Flowers at dawn!

 

For some reason, some flowers look dry and some others wet with water drops on the petals,  the before sunrise. Soon after the sunrise the wet flowers also become dry. I suppose each flower has its own way of responding to water drops. 

Seeing this my thoughts wandered to recall instances when parents asked me this question: 'Why our two children behave differently to the same situation'?. One child, when given a gift would say 'thank you' and hug the father and mother before he opens the gift wrapper.  The other child would grab the gift and remove the wrapper in a hurry to know the content. They are apart by two years, both above five years. 

The individual variations are noticeable in other domains of behaviour and conduct. It is common with children. The adult behaviours are also similar with differences and contrasts.

This brings me back to think of the two basic foundations in child development- nature and nurture. 

By our genetic predisposition we are different, which is what we refer to as nature. What a child acquires by habit is what we often refer to as nurture.  The epigenetic effects have an impact on altering what is inherited to change some patterns and behaviour.

The children grow up in each home under the influences of this dual realities of nature and nurture. It is now known that most childhood habits and patterns are modifiable when the environment is optimally regulated. 

I suppose that in the digital age, the interface between children and adults at home has got reduced with children getting exposed to the visual media from early months of infancy. The conversation time between children and adults got reduced. What we observe in children by about two to three years are the imitative patterns of what they observe around them. If the visual media is what influenced them from early childhood, then their behaviour is an expression of what they have been used to visually on the screen.

An infant from the age of six months was used to watching the screen for three to five years, which is what I found in some instances. The natural instinct of communicative instinct has been replaced by passive viewing of the screen. While interviewing about sixty parents, whose two years old children were less verbal, I found the history of exposure to the screen time between three and five hours each day from six to nine months onwards. ThE interactive time between children and parents were less than one hour, which too happened during the bath time or getting ready to bed. The adults were not used to singing to children or read to children from the picture books. 

I have no idea why some flowers retain water drops on the petals whereas, some other flowers remain dry. 

However, with many children making reasonable progress in language use in about three months after reducing the screen time and increasing engagements between adults and children, I presume, that nurture matters in modifying early childhood behaviour.  

Most children follow a pattern and process that would get introduced to them in early childhood. It is therefore necessary to create an environment at home to help children to experience an optimally engaging environment during the pre-school years through wider exposure, experience and exploration of the environment. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)