandarin and Malay), and with their close co-operation, my son quickly overcame these fears. On my part, I tried all kinds of persuasion, reasoning and yes, including rewards (such as horse-riding, visits to his favourite friend’s home, birthday party, etc) for each week of school.

Children learn to cope and do life better when the adults around him speak on the same page. Being human and particularly for a growing child, there are numerous milestones (mini and major ones) which he has to tackle. Saying good-bye to something familiar (being at home) and taking on new experiences are factors that trigger his homeostasis.

[* Young children’s higher brain which governs reasoning, problem solving, etc is under-developed and when they experience separation distress and other powerful feelings, they are unable to think and calm themselves down. Thus, their lower brain which activates rage/fear and defence/attack responses becomes the driving seat, resulting in tears. (M. Sunderland, 2006: The Science of Parenting)]

“Oh? Why should we do that?”

“We have to take care of the earth. The earth is sick,” he announced in between bites of his cake which he helped to bake earlier in the day.

He had just returned from the kindergarten, after spending three and half hours in the afternoon on a daily basis. I knew the kindy teachers must have talked to their students about Earth Hour (March 28^th, 8.30pm).

My son is rather shy in school and not particularly very participative in the movement and dance activities. During the first few weeks in the new term (In January), I had often stayed on to accompany him during the daily assemblies at the school hall where 200 children aged three and six years gathered for group exercise and “current affairs education”. My boy would usually stand observing everyone in action; quite rarely he would attempt to join in. However, he is completely different at home. He has performed for me all the songs he learnt in school. Most of the time whenever I ask how the day has been for him, he would reply, “wonderful’ or “fun” or even “amazing”…probably picked up the word from his favourite story book titled, “The Gruffalo”. So, it is indeed a pleasant surprise that he could remind me to switch off the essential lights for Earth Hour on Saturday, 28^th March.

This kindergarten, operated by the Soka Gakkai Cultural Group, has never failed to enlighten me about education and its purpose. In January, during one of the assemblies, the school supervisor presented a slide show of birds flying in the sky and then followed by an aeroplane. Then she narrated about the courageous pilot who did an emergency landing on the frozen Hudson River, in the United States, thus saving over a hundred lives. She explained that some birds were sucked into one of the plane’s engines which caused its failure. As she spoke in dual languages (English and Mandarin), photographs of the rescue mission on the Hudson River were shown on the big screen for the children. Then she told the children that no one was injured because “everyone listened, lined up one-by-one and followed instructions to safety”. She emphasized the importance of such instructions during emergency. The school was, at this time, educating the children about fire drills. My son, like many others, was also learning about being in a queue for the first time. Before she concluded the session, a portrait of Mr Barrack Obama came onto the screen. “Children, do you know this man? He is a very important man and tomorrow he will be making history in the United States of America and the world. Let me tell you all about it tomorrow.”

With such a teaser, even I wouldn’t miss it for the world. So, I found myself at the hall again the next afternoon. I wondered what the school’s message for the children might be? The supervisor prepared her material well. Without getting into the complexity of the serious affair, she highlighted Mr Barrack Obama’s key message in his inauguration speech as the 44^th President of the United States of America: be friendly to our neighbours and everyone in the world. Through tolerance and understanding, we can achieve peace and harmony together. What a lovely way to present it!

My two older children (now aged 11 and 9) had also benefited from this school’s philosophy. When the Iraq war broke out, the teachers revised a huge part of the curriculum to concentrate on educating the children about atrocities of war and the importance of peace and harmony through creative approaches. Similarly when the tsunami came and changed the lives of millions, the school proactively educated the children about generosity, kindness and love. All the their lessons were done at the level of the children’s development.

School like this is a rare breed. So far, I have yet to come across another kindergarten which would go to such lengths to instill good virtues in their students. Kindergartens in my area are more concerned about making a child write and count and recite the ABCs. They are given homework (writing pages of the alphabet and memorizing words for spelling tests) and examinations. I once protested about examinations and homework to a kindergarten teacher who operates a mere 50 metres from my home. I was told that they requested by parents. Parents, apparently would worry if their children cannot read or write at age 5 or 6.

One woman I know typifies the average working class mother. Her eldest daughter, aged 12, has been given the task to care for her siblings from aged 3. When there are four children, her number two takes over the caring of number three whilst the eldest takes charge of the youngest. When she gets home at 10.30pm (she works at the mall which operates from 10am to 10pm), she expects the house to be in good order. Her husband usually works the graveyard shift as a security guard but when he has to do the day shift, the two older ones do not attend school as they are needed at home to babysit the younger siblings.

