<p>I believe that temperament (i.e. introvert/extrovert; risk-taking vs. security oriented) and ability (i.e. IQ; speed and coordination, etc.) are largely genetic, but tastes, habits and beliefs are down to environment. My father, who is a retired Mayo Clinic doctor, believes that much of a person’s health and life expectancy is also down to lucky genes.</p>
<p>Another vote for nature over nurture. We have three adopted children an all are very different. I thought we were getting little blank slates. Boy was I wrong! That’s not all bad, as we’ve learned a lot from them, too. I hope that they will get to know some members of their biological families. I could see where they would gain great understanding about themselves.</p>
<p>i have 2 natural sons and one adopted son…all raised the same, …i have to go with genetics! adopted son is quite difficult and his biological parents had/have major social problems, this son displays some of this even though he was never raised by them, and has had no contact. we adopted him at 24hrs old.</p>
<p>I think parent behavior is inborn.
That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.</p>
<p>I think how kids turn out is more impacted by environment than genetics. However, I think that parental influence matters less than peer influence in many cases.</p>
<p>I think temperament is inborn, and so many of our behaviors and reactions to our environment are influenced by our temperament.
I’ll never forget the first few days in the hospital with my firstborn. I kept her in my room during the day and night, except during “visiting hours” when the hospital policy was for all babies to be in the nursery. The nurses would come in and “wrap” my baby girl tightly in a blanket and put her in a hospital bassinet. Off she would go to be on display.<br>
Each day this happened, Dd started to struggle to get the blanket off of her while in the nursery window. She’s thrash and wiggle, and pretty soon the blanket was off.
Then she’d wail!
All of the other babies lay still, either asleep or awake, but still. Not my kid.
Struggle, struggle, wail. For four days straight. (I had a C-section and they kept you in the hospital longer 25 years ago.
So was that something she was taught? You could say she was reacting to her environment, but her singular reaction to being bundled tightly in a blanket was her own,
a response to a sensitivity she was born with.<br>
Or you could say, like her brother does, that she was born a brat. 
In any case, I had an uneasy feeling right then that this parenting business wasn’t going to be so easy. Kids come programmed already. The parents job is to help them make the most with what they have been given, for better or worse, from birth. But no kid comes as a blank slate, and as you see your kids develop as individuals and witness how their temperaments and inborn personalities unfold, it becomes very clear that the environment they are brought up in may have a bit of influence, but it’s not the major
determining factor in how they respond to the events in their lives.</p>
<p>My friend has identical twin girls and their personalities are like night and day.</p>
<p>I believe potential is defined by genetics and environment has a lot to do with reaching potential</p>
<p>I think that the percentage affected by environment versus genetics is dependent upon the environment and the genetics!!</p>
<p>For the record, Nanny 911 hand picks their families. I have had at least one family “fired” by Nanny 911, mid taping.</p>
<p>I’ve had some involvement in a major long-term twin study at a major university. The psychologists running the study are focused on anti-social, aggressive behaviors. They compare fraternal and identical twins. The results show that genetics is much more important than environment.</p>
<p>
I agree with both of these statements.</p>
<p>I also think there is a 3rd component - the 9 months in uterus environment (not just what crosses the placenta). I think the mothers physical and emotional state affects the fetus.</p>
<p>Having fraternal twins, I vote for genetics being the stronger factor. I used to be a strong proponent of environment, tabula rasa, Skinner, and all that. Then I saw two infants reacting to the world so differently and I knew it couldn’t be environmental.</p>
<p>That being said, different upbringings will result in different behaviors too. Parents have a great say in making sure their children are polite, civil, ready for school, etc. They just can’t change a child’s shyness very much.</p>
<p>"They just can’t change a child’s shyness very much. "</p>
<p>Actually, shyness is one of the traits that is most amenable to parental intervention. Research has indicated that shy kids with parents who “help” the shy child by speaking up for him/her and sheltering their child from having to socially interact end up remaining shy.</p>
<p>Shy kids whose parents teach them social skills and guide them through social interactions are likely to become much more comfortable in social situations.</p>
<p>This was among the findings in the fascinating, but very dry and dense, book, "The Relationship Code: “Using a clear expressive style, David Reiss and his coinvestigators identify specific mechanisms that link genetic factors and the social environment in psychological development. They propose a striking hypothesis: family relationships are crucial to the expression of genetic influences on a broad array of complex behaviors in adolescents. Moreover, this role of family relationships may be very specific: some genetic factors are linked to mother-child relationships, others to father-child relations, some to relationship warmth, while others are linked to relationship conflict or control. The specificity of these links suggests that family relationships may constitute a code for translating genetic influences into the ontogeny of behaviors, a code every bit as important for behavior as DNA-RNA.”</p>
<p>[Relationship</a> Code, Adolescent Lives Series, Jenae Neiderhiser, Book - Barnes & Noble](<a href=“http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Relationship-Code/Jenae-Neiderhiser/e/9780674011267]Relationship”>http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Relationship-Code/Jenae-Neiderhiser/e/9780674011267)</p>
<p>I think there is instances of both. My three are like night, day, and total eclipse of the sun. This was evident from infancy, however not consistent. One was a very easy baby and went on to be a handful in high school. One was in a foul mood the entire first year…I mean really bad! He’s rarely given us grief since then. The other has been easy going.
Having said this, I do believe children are a product of their environment given extreme circumstances. If a parent is absent, the children are in foster care and moved often, they may have difficulty forming attachments later in life. It is hard to know if that would have been the case if they had a stable, reliable parent to count on. Some students seem to rise above and excel even in the most difficult of environments, while their peers do not.</p>
<p>I think its all, and birth order. I also think the way you parent a kids personality matters. I looked to see what I had and then worked with it. tried to accept who they were and what they wanted to do, vs the other way around. perhaps my kids would think otherwise, but we shall see.</p>
<p>One of my profs in grad school told H & I where our oldest was born that parents have more influence over their kids than they will ever know, but they also have no control over when that occurs or what that influence is.</p>