̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - parent

Early foster care gave poor women power, 17th-century records reveal

ta385 — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 05:45:00 +0000

A rare collection of 300-year-old petitions gives voice to the forgotten women who cared for England’s most vulnerable children while battling their local authorities.

Hunter-gatherer childhoods may offer clues to improving education and wellbeing

ta385 — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 17:30:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��benefits of skin-to-skin contact for both parents and infants are already recognised, but other behaviours common in hunter-gatherer societies may also benefit families in economically developed countries, a Cambridge researcher suggests.

Parents and children may, for instance, benefit from a larger network of people being involved in care-giving, as seen in hunter-gatherer societies. Increasing staff-to-child ratios in nurseries to bring them closer to highly attentive hunter-gatherer ratios could support learning and wellbeing. And more peer-to-peer, active and mixed-age learning, as seen in hunter-gatherer communities, may help school children in developed countries.

Published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the study by Dr Nikhil Chaudhary, an evolutionary anthropologist in Cambridge's Department of Archaeology, and Dr Annie Swanepoel, a child psychiatrist, calls for new research into child mental health in hunter-gatherer societies. They explore the possibility that some common aspects of hunter-gatherer childhoods could help families in economically developed countries. Eventually, hunter-gatherer behaviours could inform ‘experimental intervention trials’ in homes, schools and nurseries.

̽��ֱ��authors acknowledge that children living in hunter-gatherer societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries. They also stress that hunter-gatherer children invariably face many difficulties that are not experienced in developed countries and, therefore, caution that these childhoods should not be idealised.

Drawing on his own observations of the BaYaka people in Congo and the extensive research of anthropologists studying other hunter-gatherer societies, Dr Chaudhary highlights major differences in the ways in which hunter-gatherer children are cared for compared to their peers in developed countries. He stresses that “contemporary hunter-gatherers must not be thought of as ‘living fossils’, and while their ways of life may offer some clues about our prehistory, they are still very much modern populations each with a unique cultural and demographic history”.

Physical contact and attentiveness

Despite increasing uptake of baby carriers and baby massage in developed countries, levels of physical contact with infants remain far higher in hunter-gatherer societies. In Botswana, for instance, 10-20 week old !Kung infants are in physical contact with someone for around 90% of daylight hours, and almost 100% of crying bouts are responded to, almost always with comforting or nursing – scolding is extremely rare.

̽��ֱ��study points out that this exceptionally attentive childcare is made possible because of the major role played by non-parental caregivers, or ‘alloparents’, which is far rarer in developed countries.

Non-parental caregivers

In many hunter-gatherer societies, alloparents provide almost half of a child’s care. A previous study found that in the DRC, Efe infants have 14 alloparents a day by the time they are 18 weeks old, and are passed between caregivers eight times an hour.

Dr Chaudhary said: “Parents now have much less childcare support from their familial and social networks than would likely have been the case during most of our evolutionary history. Such differences seem likely to create the kind of evolutionary mismatches that could be harmful to both caregivers and children.”

“ ̽��ֱ��availability of other caregivers can reduce the negative impacts of stress within the nuclear family, and the risk of maternal depression, which has knock-on effects for child wellbeing and cognitive development.”

̽��ֱ��study emphasises that alloparenting is a core human adaptation, contradicting ‘intensive mothering’ narratives which emphasise that mothers should use their maternal instincts to manage childcare alone. Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel write that ‘such narratives can lead to maternal exhaustion and have dangerous consequences’.

Care-giving ratios

̽��ֱ��study points out that communal living in hunter-gatherer societies results in a very high ratio of available caregivers to infants/toddlers, which can even exceed 10:1.

This contrasts starkly with the nuclear family unit, and even more so with nursery settings, in developed countries. According to the UK’s Department of Education regulations, nurseries require ratios of 1 carer to 3 children aged under 2 years, or 1 carer to 4 children aged 2-3.

Dr Chaudhary said: “Almost all day, hunter-gatherer infants and toddlers have a capable caregiver within a couple of metres of them. From the infant’s perspective, that proximity and responsiveness, is very different from what is experienced in many nursery settings in the UK.”

“If that ratio is stretched even thinner, we need to consider the possibility that this could have impacts on children's wellbeing.”

Children providing care and mixed-age active learning

In hunter-gatherer societies, children play a significantly bigger role in providing care to infants and toddlers than is the case in developed countries. In some communities they begin providing some childcare from the age of four and are capable of sensitive caregiving; and it is common to see older, but still pre-adolescent children looking after infants.

By contrast, the NSPCC in the UK recommends that when leaving pre-adolescent children at home, babysitters should be in their late teens at least.

Dr Chaudhary said: “In developed countries, children are busy with schooling and may have less opportunity to develop caregiving competence. However, we should at least explore the possibility that older siblings could play a greater role in supporting their parents, which might also enhance their own social development.”

