This is a book that can help parents alleviate their 'parental anxiety'. As parents know, raising children is a particularly difficult task. To find the right way to raise children, many parents read many parenting books and even take online courses. However, many parents still feel desperate and wonder why all the parenting methods they have learned don't work. Why is it that parenting methods that work for other people's children don't work for their own?

The author points out in the book that mainstream parenting philosophy has actually exaggerated the role of parenting methods. Parenting methods are of course very important, but we often neglect another more important factor - genetics.

The author of this book is Danielle L. Dick, an internationally recognised authority on genetics and developmental psychology. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in the fields of child development, mental health, genetics, etc., and is one of the most cited researchers in the world. The author says that she does not subscribe to the so-called "parenting myth" because it implies that a child's behaviour is the parent's business, which is a very powerful illusion. When the child behaves well, parents tend to "take credit" and feel that it is because they have taught well; and when the child behaves badly, parents also tend to blame themselves and feel that they have done something wrong.

However, research shows that children's behaviour is not primarily determined by their parents. DNA encodes not only our appearance, but also our brains, our temperament and the way we interact with the world. From birth, children respond to the world in different ways and regulate their responses in different ways. For example, some children cry a lot, while others are less fussy. Developmental psychologists refer to this unique behaviour as temperament, which is very stable. Every child has a different temperament, so there is no one-size-fits-all parenting plan.

In the preface to this book, the author recounts her experience of training her 3-year-old son to use the toilet. At first, the author tried to get her son to go to the toilet by offering chocolate beans as a reward, but this did not work. Her son liked chocolate beans, but it was not enough to get him to go to the toilet. Later, the author tried various methods, but none of them worked. Finally, she had an epiphany: her son was very competitive and wanted things to go his way. Because her son felt that the author was trying to force the issue on him, he firmly refused. Having understood this, the author stopped talking about toilet training and as a result her son started going to the toilet on his own. The author said that if she had realised this earlier and understood her son's temperament and character, she might not have had to fight with her son for so long. For such children, the more parents try to control them, the more they will rebel.

The author believes that a child's character and temperament are innate and written in their genes, and that genes have a greater influence than parenting styles. What parents can do is limited. But that doesn't mean that the environment parents provide for their children is unimportant. As the evolutionary biologist Edward Wilson has said: Genes play a limiting role in environmental influence, but it is a very flexible limitation. What parents need to do is to understand their child's temperament type. The original title of this book is The Child Code. Literally translated it means "the child code". What parents need to do is to crack the code of their child's nature, raise their child according to their genetic characteristics, and make fine adjustments so that they can better develop their personality and adapt to the world.

So how much do genetic factors influence children's behaviour? What are the different temperament types that children are born with? What do children with different temperaments need? How can parents fine-tune their children's nature according to their innate temperament?

Let's start with the book.

How much influence does genetics have on children's behaviour?

We have a deeply rooted belief that parents play a key role in shaping their children's behaviour. Where does this belief come from?

The importance attached to parenting or the role of parents can be traced back to the origins of child psychology. When scientists studied child development, the research methods they used were mainly observational studies. By observing parents and their children, researchers have consistently found a link between parenting style and child development, and have concluded that children's behaviour is shaped by their parents. But there is a flaw in this logic: correlation is not the same as causation. It is unclear whether parenting causes children's behaviour or whether children's behaviour influences parenting style.

For example, the way autistic children were viewed in the early days misinterpreted correlation and causation. Medical experts initially believed that the child's autism was caused by the mother's indifference. Because researchers observed that the mothers of autistic children did not smile at their children, talk to them or play with them as other mothers did, they wrongly concluded that the mothers' indifference caused the children to become autistic. However, later, through long-term follow-up of these families, researchers discovered that the mothers of autistic children initially interacted with their children in the same way as other mothers, but because the autistic children did not respond to their mothers' cues, the frequency of interactions between mothers and children decreased over time. So it was not the mother's behaviour that affected the child, but the child's behaviour that affected the mother.

When the researchers carried out similar follow-up studies of parents and children, they were surprised to find that it was not so much the parenting style that influenced the child's behaviour, but rather the child's behaviour that influenced the parenting style. In other words, the child's behaviour shaped the parenting style more than the parenting style shaped the child's behaviour. It was the child that drove the parenting style.

However, in addition to the child's behaviour and the parent's behaviour, there is a third variable in the parent-child relationship, which is the gene that we highlighted above. So is the child's behaviour more influenced by the parents or by the genes?

To find out, let's look at one type of research: adoption research. If a child is removed from his or her biological parents shortly after birth and placed in an adoptive family, then by studying whether the child is more like his or her biological parents or adoptive parents, we can find out which has the greater influence: genes or the upbringing.

What was the conclusion? Almost all the studies using the adoption design, whether they were looking at alcohol problems, childhood shyness or schizophrenia, showed that children behaved more like their biological parents in all their actions, even if they were not raised by their biological parents. Another adoption study in Sweden looked at criminal behaviour and found that adopted children whose biological parents had criminal records had higher rates of criminality, even if they were not raised by their biological parents. However, their behaviour is not entirely determined by their genes. The crime rate of adopted children also increases if their adoptive parents have a criminal record. So both genes and the influence of the family environment are important when it comes to children's criminal behaviour.

In addition to adoption studies, there is another natural experiment that can help us study the influence of genes and environment. It is called the twin study, or the study of twins. Twins are divided into two categories: identical twins and fraternal twins. Identical twins have 100% identical genetic material, while fraternal twins have 50% identical genetic material. If the twins live in the same family and it is assumed that a trait is determined solely by the family environment, fraternal twins should behave similarly. If a trait is influenced by genes as well as the environment, identical twins should behave more similarly than fraternal twins.

