Nature and Nurture

This week we talked about Nature and Nurture and we also watched a movie on child neglect. I was mind boggled when I saw the sizes of a neglected child's brain and one that wasn't neglected. I usually thought that the brain would just grow no matter what impacted us but I was proven wrong. The children that were neglected had a significantly smaller and less filled brain than those who weren't neglected.

It was really interesting to me how chewing food and the different kinds of food was learned. You'd think that we'd already know how to chew and understand that it's ok to swallow larger sizes of food. I use to think that when parents make the weird funny face when feeding their kids were just weird, it made me think that the baby's would actually be imitating what the parents are doing. It looks silly to an outsider but it's actually helpful. Also this way the baby is interacting with their parents in a loving way.

We're born with genes and certain traits, but the rest is all influenced from our environment. The minute we are taken out of our mothers womb we are being influenced by our surroundings. This made me think about crying. We would cry if we were hurt, but then we would have to know what feelings we feel would be right for crying. We wouldn't know if we have to cry or respond to a certain feeling if we weren't taught or if we never observed it.

This led to me think if were to touch something hot or cold, would we react involuntarily? Or do we act voluntarily because we've done it so much from early age?
Danielle didn't know how to respond exactly when she fell down and scraped her knee. Would we be like that as well if we weren't taught to cry in that situation?

I really liked this lesson because it really got me thinking about what kind of person we would turn out if we received little love or lots of love. There are a lot of what ifs. For those that were raised by animals, did they understand how to communicate with them? So curious.