Children's Genetics Affect How They're Parented: Nature and Nurture

Raising a child can be one of the hardest things you can do in your life. There's no rulebook, no directions; instead, you have to figure it out yourself with occasional advice from other parents. Now, though, scientists have discovered something new about raising a child. It turns out that children's genetics significantly affect how they are parented.

In order to better understand the process of parenting, the researchers examined twins. The scientists believed that if parents treat identical twins, who share 100 percent of their genes, more similarly than non-identical twins, who share about 50 percent of their genes, then the child's genes may be shaping parenting. In all, the researchers examined 32 studies of twins.

"There is a lot of pressure on parents these days to produce children that excel in everything, socially and academically," said Reut Avinun, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Since children are not born tabula rasa, I felt it was important to explore their side of the story, to show how they can affect their environment, and specifically parental behavior."

The researchers discovered that about 23 percent of differences in parenting is due to a child's genetics. In fact, the genotype-related differences are ways that the children evoke different responses from their environment. For example, a child who is antisocial is more likely to elicit harsh discipline from a parent than a more social child.

That's not all the scientists discovered, though. They found that children's shared environment, which includes socioeconomics and cultural exposure, accounts for about 43 percent of parenting differences. Non-shared environment, such as different schools and friends, accounts for 34 percent of differences. This seems to show that parenting does not impact children in the same family similarly.

"The discussion of 'nature vs. nurture' has transformed into 'nature and nurture,'" said Avinun in a news release. "We now understand that most characteristics are determined by the interplay between genetic and environmental influences."

The findings reveal a little bit more about how it's not just parenting that shape children. Instead, it's also the children that shape the parenting. This reveals a little bit more about how children are raised and how their personalities are shaped by both their environment and their genetics.

The findings are published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review.