̽��ֱ��study also points out that instructive teaching is rare in hunter-gatherer societies and that infants primarily learn via observation and imitation. From around the age of two, hunter-gatherer children spend large portions of the day in mixed-age (2-16) ‘playgroups’ without adult supervision. There, they learn from one another, acquiring skills and knowledge collaboratively via highly active play practice and exploration.

Learning and play are two sides of the same coin, which contrasts with the lesson-time / play-time dichotomy of schooling in the UK and other developed countries.

Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel note that “Classroom schooling is often at odds with the modes of learning typical of human evolutionary history.” ̽��ֱ��study acknowledges that children living in hunter-gatherer societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries:

“Foraging skills are very different to those required to make a living in market-economies, and classroom teaching is certainly necessary to learn the latter. But children may possess certain psychological learning adaptations that can be practically harnessed in some aspects of their schooling. When peer and active learning can be incorporated, they have been shown to improve motivation and performance, and reduce stress.” ̽��ֱ��authors also highlight that physical activity interventions have been shown to aid performance among students diagnosed with ADHD.

Further research

̽��ֱ��study calls for more research into children’s mental health in hunter-gatherer societies to test whether the hypothesised evolutionary mismatches actually exist. If they do, such insights could then be used to direct experimental intervention trials in developed countries.

Working with a team from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel hope that greater collaboration between evolutionary anthropologists and child psychiatrists/psychologists can help to advance our understanding of the conditions that children need to thrive.

Reference

N Chaudhary and A Swanepoel, ‘What Can We Learn from Hunter-Gatherers about Children’s Mental Health? An Evolutionary Perspective’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2023). DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.13773

Hunter-gatherers can help us understand the conditions that children may be psychologically adapted to because we lived as hunter-gatherers for 95% of our evolutionary history. Paying greater attention to hunter-gatherer childhoods may help economically developed countries improve education and wellbeing.

Parents now have much less childcare support from their familial and social networks than would likely have been the case during most of our evolutionary history

Nikhil Chaudhary

Image courtesy of Nikhil Chaudhary

BaYaka camp in Congo. Image courtesy of Nikhil Chaudhary

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Family court decisions distorted by misuse of key research, say experts

cjb250 — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:29:23 +0000

Seventy experts from across the globe argue that widespread misunderstandings around attachment research have hampered its accurate implementation, with potentially negative consequences for decisions in family courts.

In response, they have published an international consensus statement in Attachment & Human Development that aims “to counter misinformation and help steer family court applications of attachment theory in a supportive, evidence-based direction on matters related to child protection and custody decisions”.

In the statement, the group sets out three principles from attachment research which they say should guide decision-making: the child’s need for familiar, non-abusive caregivers; the value of continuity of good-enough care; and the benefits of networks of familiar relationships.

Attachment research investigates the strong affectional bonds – ‘attachments’ – that individuals form to others in order to achieve comfort and protection. Children are born with a predisposition to develop these bonds with ‘attachment figures’ in their lives. This often includes the child’s parents, but many children develop attachment relationships with additional caregivers, such as grandparents. Children wish to turn to their attachment figures when upset.

̽��ֱ��quality of an attachment relationship – how readily a child will turn to their caregiver and accept comfort – is indicated by behaviour suggestive of whether or not they expect their attachment figures to respond sensitively to their signals in times of need. Indeed, the most important predictor of children’s attachment quality is caregiver ‘sensitivity’: the ability to perceive, interpret and respond in a timely manner and appropriately to children’s signals.

Attachment research is applied in many settings, including in family court decision-making regarding child custody and child protection. Court practice needs to follow the best interests of the child, but this can be difficult to determine. There is an increasing focus on the interactions and relationships between children and their caregivers, which in turn has led to interest in using attachment theory and measures to help guide decision-making.

Dr Robbie Duschinsky from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��decisions reached by family courts can have a major impact on a child’s life, but as we’ve seen, these decisions may be based on incorrect understanding and assumptions. By outlining potential issues and presenting principles to guide the decision-making process, we hope to better inform and hence empower courts to act in a child’s best interests.”

One example is the mistaken assumption that attachment quality equals relationship quality, and that it is possible to judge attachment quality by looking at isolated behaviours. In fact, there are many other important aspects of child-caregiver relationships, such as play, supervision and teaching, and specific behaviours such as crying can depend on largely constitutional factors such as temperament.

There are also misunderstandings regarding the importance of developing attachment to one particular caregiver rather than to more than one, with the theory misinterpreted as placing an emphasis on one ‘psychological parent’, typically the mother. In this line of reasoning, it is often assumed that an attachment relationship with one person is at the expense of other attachment relationships, and that best-interest decisions should maximise the likelihood of secure attachment with one primary caregiver. However, children can develop and maintain secure attachment relationships to multiple caregivers simultaneously, and a network of attachment relationships may well constitute a protective factor in child development.

