Stress Gene Found in Infants (we kid you not)

Stress Week installment 4 of 4
If Discovery Channel presents Shark Week for your entertainment each summer, then we at FamilyThinking.com can present "Stress Week" so that you enjoy a stress-free and fun-filled summer.

Everyone gets stressed, even babies, according to a recent Newswise release. Now, it appears how infants respond to stress is linked to if they have a particular form of a certain gene, according to a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Just as significantly, researchers say they have also found that good parenting – as early as within the first year of a child’s life – can counter the effect the gene has in babies who initially do not respond well to stressful situations.

“Infancy is an important time for developing behavioral and biological processes,” said the study’s lead author, Cathi Propper, Ph.D., research scientist at UNC’s Center for Developmental Science. “Although these processes will continue to change over time, parenting can have important positive effects even when children have inherited a genetic vulnerability to problematic behaviors.”

Propper said the study found both genes and parenting were important to the development of how infants’ brains help regulate cardiac responses to stress.
Propper said the findings suggest that although genes play a role in the development of physiological responses to stress, environmental experiences – such as mothers’ sensitive care-giving behavior – can have a strong influence, enough to change the effect that genes have on physiology very early in life.

“Our findings provide further support for the notion that the development of complex behavioral and physiological responses is not the result of nature or nurture, but rather a combination of the two,” Propper said.

We hope you have enjoyed Stress Week here at FamilyThinking.com and have a wonderful summer!

Making Kidergarten Less Stressful (huh?)

Stress Week installment 3 of 4
If Discovery Channel presents Shark Week for your entertainment each summer, then we at FamilyThinking.com can present "Stress Week" so that you enjoy a stress-free and fun-filled summer.

Peggy Orenstein recently lamented (in the New York Times magazine) that in the old days, kindergarten was a place to play and not even consider something as ridiculous as homework. She criticizes the multiple choice tests and early-literacy measures that are administered to millions of very young children.

“According to Crisis in the Kindergarten, a report released by the Alliance for Childhood, all that testing is wasted: it neither predicts nor improves young children’s educational outcomes. More disturbing, along with other academic demands, like assigning homework to 5-year-olds, it is crowding out the one thing that truly is vital to their future success: play.”

Orenstein emphasizes, “Play — especially the let’s-pretend, dramatic sort — is how kids develop higher-level thinking, hone their language and social skills, cultivate empathy. It also reduces stress, and that’s a word that should not have to be used in the same sentence as “kindergartner” in the first place.”

And have you heard the acronym KGOY? — Kids Getting Older Younger — it is the marketers’ explanation for why 3-year-olds now play with toys that were initially intended for middle-schoolers.

Seriously folks, would you want your kindergartner doing homework each night?

Upcoming - the Final installment for Stress Week:
Post 4: Stress Gene Found in Infants (we kid you not)

Scenes of Real Nature Reduce Stress more than High-Def Plasma Can

Stress Week installment 2 of 4
If Discovery Channel presents Shark Week for your entertainment each summer, then we at FamilyThinking.com can present "Stress Week" so that you enjoy a stress-free and fun-filled summer.

Technology can help unlock the secrets of DNA but can it substitute for nature? Apparently not, according to a new study that measured individuals’ heart recovery rate from minor stress when exposed to a natural scene through a window, the same scene shown on a high-definition plasma screen, or a blank wall. The research done at the University of Washington, showed that when people spent more time looking at the natural scene their heart rates tended to decrease more.

“Technology is good and it can help our lives, but let’s not be fooled into thinking we can live without nature,” said Peter Kahn, a UW associate professor of psychology who led the research team.

And what the heck is environmental generational amnesia?
Click here to read the entire Newswise release.

Coming attractions for Stress Week:
Post 3: Making Kindergarten Less Stressful (huh?)
Post 4: Stress Gene Found in Infants (we kid you not)

Money Stress Means Marriage Stress

Stress Week Installment 1 of 4.
If Discovery Channel presents Shark Week for your entertainment each summer, then we at FamilyThinking.com can present "Stress Week" so that you enjoy a stress-free and fun-filled summer.

