Success Is In Hands Of Parents

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Highly reactive children is given the right kind of supportive environment can perform very well in life.

On the other hand it is also known that kids who are especially reactive to stress are more vulnerable to adversity and have more behavior and health problems than their peers.

But a study offers a new side to the long-held belief.

"Parents and teachers may find that sensitive children, are more challenging to raise and care for, but they can bloom into individuals of exceptional ability and strength when reared in a supportive, nurturing, and encouraging environment," according to Jelena Obradoviæ, an assistant professor in the School of Education at Stanford University.

This conclusion was reached after, researchers looked at 338 kindergardeners, as well as their teachers and families, to determine how family adversity and biological reactivity contribute to healthy development.

They found that children with stronger biological reactions to a series of mildly stressful tasks were more affected by their family contexts, both bad and good. This means that highly reactive children were more likely to have developmental problems when growing up in adverse, stressful family settings.

But contrary to expectation, such children were also more likely to be successful when they were raised in caring, low-stress families because of their sensitivities to the supportive and nurturing qualities of such environments.

"The study tells us that when children are highly susceptible to stress, it's not always bad news, but rather should be considered in terms of the type of environment they live in," concludes Obradoviæ.