In other cases, attachment theory has been held to categorically prescribe joint physical custody, with equal time allocation regardless of child age, including overnights and transitions between family homes every day or every other day. Yet, there is a notable scarcity of empirical research on attachment in relation to child custody, time allocation, and overnight arrangements.

Dr Tommie Forslund from Stockholm ̽��ֱ�� said: “Misunderstandings can have important consequences for children and their caregivers. In some cases, they can lead to an ill-informed dismissal of the relevance of attachment by court professionals or, conversely, to the overuse of attachment ideas and measures, with practice unmoored from evidence.

“We need to make sure that courts are aware of the limits of current understanding as well as the nuances of attachment theory and research before seeking to apply it to their decision-making.”

̽��ֱ��researchers have also advised caution in using assessments of attachment quality in the family courts.

Professor Pehr Granqvist from Stockholm ̽��ֱ�� added: “Courts need to bear in mind that while assessments of attachment quality may be suitable for helping target supportive interventions, there are different opinions even among those of us who specialise in attachment research regarding the potential usefulness of these assessments when it comes to decision-making regarding child protection.

“Validated in group-level research, attachment measures have insufficient precision for individual level prediction. If used at all, assessments of attachment quality should never be used in isolation but only as part of a larger assessment battery that assigns more weight to direct assessments of caregiving behaviour. Importantly, attachment assessments must only be used by formally trained observers who follow standardised protocols.”

̽��ֱ��experts propose three fundamental principles, based on more than half a century of research, which they argue can be used as a basis for court practitioners:

̽��ֱ��need for familiar, non-abusive caregivers – For child protection practice, for example, this implies that all non-abusive and non-neglecting family-based care is likely to be better than institutional care.
̽��ֱ��value of continuity of good-enough care – ‘Good-enough’ care signifies an adequate level of meeting the child’s needs over time. ̽��ֱ��group urges family courts to examine and support caregivers’ abilities to provide ‘good-enough’ caregiving, rather than placing children in out-of-home custody with the hope of ‘optimal’ care. Major separations from caregivers constitute risk factors in child development that should be prevented whenever possible.
̽��ֱ��benefits of networks of attachment relationships – Decision-making concerning child custody should assign weight to supporting children’s ability to develop and maintain attachment relationships with both their caregivers, except when there is threat to the child’s welfare and safety or one of the parents wants to ‘opt out’.

Reference
Attachment Goes to Court: Child Protection and Custody Issues. Attachment & Human Development; 11 Jan 2021; DOI: 10.1080/14616734.2020.1840762

Family courts are misunderstanding and misusing research around how children form close relationships with their caregivers, say an international group of experts.

̽��ֱ��decisions reached by family courts can have a major impact on a child’s life, but as we’ve seen, these decisions may be based on incorrect understanding and assumptions

Robbie Duschinsky

rauschenberger

Mother and child at sunset

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Prenatal parental stress linked to behaviour problems in toddlers

ta385 — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 23:18:31 +0000

̽��ֱ��team of researchers – from the Universities of Cambridge, Birmingham, New York and Leiden – say their findings highlight a pressing need for greater support for couples before, during and after pregnancy to improve outcomes for children. ̽��ֱ��study is the first to examine the influence of both mothers’ and fathers’ wellbeing before and after birth on children’s adjustment at 14 and 24 months of age.

Lead author, Professor Claire Hughes from Cambridge’s Centre for Family Research, said: “For too long, the experiences of first-time dads has either been side-lined or treated in isolation from that of mums. This needs to change because difficulties in children’s early relationships with both mothers and fathers can have long-term effects.

“We have already shared our findings with the NCT (National Childbirth Trust) and we encourage the NHS and other organisations to reconsider the support they offer.”

̽��ֱ��study, published today in Development & Psychopathology, drew on the experiences of 438 first-time expectant mothers and fathers who were followed up at 4, 14 and 24 months after birth. These parents were recruited in the East of England, New York State (USA) and the Netherlands.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that the prenatal wellbeing of first-time mothers had a direct impact on the behaviour of their children by the time they were two years old. Mothers who suffered from stress and anxiety in the prenatal period were more likely to see their child display behavioural problems such as temper tantrums, restlessness and spitefulness.

̽��ֱ��researchers also found that two-year-olds were more likely to exhibit emotional problems – including being worried, unhappy and tearful; scaring easily; or being clingy in new situations – if their parents had been having early postnatal relationship problems. These ranged from a general lack of happiness in the relationship to rows and other kinds of conflict.

Hughes says: “Our findings highlight the need for earlier and more effective support for couples to prepare them better for the transition to parenthood.”