Since early February when I started working with the older two girls at their school (as part of a community service programme), I have been unsuccessful in getting an appointment to meet with the mother until last week. She could make it this time as she has stopped working temporarily to prepare for the birth of her fifth child who will be due in two weeks.

Over the weeks as I observe the two girls in their play individually, one common trait that stands out is their inability to overcome a challenge. Whenever the older one tries to make something and if it fails to meet with her expectations, she has no qualms in squashing it and not attempt to do it again. Initially I gave her the space to vent her frustration and allowed her to be. After a number of similar sessions, I asked if she would be willing to share how she was feeling. She said it was no use trying because she could not get it right.

The younger one, aged 9, never got close to the craft table for the a good number of sessions. In the last two sessions when she discovered the therapeutic effects of working with clay, she displayed some level of delight. However, she too shows the same frustration and will simply refuse to try again.

From the long chat with their mother the other day, I have a better understanding why these two girls have the tendency to give up easily. Their mother admits to “always scolding the older ones” because that is how things can get done around the house.

When I tried to point out that to help children develop optimism, they must feel good about themselves and they need to hear when they have done a good job. “No,” she retorted. “I cannot praise them, particularly the eldest one. They will get it up in their heads and they will be worst. Of course I do praise them, but only behind their backs, in front of their father or my sister.”

Many books on parenting that I have read emphasise the importance of praising children when they have done something worthwhile because they deserve to be encouraged to do their best. They will come to feel they are valued and worthwhile when they are included in our daily activities, naturally in the age appropriate activities. However, when they are given the tasks beyond their abilities, they would feel overwhelmed. In time to come, they will start to feel they are not good enough.  They won’t know nor understand that the tasks and responsibilities assigned to them are simply too big for their age. The nine-year old is expected to bathe and feed the younger ones as a daily chore. She was once absent from school because she had to stay with the younger siblings while her mother went out for an ante-natal check-up. Father was at work and the eldest insisted on going to school.

Most will agree that optimism will develop as children learn that challenges can be faced and obstacles can be overcome. But when the challenge is too great and inappropriate, these two girls have inevitably learnt that when something is too much to handle, it is best to leave it alone. Perhaps it is better not to even try.

M.E. P. Seligman in his “The Optimistic Child” (1995) says that when children fail to reach some goal or don’t perform a task well, instead of trying to make them feel better by denying reality, validate their disappointment and teach them active problem solving. Guide them in explaining failures optimistically and accurately. Help them to see what they could do differently in the next attempt. However, don’t take over the task for them because this gives them the message “I don’t think you are capable of doing this.” Instead teach them to master the task through small, achievable steps. Teach them to solve problems rather than turning away from difficulties. It is important not to solve every problem for your child and once you give your child space to solve his own problems, you must not be overly critical of his attempt.

According to a longterm research, children who are more securely attached with their carers are more able to adapt to changing life circumstances, such as school life, than those who have less secure attachment relationships. Further details about the Minnesota Longitudinal Project, which followed children and their carers from infancy to adulthood, can be found in “The Fate of Early Experience Following Development Change” by Sroufe L A, Egeland B, Kreutzer, T 1990.

Securely attached here means children who have developed highly trusting relationships, particularly in the early years. According to child development experts, children must acquire a balance towards the positive (i.e. trust) and some of the negative potential (i.e. mistrust). When children have a strong balance towards the positive side of trust, they will be able to meet later emotional/social development with more ease and will be more likely to maintain this positive balance.

As children who are securely attached and have a strong sense of inner security grow into adolescents, they would have a solid emotional and social foundation on which to develop further (read Beardslee W R (2002): “How to protect your children from the effects of depression in the family”).

On the flip side, children whose behaviours are of extreme defiance of adults and have an inability to form any peer relationships are characteristics of those who have serious attachment and trauma difficulties.

In short, trust is the keyword. How does a child develop trust, in order for her to improve her resiliency?

From the moment your child is born, she cries to be comforted. Crying is her way of communicating her need for your help. You take the first step in establishing trust when you pacify her. Experts say if you consistently soothe your child’s distress over the years and take any anguished crying seriously, highly effective stress response systems can be established in her brain. You can help her cope well with stress in later life.