Mary Jo Rapini, a psychotherapist in Houston suggests, Stress and anxiety can erode trust between partners." (True)
She adds, "The key to getting through this crisis is to realize that the financial problems are not going away overnight and to communicate your fears." (Also true)

But you have to read what she says in the paragraph that starts, "Couples need to remember that money is symbolic."
My response to Mary Jo: my electric bill, phone bill, car and house notes, are not at all symbolic....they are, in fact, quite concrete.

Coming attractions for Stress Week:
Post 2: Scenes of Nature Reduce Stress (prn)
Post 3: Making Kindergarten Less Stressful (huh?)
Post 4: Stress Gene Found in Infants (we kid you not)

Keri's Decision to Remain Childfree by Dr. Alan Singer

Keri objected to my column on the consequences of delayed childbearing. This column was published in the Home News Tribune on May 29, 2009. Be sure to take note of the strangest interview question I ever asked....in the next to last paragraph. I viewed our correspondence as a valuable experience since I don't get many opportunities to dialogue with articulate, child-free individuals. I don't know about you, but I have not and would not try to convince anyone to have a child. Doesn't it need to be an intrinsic desire?


Keri wrote to me last year with objections to my column on the consequences of delayed childbearing. Here's a taste of her passion on this topic: "If my mother tells me one more time to hurry up and give her grandbabies, I will get a voluntary hysterectomy and send her my uterus in a jar, so she can control it from the comfort of her own home.''

Keri lives in Hawaii and is a 10-year military veteran working as a defense consultant. She rejects the sacred cow of American natal worship and explains, "I have no desire to have children, and deeply resent a patriarchal-societal norm that says I need to have one.''

I viewed our correspondence as an opportunity since I don't get many opportunities to dialogue with articulate, child-free individuals. Keri accurately describes the disadvantages of children and I have incorporated her perspective into discussions with couples who are considering having children: "I dislike children; the noise, chaos, mess, and clingy neediness. With few exceptions, a child is all of these 24/7. It's the nature of children as they figure out the world.'' I feel it's important for couples to understand this reality and not live in a dream world of adorable children with perfect sleep schedules.

What upset Keri the most? She was raised in a religious household where she was told that her only worth as a female was as a wife and mother. As an athletic youth, she challenged boys and pushed herself past her limits. "To me,'' Keri added, "wife and mother are synonymous with stagnation.''

She is annoyed by the sexist notion that women are not fulfilled unless they become mothers. ""As a feminist, I hold that every woman has the choice to strive to whatever she desires, whether that means being a mother or not. Men are not criticized for not being real men if they don't have children, or called selfish.'' As a father, I wouldn't want my daughters believing that women can only be fulfilled if they become mothers.

Keri is also bothered by the idea that a parent always knows what is best for their adult child. "If I lived the life my mother says is healthiest, I'd still be married to my EX and miserable. She's my mother, but that doesn't make her insightful or correct.'' And Keri suggests that parents send this message to an adult child: "I trust that you are capable of thinking for yourself. Here is some information to help you reach the best decision for YOU.''

Keri had an insightful response to (admittedly) the strangest interview question I ever asked: I know you don't want a child, but if you had one, what kind of mother do you think you'd be? "I'd like to think I would be competent at raising a healthy, intelligent, well-adjusted adult. I swore to care for my godchildren if anything happened to their parents. I'd do my best to give them a stable, loving home, in which they were listened to and valued.''

Our correspondence educated me, especially Keri's conclusion: ""Choosing to not have children is merely exchanging one set of life complications for another. It neither destines one for a carefree life with lots of disposable income, nor does it doom one to a loveless life of regret and empty arms. In the end, life is what we each make of it. I've chosen a life without children because I'd rather deal with those complications instead of the ones that come with the kids.''

Be Counted columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a marriage therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column via his website www.FamilyThinking.com