Links between child outcomes and parental wellbeing have been shown in other studies, but this is the first to involve couples, track parental wellbeing in both parents over an extended period of time, and focus on child behaviour in the first two years of life. While there is growing evidence for the importance of mental health support for expectant and new mothers, this study highlights the need to extend this support to expectant fathers and to go beyond individual well-being to consider the quality of new mothers’ and fathers’ couple relationships.

̽��ֱ��researchers acknowledge that genetic factors are likely to play a role but they accounted for parents’ mental health difficulties prior to their first pregnancy and after their child’s birth. Co-author Dr Rory Devine, a developmental psychologist at the ̽��ֱ�� of Birmingham, says “Our data demonstrate that mental health problems during pregnancy have a unique impact on children’s behavioural problems.”

Using standardized questionnaires and in-person interviews, participating mothers and fathers reported on their symptoms of anxiety and depression in the third trimester of pregnancy and when their child was 4, 14 and 24 months old. At each of these visits, parents also completed standardized questionnaire measures of couple relationship quality and children’s emotions and behaviour.

Hughes says: “There has been an assumption that it’s really difficult to get dads involved in research like this. But our study draws on a relatively large sample and is unique because both parents answered the same questions at every stage, which enabled us to make direct comparisons.”

̽��ֱ��research is part of an ongoing project examining the wellbeing and influence of new mothers and fathers. In a closely linked study, published in Archives of Women’s Mental Health in July 2019, the team found that fathers share in traumatic memories of birth with their partners far more than has previously been recognised. This study compared the wellbeing of parents in the third trimester of pregnancy with that when their child was four months old.

Co-author, Dr Sarah Foley, also from Cambridge’s Centre for Family Research said: “If mum has a difficult birth, that can be a potentially traumatic experience for dads.”

“What both studies show is that we need to make antenatal support much more inclusive and give first-time mums and dads the tools they need to communicate with each other and better prepare them for this major transition. With resources stretched, parents are missing out on the support they need.”

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the National Science Foundation, and the Dutch Research Council.

References
Hughes, C., Devine, R.T., Mesman, J., & Blair, C. ‘Parental wellbeing, couple relationship quality and children’s behavior problems in the first two years of life.’ Development & Psychopathology; 6 August 2019; DOI: 10.1017/S0954579419000804

Expectant parents’ emotional struggles predict emotional and behavioural problems in 2-year-olds, new research shows. ̽��ֱ��same study reveals, for the first time, that couple conflict helps explain emotional problems in very young children.

For too long, the experiences of first-time dads has either been side-lined or treated in isolation from that of mums. This needs to change because difficulties in children’s early relationships with both mothers and fathers can have long-term effects

Claire Hughes

Stock Snap

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Gardeners and carpenters: the ‘skill’ of parenting

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 09:20:41 +0000

Professors Claire Hughes and Paul Ramchandani have spent their adult lives studying children. Both are fascinated by the complicated jigsaw of early child development. “Such a lot happens in pregnancy and the first few years of life: the child’s brain and physical development, the acquisition of new skills and knowledge, it’s utterly transforming,” says Ramchandani, Cambridge’s first LEGO Professor of Play.

But while we know much about what goes on, we understand far less about how the outside world shapes this transformation – knowledge we need as parents, practitioners and policymakers to provide environments that help children thrive.

It’s clear, for instance, that our mothers, fathers and families affect our lives and the people we become, but has understanding the importance of parent–child relationships led to modern-day parenting approaches that stifle rather than help a child to flourish?

“Think carpenters and gardeners,” says Hughes, referring to a book by American psychologist Alison Gopnik published in 2016. “Gopnik’s theory is that parents who behave like carpenters mould their child by a deliberate, organised and focused influence on their development; those who behave like gardeners create a safe, nurtured and free environment that helps their child to shape themself.”

Hughes’ work looks at how parents talk to children in their early years and what this means for how children develop some of the most crucial skills of their lives. Since she began her academic career as an undergraduate in Cambridge 30 years ago, her focus has shifted from clinical groups, including children with autism, to studying social influences on two key psychological constructs – theory of mind and executive function.

Psychologists use the term theory of mind, or mind reading, to describe awareness that other people have thoughts, feelings, intentions and desires. Most children develop theory of mind around the age of four. “Without it you can’t joke, you can’t lie, you can’t get sarcasm – the many social things that hinge on what others say and mean to say,” she says.

As a result, theory of mind is pivotal to children’s ability to interact and form social relationships, but it doesn’t act alone. Along with theory of mind comes executive function – all those higher-order thinking skills such as planning, adapting plans when situations change and working memory.

“These two things go hand in glove,” explains Hughes, whose research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. “You need good executive function to acquire a theory of mind, because how we process information from others depends on being able to keep track of information and shift attention, and we know that poor executive function often leads to behavioural problems, which can in turn affect children’s ability to learn from social situations.”

