UVA study suggest kids’ bad behavior in genes

cdev.jpgUVA researchers are at it again– giving parents new information about raising their yougins'. In a study recently published in the journal Child Development, UVA psychologists suggest that Johnny's bad behavior may be in his genes.

"Marital conflict doesn't appear, in this study, to cause stable patterns of conduct disorder," study author and UVA grad student K. Paige Harden tells Reuters. "Rather, marital conflict is influenced by parents' own characteristics– including their genes– and these genes are passed on to children."

Harden and her colleagues studied 1,045 adult twins, some identical and some fraternal, and their children, and found that there was a genetic link between marital discord and anti-social behavior in their children. Stopping short of identifying an "argument" gene, the study suggests that certain parents may have genes that make them more argumentative than others, and that those genetic tendencies are passed down to their children.

However, according to study co-author Dr. Robert E. Emery, that doesn't mean that combative parents are off the hook.

The study "does not mean that children are unaffected by parents' disputes," he told Reuters. "Think about how you feel when friends, a couple you know, start fighting," Emery said. "Now make them your parents, you're six, and they're screaming about moving out. Parental conflicts definitely are not healthy for children."


So what we do if we have this gene?

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