Your Parenting Style Can Change The Shape Of Your Child’s Brain, Affecting The Connectivity And Function Of Brain Regions, As Well As Emotional Processing
A new study conducted by scientists in the United States and England has found that your parenting style can alter the shape of your children’s brains.
The way you parent can build cognitive and emotional foundations that last a lifetime, affecting learning, stress responses, and overall development.
The research team consisted of scientists from multiple institutions, including the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, Yale University, the University of the West of England, UK, Massachusetts General Hospital, and more.
They tested the effects of warm parenting, compared to harsher styles, on the brains and mental health of 173 young people between the ages of three and 21.
Harsher parenting styles were defined as responsive versus psychologically or physically aggressive.
The researchers discovered that the structure of the brains was different depending on how the individual was parented. It affected the connectivity and function of various brain regions, as well as the children’s emotional processing.
In early childhood, harsh parenting was linked to widespread differences in brain development, while harsh parenting in later childhood was linked to differences in more specific areas of the brain related to emotional regulation.
Those who received warmer parenting in middle childhood reported having lower levels of anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The team utilized data from the Future of Families and Child Well-being Study, which was collected between February 1998 and June 2021. It involved low-income families from Detroit, Chicago, and Toledo, Ohio.
VAKSMANV – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people – pictured above a mom smiles at her young daughter while sitting on a couch
The parents and some outside observers reported on the families’ parenting styles when the children were at the ages of three, five, and nine.
When the kids reached 15 years of age, their brains were scanned with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to learn more about the shape and structure of their brains. At 21-years-old, the young people reported their own symptoms of depression and anxiety.
After the team analyzed the data, they identified major differences in brain architecture associated with certain parenting styles.
During early childhood (age three), psychologically aggressive parenting was related to brain-wide segregation—meaning that some areas of the brain were designed for more specific functions—and small-worldness, where most brain regions were not directly connected but could communicate with just a few steps.
In later childhood (age nine), psychologically aggressive parenting corresponded with less connectivity between the prefrontal cortex, which is involved with decision-making, reasoning, and emotional regulation, and the amygdala, which helps process emotions, particularly fear and stress.
Better connectivity between these areas is associated with better management of emotions. During later childhood (age five), warm parenting was linked to more amygdala centrality and less prefrontal centrality. As a result, a child could be more emotionally driven or reactive.
The study was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
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