By following a group of 117 children from toddlerhood to adolescence, and developing a new battery of tests – including an innovative ‘silent film’ task based on Harold Lloyd’s 1923 comedy Safety Last!, developed with one of her former students, Dr Rory Devine – Hughes has been able to gain a deeper understanding of how family environments shape young children’s theory of mind.

Her studies show that how parents talk to toddlers – in particular the extent to which they use words such as ‘think’, ‘believe’, ‘understand’ and other so-called ‘mental state talk’ – predicts how well children do at the silent film task when they reach the age of ten.

One of her new studies, which involves more than 400 first-time families in the UK, USA and Netherlands, aims to tease out differences in the way that fathers and mothers talk to their children. “We’re filming children at home at four, 12 and 24 months and we are now following them up at nursery at the age of three,” says Hughes. “It’s a big study, producing very rich data, and we’re using some interesting technology – including a device that’s like a talk pedometer – to get at children’s linguistic environments.”

Such detailed, long-term studies could, she hopes, lead to simple and effective tools to help parents foster their children’s theory of mind skills. Together with Professors Lynne Murray and Peter Cooper at the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading, Hughes is testing a South African intervention based on reading picture books, something that’s on the decline within UK families.

“It’s been a revelation to me to see how hard some parents find it to read a picture book. Some literally just read what’s on the page, and if there are no words they just show the picture,” she says. “ ̽��ֱ��South African study shows that in ten weeks you can take parents who aren’t very good at this type of reading and show them how to get their child involved.”

Testing new interventions is also central to Ramchandani’s research, not least because as well as an academic he’s also a practising psychiatrist. “I come from a medical background where you want to learn stuff so that you can do something about it,” he says.

He’s currently leading a randomised controlled trial with parents from London, Peterborough, Oxford and Hertfordshire to see if video feedback is a viable way of promoting positive child development. Over six sessions, parents are filmed playing with their toddler and the videos are then used to help parents notice – and respond appropriately to – their child’s communication.

One of his long-standing areas of interest is the role fathers play in the lives of their young children, something he feels has often been overlooked. “There are obvious reasons for this – mothers are more often the primary carers and theories that have dominated psychology have revolved around the mother–child relationship – plus, over the past 30 years, most research on children’s relationships with parents has focused on mothers,” says Ramchandani.

Before arriving in Cambridge in early 2018, he conducted the first major study of depression in fathers, which revealed that paternal – as well as maternal – depression has an impact on child outcomes.

“This study got me thinking about the family constellation, about how mothers and fathers influence children, and how children influence parents too, which led to my interest in play as one aspect of those relationships.”

Since then, he’s studied the way fathers play with their babies and found that when fathers were more physically and emotionally engaged, children did better behaviourally and cognitively. “It’s striking to see how different fathers can have very different styles of interacting with their babies, even though they are very young, with some getting stuck in and leading the play, and others watching and following their child’s lead more”.

Ramchandani is Director of Cambridge’s Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning, and with the team will be looking at an even wider field of play – studying its role in learning and social development, and finding the best way of measuring playfulness itself.

“Healthy child development is a fascinating and complicated picture: a jigsaw comprising fathers, mothers, siblings and the wider world, and involving language, play, physical and psychological health and more,” adds Ramchandani. “By getting a clearer picture of how it works, we have the best chance of helping to improve children’s lives around the world.”

Inset image: read more about our research on the topic of children in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

Wanting your child to have the best chance in life is natural for any parent. But by focusing too much on the ‘skill’ of parenting, are we losing sight of things that matter more – how we talk to and play with children? Cambridge researchers are examining how parents can best help their children in their early years through nurturing rather than shaping.

Healthy child development is a fascinating and complicated picture. By getting a clearer picture of how it works, we have the best chance of helping to improve children’s lives around the world

Paul Ramchandani

Sushobhan Badhai

Yes

Spotlight on children

lw355 — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 09:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��importance of supporting children to grow into happy, healthy and inquiring adults is abundantly clear. Physical and mental wellbeing in children is a foundation for a healthy and productive life.

And yet we live in a world where one in four of us will experience the isolating and traumatic effects of mental health disorders, three-quarters of which begin before the age of 18; children are still held back throughout life as a result of low levels of literacy and numeracy; and up to one billion young people worldwide are likely to be victims of violence this year.

Our researchers are studying all aspects of children, helping to understand how a child’s early experiences can shape their lifelong development. Today we launch both a Spotlight on children and the latest issue of the ̽��ֱ��’s Research Horizons magazine to showcase examples of this research.

We address some of the big questions, such as what are the origins of mental health and why are teenagers so vulnerable to mental disorders? We take a life course and multidisciplinary approach to the problem: from a child’s genes and clinical development in the womb, through the neuroscience and psychology of learning disorders, to psychiatric approaches aimed at understanding why some children are more at risk of developing mental health problems in later life and why some are resilient.

