Your Child's Personality: From Nature or Nurture?

Was your child born with a personality? The minute they arrived, did you get a glimpse to their temperament, attitude and characteristics? Maggie Mason said she thought that a child's personality developed over time, but was shocked at just how identifiable her son's personality was when he was born. Dana Loesch agrees and says that their idiosyncrasies are present early on.

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sduong34622@tac...
1 years ago

I do not believe that children are born with predisposed personalities. There may be some truth to either sides, I am not discounting nurture or nature. A childs personality has more to do with parenting and the childs environment. There are many questions concerning nature vs nuture: Is depression hereditary? If one or both of your parents alcoholics are you more succeptible to alcohol addiction because of genetics or because you were exposed to alcoholism? It could be a combination of both. I lean more towards nurture because people have the potential to change their habits, personalities, and life style.

Loqi
2 yearss ago

Of course someone's personality is shaped by both heredity and environment. But I've been amazed at just how much of my son was already in place the first month. It feels like a game of both chance and skill. You get dealt a hand of cards, and you do your best to play it well. The good stuff is good, but the bad stuff is really, really bad. Some of the unsavory personality traits are very hard to grapple with. It takes loads of extra effort to struggle uphill against nature. It can be done, but only imperfectly and with great effort and lots of fumbling. You get what you get. And with lots of hard work, you get some more.

AmberStrocel
2 yearss ago

Since having two children, I really believe that children have distinctive personalities from the beginning. My two kids are VERY different, and I am the same mom. In fact, a lot of the things that I took credit for with my daughter, like her excellent sleep, I now realize had very little to do with me. However, I think that there's a lot that happens between birth and adulthood in forming a person. Your experiences shape you - mine have certainly shaped me. I have cultivated certain talents, I have certain fears and dreams, and I don't think that these are inborn. While I might have always been sort of high-strung, I haven't always been good at math. So I wouldn't say that nature takes the lead in personality formation, exactly.

megan stremick
2 yearss ago

My son is one year old and I can definitely see things that he does that are both nature and nurture. For example, I can not for the life of me figure out where he got this god awful, ear piercing, glass breaking, screech that comes from the very depths of his lungs when he is happy and when he is pissed off. He just belts out with it! Being around eight nieces and nephews I can honestly say it's nothing i've ever heard before. This can't possibly be learned, he came up with this all on his own. Then there are certain motor skills--seeing him put into action the things that we have repeatedly shown him how to do like clap or how to open a certain toy, it's this feeling of accomplishment and that our 'nurture' helped him understand.

acm
2 yearss ago

I do think that they come out with personalities -- and I disagree with Karen, in that some kids are naturally cheeful and others more anxious and high-strung -- and that they can be very like or relatively unlike their parents. Haven't attempted a "personality-changing" intervention, but I foresee the need to help my child work with her natural cautious/shy tendencies, so that she can learn not to let them keep her from having fun and exploring the world. Still, my kid is only 2.5 or so, so there will be much more to see. But already, very strong preferences for How Things Are Done! :)

MeMyselfandMommy
2 yearss ago

I'm of the school that both nature and nurture impact who your child becomes in a major way. I knew who Moanna was before she was born. I could feel her movements and her energy (yes I'm crazy) when I was pregnant. I see those same movements and that same energy in her today closing in on the age of three. Then there are things about her that come from her babysitter or Steve's step-dad. You can look it at like chronic illness. Some illnesses are inherited and sometimes it comes from the things that you are exposed to in your environment or habits you develop.

jbridgetfisher
2 yearss ago

The minute I laied on my son Elijah, I thought "He's an old soul". Why? He had an awareness about him, like he had been here before. He wasn't easily startled, he didn't cry much at all. He ate when it was time, slept when it was time, would spend hours in a baby swing like he knew to take advantage of relaxing. When my mom met him she said, "He's such a little old man". Once again noticing this heightened awareness and calm personality he had. Through time it evolved, and he became complex and difficult to understand his behaviors, he was no longer an old man but a very angry one. Come to find out he has Asperger's. It took many years to find this out, but until them I would identify him as "Spirited". I definitely believe it comes from nurture. I have encountered so many stares and nasty remarks at the expense of his emotional handicap that people outside the family cannot identify with. Since he has an emotional disorder that I have no control over yo would think I would blame it on nature, but I have seen so many changes in him all because of behavioral therapies and different parenting techniques. If I would have succumbed to the challenge of being his mom, put him in foster care, turned my back and blamed it on an act of God I could easily and forgivably walked away with the pity of others. However, I refuse to accept that I cannot make a change in any aspect of m life, including in changing the behavior of my child and giving him yet another way of looking at things. This isnt always easy, it's down right unfair sometimes to have to work so hard at what "normal" people just get. Like how to bathe .... no matter how many times I have bathed him growing up he needs reminders what to do. Do bad children come from bad parents? I don't think so, I think it does occur as a result of bad parenting tho. In life all things nurtured grow and flourish. In nature, all things left to thrive may do so wildly without boundaries and constant nutrients.

TylerAlyseA
2 yearss ago

I always love and hate this topic. As an adopted child in an open adoption the line for me is even more blurred. I think my personality comes mostly from my nature while my values and maybe life goals come from my nurture. My parents I'm sure see a lot of them in me and I think they're happy that about that even though I'm not their biological child. My sister who is also in an open adoption has a personality a lot like her birthparents too but she saw them must less frequently than I. Because I have the added bonus of knowing our birthmother I think she has also nurtured me in many ways too. People are constantly telling me that I do things just like her. My birthmother also has birth-children that she has raised and it is funny when she tells me the similarities between all of us because even though she didn't raise me there are still some nature-y things that we all possess. I'm totally interested to see what happens with my own children whether they are biological or not because I just believe so much in nature over nurture right now but we'll see if that changes.

lissak
2 yearss ago

Like Maggie, I think that Sarah pretty much started life with a personality that was fairly laid back - it became more difficult as a toddler (and a special needs toddler at that), but she is STILL a fairly laid back, happy child. But I think that there is a nurture element to it. Both my husband and I are musical people. Sarah took an interest in musical instruments very early and we fostered that. She doesn't talk yet, but she does hum classical music & have good pitch for a 2 year old. And, in fact, she would play very little with anything that wasn't a musical instrument for a while there, she just had no interest. The same is true for books. We read to her until she would no longer sit on our laps... Then she would pick up the books herself and "read". Now, we can sit with her and tell her stories again... I would say nurture is very much based on the path her interest is taking at the time. I'm sure there will be many over time. Her nature, well, that's just inherently HER.

JaySaint
2 yearss ago

Any inclination I had to assume my husband and I created our first son's personality was dealt with by our second son. These guys came into our lives pretty much who they are. We nurture them to help them be the best versions of themselves possible.

Your Child's Personality: From Nature or Nurture?

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