Behaviors are both learned and inherited. However, genetics play a lesser role in behavioral patterns when compared to the environment and parental guidance.
The fact remains patenting is a full-time job because the faith of society greatly hangs on it. Since time immemorial there has been this argument that children will become whatever they decide to be as adults, and parents have little or no influence in that regard.
You see, such an argument has never made sense to me because I am a mother who has also been a child and now an adult. I have also been exposed enough to see that every individual carries in them traces from home. Basically, the home is the first point of contact, and a child is born mindless.
At that first stage of growth, whatever trait a child exhibits comes from their environment or whatever they've been exposed to. It's now left for the parents, the earthly guardians, to watch closely and guide.
I saw a post of a lady who shared her experience with her 18-month-old daughter. According to this self-proclaimed feminist, her daughter is growing up to be quite stubborn, and she loves it.
She told us her daughter stands up against bullies such that if you take her toy or whatever she's holding, she'll drag it back, and also if you talk to her in ways she doesn't like, she talks back.
Her daughter is just 18 months old, and given the environment they are in (Canada), I do not doubt the speedy growth process because children in developed countries tend to develop faster, as they have all the available resources in that regard.
Moving on, while sharing her experience with her daughter, the lady said something concerning. She said she looked up child development on ChatGPT, and she saw that her child is at a stage of character formulation, and she could only but guide her to pick up the best of characters.
Well, this lady said she's happy her daughter is growing up feisty, as that's how she is, and as for the daughter talking back at anyone, she won't correct it because to her that's her daughter being confident and standing up for herself.
She went further to say as the daughter gets older, she would register her in self-defense classes. Now this lady has already programmed her child, which of course has every tendency to spiral out of control.
Basically no individual likes being told what to do, but then growing up with respect and the sense of discernment imbibed in us, we tend to listen, especially when the person speaking to us is older.
But given what this lady said about her daughter and the actions she's taking, I doubt the little one would grow up knowing when to draw the line between being rude and confident.
I also had a friend, a male friend who never had anything good to say about his father. According to him, the father treated his mom so badly, so much so that she died in the process.
Notably, while I was friends with this guy, he was really sweet and acted in the most caring of ways towards me. He was concerned, and his EQ seemed to be top-notch. But then we started dating, and gradually, I saw him exhibit the tendencies of his father that he condemned so much. I saw him become distant and withdrawn. I saw him become verbally abusive and try to break me.
I didn't let his ill treatment linger before I called it quits. Like I said earlier in this write-up, we all carry with us traces of the home, and as usual, what we learn or are exposed to in our early stage of development is basically what lingers into our adult life, and I still stand by my submission that if parents do their job well, it's hard for a child to deviate to the opposite of what they've been imbibed in.