“We marvel at the brain’s complexity,” says Professor David Rowitch, who leads the Department of Paediatrics. “Across the ̽��ֱ��, no stone is left unturned in our attempts to better understand how to ensure healthy brain development and learning, as well as neurological and mental health, throughout life. We recognise how profoundly quality of life is affected. As this Spotlight focus will show, neurological and mental health has high priority both in basic research and clinical medicine, and in government policy.”

We also ask about life experiences. Tragically some children and their mothers are exposed to violence and drugs before they are even born, or grow up in communities entrenched in crime, and where healthcare systems are failing. Yet we know little about the effects of adverse environments – on people and on the stability of societies in which they become citizens. A pilot study to understand what it means to be a child of the city today is following 1,200 children in eight cities in all major regions of the Global south.

Professor Manuel Eisner, from the Institute of Criminology and who leads the study, explains: “By comparing a new generation from each city, we can build a scientific backbone for interventions to prevent violence against children as well as against their mothers, and support stakeholders to take wellbeing initiatives that work in different global contexts.”

Education features prominently in our research. In India, for instance, researchers are working with local partners to ask whether low learning outcomes could be a by-product of an Indian school system in which the language that children are taught in school often differs to the language spoken at home. And in Cambridge, where the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School is sponsored by the ̽��ֱ�� to provide education for the local community in North West Cambridge, we examine how the School places research at its heart – in both informing education practice and in furthering research at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and elsewhere.

What about the role of parents? It’s clear that our mothers, fathers and families affect our lives and the people we become, but are we focusing too much on the ‘skill’ of parenting and losing sight of things that matter more – like how we talk to and play with children? Researchers are piecing together the complex jigsaw that involves families, language, play, and physical and psychological health to better understand what gives a child the best chance in life.

“ ̽��ֱ��modern digital age challenges us to cope with rapidly changing settings at home, school, work and leisure,” says Professor Zoe Kourtzi from the Department of Psychology. “Our propensity to learn and rapidly adapt is thus central to 21st-century life. These challenges are particularly marked in the early and later periods of life, when young children are preparing or progressing through years of intensive education and older adults are facing major changes to their health and social circumstances.

“Research at Cambridge aims to understand how learning supports flexible behaviour and resilience to the new challenges that individuals face across the life course. Using interdisciplinary methodologies, we aim to enhance basic understanding of the mechanisms of lifelong learning, and transform this knowledge into innovative personalised interventions that will promote public wellbeing through applications in education, social care, public health and policy.”

Some of our research is having unexpected effects – such as a book of ‘lost words’ that encourages children to love and protect the natural world. Thanks to crowdfunding campaigns, the book is appearing in primary schools across the UK – an outcome that has surprised and moved its creators, who hope the book will help to bridge social gaps in the uneven distribution of access to nature.

Underpinning much of the Spotlight is the idea so eloquently put by the 19th-century American social reformer Frederick Douglass: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”.

Professor Manuel Eisner (Institute of Criminology), Professor Zoe Kourtzi (Department of Psychology) and Professor David Rowitch (Department of Paediatrics) are editorial advisors for the 'Spotlight on children' issue of Research Horizons magazine (see inset image), which is available as a PDF and on Issuu

Welcome to our new ‘Spotlight on children’, a focus on research taking place at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge relating to children and childhood – from health to education, language to literacy, parents to playtime, risk to resilience.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men

Frederick Douglass, 19th-century American social reformer

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School

Yes

Burying beetles: could being a good father send you to an early grave?

fpjl2 — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 05:06:54 +0000

When a good insect father pairs with a bad mother, he risks being exploited by her for childcare and could bear the ultimate cost by dying young.

A new study carried out with burying beetles also shows that bad parenting creates bad parents-to-be, while well-cared for larvae mature into high quality parents.

̽��ֱ��research is published today in the open access journal eLife.

“Parents obviously play a huge role in determining the characteristics of their offspring,” said lead researcher Professor Rebecca Kilner from the Department of Zoology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

“ ̽��ֱ��aim of our study was to investigate non-genetic ways that parents achieve this.”

This is important because non-genetic inheritance could speed up the rate at which animal behaviour evolves and adapts in a rapidly changing world

Whether examining mothers or fathers, the research team found that individuals that received no care as larvae were less effective at raising a large brood as parents, and died younger. In contrast, high quality care not only produces a larger brood, but individual offspring with a higher mass. This is consistent with previous studies.

“We found that parental care provides a mechanism for non-genetic inheritance. Good quality parents produce offspring that become good parents themselves, while offspring that receive poor parenting then become low quality parents. Our experiments show how parental care allows offspring to inherit characteristics of their parents, but non-genetically,” Kilner said.

