Parenting

By Amelia Santaniello and Frank Vascellaro
(WCCO) Experts can predict by age three if a child will stay in school or drop out. It's not inevitable but it is predictable. So what happens during those early years of life that's so important to our development?

Royce Lawler and her children broke out the old photo albums the other day.

"Look at daddy," she said with a laugh. "He's got a mustache."

There were lots of baby pictures in the albums.

"Oh my Gosh, how young you were," said Royce.

Some pictures were labeled, some were not.

"When you start sharing the clothes," laughed the mother of three. "It's hard to know which child you're looking at."

When Shannon, Ryan and Connor Lawler were babies, they couldn't walk or talk, but that doesn't mean they didn't know what was what.

"Certainly by the end of the first year, you begin to expect that if I have a need, and I turn to my parent, they will respond to it, and we see this in film of babies all the time," said University of Minnesota Child Development professor Alan Sroufe.

Sroufe has followed the progress of hundreds of kids. He talked about how one infant girl would reach backwards with her toy. She didn't see her mom, but she expected her to be there to take the toy. Her mother met her expectations. It might seem like a little thing, but it's a big deal.

"It shows you there's a lot already happening in the brain by the time you're 12 months of age," said Sroufe.

Sroufe doesn't believe a child's early years are more important. He likes to say they're of special importance. He compares it to a house. Those first few years are the foundation; they're crucial, but they're not the whole structure. You need to keep building or you won't have much of a house.

He points to the Romanian babies kept in state-run orphanages as a natural experiment. Most of them didn't get consistent, loving care from another person. Because of that, those children struggled later, even after they were placed in good homes.

Sroufe and his colleagues can predict by age three if a child will stay in school or drop out. He says it's not inevitable, but it is predictable.

"There are not kids born to have problems. There are not kids born to be psychopaths. There are not kids born to be miserable," explained Sroufe. "This is a complex product of developmental history, all the experiences that they've had."

That news might intimidate a lot of parents, but Sroufe said it shouldn't.

"It's not that you have to be a perfect parent. It's not. It really isn't," he said. "What children need is good enough parenting. That's all."

So if we respond to our children and offer them support, that's enough?

"That's the most important thing that we can do for our children," said Sroufe. "It's like what your grandma said, 'You love the kids, you provide the limits they need and they'll be fine.' I mean, I have to say, 34 years of research, and we've pretty well demonstrated that grandma was correct."

Now that they're older, the Lawler kids can explain what their parents do for them. At least, they try.

"Be mom and dad, be like nice and stuff, I guess," said 12-year-old Ryan.

Connor's eight and he says his parents "take care of me and stuff like that…when I call my mom, she answers."

Their older sister Shannon, 13, gives an older and wiser answer.

"You see all these kids that their parents just walk out on them, and I'm lucky that didn't happen to me, and that I have a nice, loving family, and we're all healthy, yeah," she said.

Their parents love them, and the Lawler kids know it. They knew it before they could walk or talk, and that made all the difference.

Paula Engelking, Producer
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