The behaviour of every child is certainly a factor of the genetic/biological inheritance and the environment/upbringing of that child. These two factors are the core influences in the behaviour of a child and it is important for parents and teachers to understand them, to study the uniqueness of every child in relation to these factors, and to adopt the best approach needed in raising each child.
While nature is pre-wired and internal, nuture is the environmental or external. A lot of debates and controversies have emanated form these two factors and the question of which factor play a dominant role in a child’s character has been the crux of the debates.
Whilst nativists attributed a child’s behaviour exclusively to nature, environmentalists believe that nurture plays a core role in a child’s behaviour. Both are extremists in approach and it’s difficult to accept either of these in isolation to the other.
Empirically, both are the two basic factors that determine a child’s behaviour and they are both at play at different levels from infancy to adulthood of every child. However, because children are the subject matter in this article, it is safe to say that genetic/natural influences play a stronger role because children are more susceptible to external changes than adults. An adult can easily manage a genetic disorder or bad natural behaviour than a child who is vulnerable and helpless in such situations.
The question and the controversy has been, which of these factors is more dominant than the other?
Undoubtedly, nature is a fixed factor and nurture is a variable factor. What this means is that nature has more controlling force than nurture. Nature is the genetic makeup up while nurture is the human makeup. Nurture could be altered by cultural, environmental and religious factors but nature remains innate. Nurture is a visible human factor while nature is an invisible genetic factors.
In summary, the nurtured attributes of a child reacts to the natural traits and these nurtured attributes are directly responsive to the natural traits.
This means that no matter how strong the influence of nurture is in a child, it cannot totally take the place of nature and nurture must fuse with nature in determining a child’s behaviour.
However, this article is not aimed at analysing which factor play the major role in a child’s behaviour. It rather seeks to elucidate the importance of nature as an overriding factor in a child’s behaviour. By being aware of these factors and their different levels of influences in a child’s behaviour, it equips parents and teachers with better understanding of who a child is, the reasons for her behaviour and the knowledge of how best to nurture her. It is pertinent to note that parents and teachers influence in a child are already nurtured influences directly at play with the natural traits of a child.
Thus, identifying a genetic factor that is correlated with an increased incidence of, say, anger or violent behaviour, will point to a way of reducing such behaviour. The level of concentration of biological behaviour in a child may be more than the environmental explanations of such behaviour. However, it is biological explanations that has caused more concern not only because of the history of eugenics but also because they may be seen as more fundamental, being there from birth, and as harder to change. An effect from nature could be seen as more dangerous than an effect on environment because nurture is responsive to change while nature is not. Thus the odd consequences of nurture would be less dangerous than that of nature, both for an individual and for the society.
In conclusion, parents and teachers should pay good attention to a child’s biologically traits in determining her intelligence, temperament and other negative and positive behaviours that she exhibits. How the parents of a child react, reason and respond to situations is a good clue to how his/her child behaves.
In igbo tradition and culture, before marriage is contracted between families, they ask for the genetic traits (iju ase) of each families because they believe that it is more fundamental in determining the behaviour of the couple. Blood is thicker than water in this context means that biological behaviours are stronger than environmental behaviour. One is fixed and constant while the other is variable and changes. Parents, teachers and care givers must understand this concept to know the best technique to apply in raising each child.
Amara Ann Unachukwu