However, the team also found that offspring pay a cost for receiving high quality care, because it makes them vulnerable to exploitation if they pair up with a lower quality partner. This may explain why animals often choose a mate that is willing to put in a similar amount of effort as them as a parent. In this way, they are less vulnerable to exploitation.

̽��ֱ��burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides, uses the carcass of a small vertebrate such as a mouse as an edible nest for its young. As its name suggests, a breeding pair buries the carcass and preserves it with an antibacterial secretion. ̽��ֱ��mother lays eggs nearby in the soil, and the larvae crawl to the carcass when they hatch. Although the larvae can feed themselves, they also beg both parents for partly-digested food from the carcass.

In the current study, when males were paired with females that had received no post-hatching care as larvae, they had significantly shorter lives than those whose partners had received more care. ̽��ֱ��most likely explanation is that males with low quality partners put more effort into parental duties to compensate for the shortcomings of their mate, and paid the price by dying younger.

Story taken from an eLife press release.

New research shows beetles that received no care as larvae were less effective at raising a large brood as parents. Males paired with ‘low quality’ females - those that received no care as larvae - paid the price by dying younger, researchers found.

Our experiments show how parental care allows offspring to inherit characteristics of their parents, but non-genetically

Rebecca Kilner

Tom Houslay

Female burying beetle with offspring.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Families with a difference: the reality behind the hype

amb206 — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 09:00:00 +0000

Over the past 40 years the family has altered in ways that few people imagined back in the days of the Janet and John reading books in which mummy baked and daddy mowed the lawn. In the 1970s, the ‘nuclear’ family (heterosexual married couple with genetically related children) was in a clear majority. Advances in assistive reproductive technologies, a rise in numbers of single parent and step families resulting from divorce, and the creation of families by same-sex couples and single people have changed all that. Today ‘non-traditional’ families outnumber nuclear families in the UK and many other countries.

When it comes to family, everyone has opinions – but they are just opinions. In her new book, Modern Families: Parents and Children in New Family Forms (published 12 March 2015), Professor Susan Golombok charts the remarkable changes that have taken place in the context of the empirical research that has sought to answer a series of contested questions. Are children less likely to thrive in families headed by same-sex parents, single mothers by choice or parents who conceived them using assisted reproductive technologies? Will children born to gay fathers through egg donation and surrogacy be less likely to flourish than children conceived by IVF to genetically related heterosexual parents?

Golombok’s contribution to family research goes back to 1976 when she responded to an article in the feminist magazine Spare Rib by conducting an objective study of the development of children of lesbian mothers. Spare Rib had revealed that, both in the UK and USA, lesbian mothers in child custody disputes invariably lost their cases to their ex-husbands. Courts argued that it was not in children’s best interests to be raised by lesbian women, not least because their gender development would be skewed. Golombok, and other researchers, have shown in successive studies that boys are no less masculine and girls no less feminine than boys and girls with heterosexual parents.

In 2006 Golombok was appointed director of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Centre for Family Research – a research centre known for its focus on family influences on child development. Modern Families brings together for the first time the growing body of research into the wide range of family forms, undertaken not just in the UK but also in the USA and around the world. Most strikingly, these studies show, again and again, that it is the quality of relationships that matters most to the well-being of families, not the number, gender, sexual orientation or genetic relatedness of the parents, or whether the child was conceived with the assistance of reproductive technology.

These findings fly in the face of the media hysteria that greeted the birth of the first IVF baby in 1978. Societal attitudes have since moved on. However, deep-seated assumptions of what is ‘right and proper’ continue to colour notions of what a family ‘should’ be in order to raise a well-balanced child. Real families are complex. Golombok is careful to be even-handed in her unpacking (family type by family type) of the issues, the arguments and the relevant research in a field that, by virtue of its human intimacy, demands a high level of sensitivity and diplomacy.

She also addresses the fact that research into so emotionally charged a field is bound to be imperfect. Parents willing to take part in research are more likely to be those who are functioning well than those who struggle. “It is important to study new family forms to find out what they are really like. Otherwise, all we have is speculation and assumption, usually negative, which simply fuel prejudice and discrimination and are harmful to the children involved,” she says.

Some findings are counterintuitive, others less so. One of the arguments most famously used against same-sex parenting has been that children may lack models on which to base their own gender identity and behaviour. In a study of play preferences, lesbian mothers chose a mix of masculine and feminine toys but their children chose toys and activities that were highly sex-typed. It seems that parents have little influence over the sex-typed toy and activity preferences of their daughters and sons.

In studies of children born through assisted reproduction, their mothers have consistently been found to show more warmth and emotional involvement, and less parenting stress, than natural conception mothers.

