Child’s first 3 years can determine adult aggression

THE odds of a toddler maturing into an aggressive adult or violent criminal is determined largely before he or she reaches the age of three, according to experts speaking at the country’s first infant mental health forum.

This is borne out by the findings of a 20-year study carried out in New Zealand — details of which were the presented at the forum in Dublin yesterday by George Hosking, chief executive of Wave Trust UK, an agency dedicated to reducing the root causes of violence.

For the study, nurses observed the behaviour of 1,000 children aged three, over a 90-minute period. They were asked to classify children as “at risk” or “normal” in terms of their behaviour.

The study showed that boy toddlers who were observed to be “at risk” by their restless, aggressive or negative behaviour, were nearly five times more likely at age 21 to have abused their partners and two-and-a-half times more likely to have a criminal conviction.

While fewer of the “at risk” girls were involved in antisocial behaviour, of those who were, 30% had teenage pregnancies and 43% were in violent or abusive relationships by the time they were 21.

Mr Hosking, an expert in the prevention of crime and violence, said the study showed the importance of investment by policy makers in the early years of life.

He said: “95% of the development of the human brain occurs between the age of 0-3. At age three, the brain makes twice as many connections as the adult brain. There are a million new connections every second, so the impact of how we interact with a child in its first three years is phenomenal.”

He said many parents “parent the way they were parented themselves, because that’s the natural thing to do”, but the danger is if their own experience was poor, they will repeat the same mistakes themselves.

He said there were some excellent school programmes geared at improved parenting, such as Roots of Empathy, where a mother and baby come into the classroom and, over a nine-month period, the children are exposed to positive parenting.

This meant that even if their own experience was negative, they could see the rewards of positive nurturing and could learn to break the cycle.

Catherine Maguire, a senior clinical psychologist and infant mental health specialist involved in an infant mental health programme in north Cork, said they would love to see Roots of Empathy introduced to Irish classrooms.

Ms Maguire said the signs of poor emotional and social development were “subtle” in infants.

“A baby may have an averted gaze or very flat facial expressions and have poor eating and sleeping patterns.”

The most important thing for an infant’s social and emotional development was positive interaction between child and parent she said.