Maternal Love Helps Children To Cope With Stress

By Sruthi Appu

Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 15:12

Mother's love, the most important element in moulding a child to a better human being. This love is one of its kind. As the time passes, although the child go through different kind of people and experiences, the one thing that builds the basic goodness and life values in him or her is mother's love.

Recently a research has found out that it's the mother's affection that help a child to handle life's stresses in a better way. The research say that a child who has been nurtured with so much of affection will have the ability to face the tensions in an easy way.

This study was carried on people who are a part of US Providence Rhode Island birth cohort of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project. It was carried out on 482 people.

During routine developmental assessment a psychologist rated the kinds and mother's interaction, when the kid was 8 months old. Every test had the psychologist assessing on how well the mother has got along with her kid's development as well as the way she has responded to her kid's performance.

The test also involved assessing mothers' affection towards their child on a scale ranging from negative to extravagant. The assessment was divided into three, such as : low level of maternal affection, normal level of maternal affection and high level of maternal affection.

One out of ten interactions portrayed low level of maternal affection. While 85 percent fell under normal and 6 percent in high level of maternal affection.

While comparing the levels of affection shown by mothers to their kids, it showed that mothers who were most affectionate towards their child were the ones who handled stress easily, in comparison with those who displayed low or normal level of affection.

Most affectionate mothers' kids showed a more than 7 point difference in anxiety scores. Also there was 3 point difference in hostility scores. When the general distress level was taken into consideration it showed a 5 points difference.

Apart from helping child to handle stress in a better way, most affectionate mothers also help their child to have an effective social life and adjusting skills. Hence it has been proved that as the mother's affection increases the child learn to cope with stress.