“Contrary to the expectation that parents of children born through assisted reproductive technologies would experience difficulties in parenting, research has found them to be highly committed and involved parents, even in donor-conceived families where one or both parents lack a genetic relationship with their children,” says Golombok.

“A key factor in the positive functioning of children in new family forms appears to be that they are very wanted children. Parents in new family forms often struggle to have children against the odds. Many experience years of infertility before becoming parents; others become parents in the face of significant social disapproval; and still others surmount both hurdles in order to have a child.”

When surrogacy hit the headlines in 1985 with the case of Kim Cotton, the furore about the payment made to her by the intended parents of the child she was carrying led the UK to outlaw commercial surrogacy. Although attitudes to surrogacy have softened, it remains the most controversial form of assisted reproduction. Studies report that relationships between intended parents and surrogate mothers are generally both enduring and positive. Children born through surrogacy sometimes form relationships with the surrogate’s own children.

Modern Families offers a measured appraisal of the broader issues that are likely to prove increasingly salient (and debated) as reproductive technologies offer novel routes to the conception of a healthy child and society’s understanding of what constitutes ‘family’ is increasingly extended. Last month’s approval in the UK for the use of a technique called mitochondrial replacement has rekindled accusations of scientists ‘playing God’. Perhaps, in time, society will be more accepting of techniques like mitochondrial replacement, developed primarily to avoid a child being born with a devastating medical condition.

Two generations ago, same-sex parenting was widely vilified as ‘against nature’. Today, same-sex couples and single people are considered alongside heterosexual couples as prospective adoptive and foster parents. “Attitudes towards same-sex parent families in the UK have changed enormously over a relatively short period of time. In less than half a century we have moved from a situation in which lesbian mothers were ostracised, and gay men were at risk of imprisonment, to a time where same-sex couples can marry, adopt children jointly, and become the joint legal parents of children born through assisted reproductive technologies,” says Golombok.

“But it’s important to remember that these laws are far from universal. Lesbian and gay relationships remain a criminal offence in some countries of the world with lesbian and gay people still living in fear of their lives.”

Families aren’t self-contained units. How do parents handle the prejudice they and their children are almost bound to encounter and how do children cope with what are perceived as ‘differences’? Sometimes the attitudes of the wider world make things hard. While children of same-sex parents are just as likely to flourish as those with heterosexual parents, children with lesbian or gay parents have to ‘explain’ their families in a way that their peers don’t. ̽��ֱ��need to explain can be burdensome.

“It’s stigmatisation outside the family, rather than relationships within it, that creates difficulties for children in new family forms,” says Golombok.

Children born through egg or sperm donation grow up with a realisation that they have a biological mother or father who may not live with them. ̽��ֱ��research covered in Modern Families shows that the question of disclosure – informing children conceived through donated gametes about their genetic parentage – is a foggy one.

Legislation that took effect in 2005 gives anyone conceived with donated gametes after that date the right to have, at the age of 18, access to information about the identity of their donor via records held by the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). Not until 2023 will it begin to be apparent how many donor-conceived young people might seek information about their donors from the HFEA. If adoption law is any guide, the numbers will not be insignificant.

As the legislation stands, young people will not know that they have been donor conceived unless they have been told – and only those with this knowledge will have any reason to seek access to the information held about their donor. This situation puts the onus firmly on the parents to make the decision about disclosure. Interestingly, although many parents profess the intention of bringing their children up with the knowledge that they were donor conceived, significant numbers of parents never find the right moment to broach the subject.

Golombok says: “Parents fear that telling children about their donor conception will jeopardise the loving relationship that has developed between the child and the non-genetic parent. However, our research has shown this fear to be unfounded. Parents who are open with their children when they are young – before they reach school age – say that their children accept this information and are not distressed by it. Finding out in adolescence or adulthood appears to be more difficult to accept.”

Modern Families is a timely reminder that every family is different – and that families are both fluid and flexible. There is more variation within family types than between them. Many of the newer routes helping people to fulfil their desires to have a family are still in their infancy. Progress is never smooth – and, quite rightly, innovations in conception are bound to be, and need to be, a matter for public debate. Research by Golombok and her colleagues, at Cambridge and beyond, provides a firm and informed basis for discourse to take place.

Modern Families: Parents and Children in New Family Forms by Susan Golombok is published on 12 March 2015 (Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press).

Top two inset images from Flickr Creative Commons

Families come in many guises. Some parents are same-sex; others are single by choice. Growing numbers of children are conceived through assistive reproductive technology. What do these developments mean for the parents and children involved? Professor Susan Golombok’s book, Modern Families, examines ‘new family forms’ within a context of four decades of empirical research.

It’s stigmatisation outside the family, rather than relationships within it, that creates difficulties for children in new family forms.

Susan Golombok

Cover image from Modern Families: Parents and Children in New Family Forms

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. For image rights, please see the credits associated with each individual image.

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