The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris

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First of all, I want to say that I'm not a parent but I have a strong interest in human development. I recently read a book called The Nurture Assumption- see more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption

The synopsis is that peers have a greater influence on the life outcome than one's parents and the only reason kids resemble their parents at all is they share the same genes.

I disagree to a certain extent because I think parents are very important but I also think she has a point that peer influence has been UNDERRATED as a strong influence in personality development.

I think this has a very strong indication for Aspies for two reasons 1) Aspies are ostracized for NOT picking up on the same behavior as their peers and Harris claims that's its instinct for kids to copy those around them and if they don't it has very dire consequences which leads to 2) Many Aspies were and still are bullied much more than NT children on the average and that results in more problems in addition to the AS (such as depression, anxiety, and feelings of aggression which they may act on (even though Aspies are usually nonviolent to begin with).

I also think that Harris has a point because if I had the exact same genes and exact same family but were raised in a different time period or different culture, my life would have had a drastically different outcome despite the same "home environment".

I have one more reason to agree with Harris's point about the strength of peer influence in a child's personality development: In addition to having AS, I am the daughter of Indian immigrants and without failure, I've noticed that Indian children born and raised in the U.S. resemble their American peers much more than they resemble their own cousins in India regardless of how "traditional" the parents are.

One thing I disagree with Harris about; she claims that peers are the most influential from the get-go (once the child starts playing with other kids at about age 3). I disagree with this notion but think she has a point about older kids. IMO, parents have the the most influence up to age 5, peers and parents are equal between 5 and 10, and then after 10, it's mostly about peers.


Has anyone here read the Nurture Assumption and have any insights on how Harris's points effect Aspie kids?

Thanks
Allie Kat
http://www.myaspergerslifestory.com/

That's true but I also think young children really want to please adults more than older children do because of the stage they are in developmentally.

3-5 year olds think of adults as all-knowing perfect people with magical powers who can do anything. They are happy to have mommy or their preschool teacher hovering over them when they play with their friends.

On the other hand, many NT teenagers think of adults as in-your-face, nosy, and annoying and are content to be left to their own devices. They prefer time alone and if an adult must chaperone them, they often ask the adult to pretend they don't know them.

Kids from 5-9 still admire adults but may also realize that adults are not always perfect all the time and also have may sometimes request some privacy in a playdate- e.g. go up to their room to play instead of staying near mom or step out of the yard duty's earshot when they are playing with their friends and they don't want an adult to hear what they are saying.

Kids from 9-12 are in transition from this early elementary school innocence to the cynical world of adolescence.

To sum it up, I think it's more about the NT child's developmental stage and I think from my experience, I was about 1-2 stages behind in social development as I describe on here;' http://www.myaspergerslifestory.com/my_ ... rgers.html

Rich's book states that the consequences of not being accepted by peers are much more dire than most "experts" acknowledge and I think the AS kid's problem is that their social development lags so much behind their cognitive development and I am very much interested in further research on how the way the peers treat the Aspie child effects them. E.g. a study done on Aspie kids who went to schools with kinder and gentler peer groups than those who went to schools that were very cliquish.

My two cents again,

The Nature V Nurture debate is one I have always found very interesting. Before kids, I blamed my parents for their lack of appropriate nurture and blamrd them for all of my troubles. Accordingly, I studied human development and read everything I could get my hands on about parenting before I would bring children into the world. I figured that if they were only exposed to "appropriate" they would be fine.

Well, I have two beautiful sons, both parented the same way in the same environment. They are two completely different people. My younger one seems to have issues that mirror his grandfathers - who he has never met.

I would agree that peers shape chosen behaviors more so than family. Its the behavior that is inborn that I think I underestimated.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case even before age 3. There was a period around 1 year old when our daughter wanted to do everything her parents were doing - walk, use forks, chopsticks, bang on the computer keyboard, etc. As first born, she had little exposure to peers, so we were the only ones she could emulate. Our son is now in this period, but he doesn't do much that his parents do - instead, he wants to do everything his sister does. If they are operating on the same "programming", so to speak, they seem to prefer to be influenced by whoever is closest ahead of them in age.

Of course, that's a very small sample and it could be individual differences between our two kids.

I think peers have a very big influence on most NT children. But, as for kids on the spectrum, it has to be seen on an individual basis. My daughter does not respond to peer pressure in the slightest. I would say she's not influenced a great deal by any other people at all, her Dad and I are by far the biggest influence on her, but that's not huge either. I know she's just 5, but I can't imagine that side of her changing very much.

I had a conversation with another mum last night. We were talking about the teenage girls in our area and how they dress going to school. They are covered from head to toe in fake tan, loads of make-up and wear very revealing clothes. The other mum said she was worried about her daughter as she's already wanting to wear stylish clothes and have her hair straightened, etc and she's only 4. She's no different from most other girls I know of that age. I told her I was worried about my daughter, but for the exact opposite reason. She'll not feel compelled to wear those clothes, etc, just because others are doing it. As long as she's comfortable and there's a lot of blue in what she's wearing, she's happy. I'm glad that peer pressure isn't a big factor in her life, but I worry a lot about the bullying that might come as a result.

I've not read this book, however, I can tell you a few things about nature vs. nurture.

I had few friends growing up. Less it seems than most people here, and the other children generally left me alone, so I wasn't really bullied....kicked in the shin once or twice and yelled at on occasion or spoken too harshly, but not bullied. On the rare occasions that I did find myself in groups of people my age, I wasn't exactly easily influenced, and I've walked away from such groups on more than one occasion when I felt that the kids were acting stupid.

Throughout my childhood I had an interest in a particular subject which I thought about with such intensity that it would constitute a special interest. This was a particular scientific subject which I think I became interested in around the age of 7...for some reason it stood out to me among other scientific subjects.

When my grandmother died when I was a teenager, at her funeral I discovered that she had an intense interest in this subject as well and I found that very fascinating because I came by the interest in the subject on my own. It's not a common subject of interest for most people I don't recall my grandmother ever talking about it. She did talk a good bit about other scientific subjects and was always sending interesting scientific magazines and books and so on, but none on this particular subject.

My father and my brother also share unusual similar interests, and they tend to have the same mannerisms as well. One might attribute such a thing to their degree of relation socially, however due to certain circumstances, my father and brother were not close when my brother was growing up. My father's father also has these mannerisms though he and my father were not close growing up. Neither myself, nor my other siblings have such mannerisms though we were closer to our father and grandfather growing up.