Research shows that if a child’s need for comfort is not met with emotional responsiveness and soothing, her autonomic nervous system can over time become wired for bodily hyper-arousal. This can make life stressful and exhausting and also result in physical ailments in later life such as problems with breathing (asthma), heart disease, eating and digestive disorders, poor sleep, high blood pressure, panic attacks, muscular tension, headaches and chronic fatigue. In “brain-gut studies”, there is a link of uncomforted stress in early life with irritable bowel syndrome.

Neuroscience explains when a child cries, the stress hormone called cortisol is released by the adrenal glands. If she is soothed and comforted, the cortisol level goes down, but if left to cry continuously, the level remains high. Over a prolonged period, cortisol can reach toxic levels that may damage key structures and systems in a developing brain. Cortisol is a slow-acting chemical that can stay at high levels in the brain for hours and in clinically depressed people, for days or weeks.

Research shows when a child has an over-sensitive stress response system may leave her susceptible to anxiety disorders, depression, smoking addiction and alcohol abuse in later life. This is particularly the case with children left to prolonged crying as babies and then experienced strict discipline with little warm physical affection to compensate.

Attachment Theory developed by John Bowlby in the sixties may now be further validated by findings in neuroscience. The core theme of attachment theory is that mothers (primary caregivers) who are available and responsive to their infant’s needs establish a sense of security. The infant knows that the caregiver is dependable and she experiences trust.

Ainsworth categorized three major styles of attachment: secure, ambivalent and avoidant.

In the study, Ainsworth found when children were briefly separated from their mothers (caregivers), they displayed minimal distress because they seemed to feel assured that the mother would return. Termed as securely-attached children, they sought reassurance from their mothers when they were frightened because they had experienced comfort being offered when needed.

In contrast, ambivalent attached children became very distressed when a parent left and it was suggested that it was a result of poor maternal availability. These children had learned they couldn’t depend on their mother to be there when in need.

For children with avoidant attachment, they had no preference between a caregiver and a complete stranger and they tended to avoid the parent. This might be a result of abusive caregivers or being neglected and the children were punished for being dependent. These children learnt not to seek help in the future.

Such finding would have been most helpful to many ignorant parents if it is introduced during ante-natal classes. I have observed that many children in my midst are, unfortunately, with ambivalent and avoidant attachments. Most of them have been brought up by neighbours (stay-at-home mums) whilst their primary caregivers work outside the home, child minders at day-care centres who have more than a dozen of children in their care and grandmothers who live in another state.

Further research suggests that early attachments could have serious effect on the children’s later relationships. However attachment styles presented in adulthood are not necessarily the same as in childhood.

Securely-attached children tend to grow up as adults with a healthy self-esteem, maintain a solid romantic relationship and the ability to trust others. They find it relatively easy to get close to others and are comfortable in a give-and-take relationship . They usually don’t worry about being abandoned or someone getting too close.

In contrast, avoidant adults are rather uncomfortable getting close to others because they find it difficult to trust others completely. They have difficulty allowing themselves to depend on others. They get nervous when someone gets too close and they often feel their partners wanting more intimacy than what they could offer. I wonder if some of my friends who purposely choose to remain single and unattached intimately could have been children with avoidant attachment.

Anxious/ambivalent adults, on the other hand, find that others are reluctant to get as close as they would like. They often worry that their partner doesn’t really love them or won’t want to stay with them. They want to merge completely with another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away. If you ever hear someone introducing their spouse/partner as their “other half”, you would wonder whether they realize that they could have been an ambivalent attached child.

Interestingly, there are counselors in the UK who specialize in couple relationships using creative arts therapy to have a better insight into problems relating to attachment issues. I was fortunate to have had a first-hand experience with Prof. Monika Jephcott (of Academy of Play and Child Psychotherapy) during the Play and Creative Arts certificate course last year. In an exercise using eight bits of plasticine of two different colours, one of the colour representing myself, I moulded the bits according to four scenarios:
• Me and my primary carer (how she/he might have felt)
• Ideal relationship with primary carer
• Who is closest to me now?
• How would I like it to be?

Through this powerful exercise, I had a better understanding of the Attachment Theory and of my relationship with my spouse. Although I had grown out of my attachment style in childhood to be a securely-attached adult (the third scenario), my last moulded bits were interpreted as a “regression”. It reflected a conflict I was having with my spouse at that time. As it had surfaced to my awareness, I was able to work it through with a lot of self-reflection and sharing with him. It was a potent balm for a deep wound  resulting in a giant leap in self growth.