So what are the conclusions from twin studies around the world? The overall conclusion of these studies is that almost everything is influenced by genes, and that identical twins are almost certainly more similar than fraternal twins. Some scientists have also studied identical twins raised separately after birth and found that in terms of personality, temperament, work preferences and leisure interests, identical twins raised separately are almost as similar as twins raised together. These findings tell us that children are not born with a blank slate. Their genetic code influences whether they are born more anxious, impulsive or aggressive. A behavioural geneticist at the University of Virginia called Eric Turkheimer once wrote the famous law of behavioural genetics: "All human behavioural traits are inherited. Individuals are less influenced by their family environment than by their genes.

At this point, parents may breathe a sigh of relief and let go of some of the burden of parenting. But please note that this does not mean that parenting is unimportant. It is actually meaningless to separate genes and environment because they are not two completely separate factors. Genes and environment are interrelated and interact in many different ways. For example, there is the arousal type, which means that our genes shape our personality and elicit feedback from the world. If you are an irritable person, you are more likely to lose your temper with the waiter in the restaurant, which may overwhelm him and further confirm your preconceived notion that there are too many idiots in the world. Genes shape our appearance, temperament, intelligence and behaviour, all of which influence the different experiences we have in the world. Our environment responds to our genetic expression, creating a feedback loop. It's like the saying "people who smile can't be all bad". This is known as the suggestive gene-environment correlation. So even if twins grow up in completely different families, they are born with similar temperaments. These similar temperaments act on different parents, friends and teachers, and are likely to receive similar feedback. Although they grow up separately and lead their own lives, the similar experiences in their lives will make them more and more like each other.

There is another way in which genes and environment interact, known as passive gene-environment interaction. As parents, we also have our own temperamental styles, which also affect the way we raise our children and the environment we provide for them. For example, adventurous parents are more likely to take their children skiing, skydiving and climbing, while intellectual parents are more likely to fill their homes with books and magazines. Introverted parents may be more likely to arrange fewer activities for their children than to enrol them in drama classes. So the genotype of the parents affects the environment they provide for their children, which is the passive gene-environment correlation.

So what do good parents do? Genes influence destiny, but they do not write it. What parents can do is work well with their children's genetic predispositions, helping them to be the best they can be and helping them to control their natural tendencies that might cause trouble. If your child is naturally impulsive, you can set limits and help them learn to control their impulses. If your child tends to be highly emotional, you can help them learn to manage their emotions. You can also cultivate your child's innate genetic advantages. For example, if your child is naturally sociable, you can help them develop their social skills by creating an environment with more opportunities for interaction. Understanding your child's character will give you a clearer idea of which environments are likely to help them progress and which are likely to get them into trouble. Parents can also fine-tune their child's nature, turning up or down certain genetic tendencies to make them better suited to the world.

Next we will talk about the different temperament types that children are born with and how parents can fine-tune their children's natures.

What are the different types of temperament that children are born with?

There are many ways of measuring and classifying human temperaments. In his book, the author focuses on three main personality traits: extroversion, emotionality and self-control. These temperaments are not inherently good or bad, and whether different temperament traits are easy or difficult for parents to deal with will also change as the child grows. For example, a child's refusal to obey may seem like a difficult trait for parents to deal with when the child is young, but as the child grows up, this trait may manifest itself as the strength to stick to one's principles. The author says that parents need to be like detectives, observing and understanding where their children fall on these dimensions, and finding parenting methods that work with their children's natural dispositions.

As well as understanding their children's natural dispositions, parents need to think about what their own dispositions are and whether they are a good match for their children's. Some parents and children are lucky enough to have a good natural match. For example, if a mother loves to read and her daughter loves to be read to, the two of them will go to the library together to choose books and spend time snuggled up in a reading corner. Such parents will find it 'easy' to educate their children, but the reason may not be, as they think, that they are good teachers, but it may just be a matter of luck, because they and their children are a natural fit.

Imagine what happens when an introverted, book-loving mother has a highly extroverted child with little self-control. Cuddling quietly to read is probably not going to happen. The child probably won't want to read quietly at all, and will run around the library, and the mother will have to discipline the child often, so there won't be any quality time together.

If the parent's temperament matches that of the child, things will go smoothly. But if they don't match, there will inevitably be a lot of friction between parent and child, which will cause a lot of frustration for the parent. It is at this time that parents must learn to discipline their children in a way that suits their nature. Below we will talk about how parents should discipline their children according to their nature in the three dimensions of Extraversion, Emotionality and Self-Control.

Let's start with extraversion. Children who are high in extraversion are often more active in social situations and have an advantage at school and later in life, known as the extraversion advantage. However, high extraversion can also be a headache for parents, as these children need a lot of activity, which can be exhausting for parents. Many children with high extraversion also have low self-control and can make a real mess at home. They crave constant interaction, so they may follow you around the house all the time, making it impossible for you to get any work done. In adolescence, high extraverts may also cause more problems for their parents because they like to hang out with their peers and may be influenced by them in a bad way.

Low extraverts are more concerned with their own thoughts, feelings and inner world, preferring quiet activities and time alone. They find too much external stimulation difficult and are relatively slow to warm up socially. Low extroversion has its advantages. Firstly, they are less mischievous and may be easier to educate. Secondly, they are less susceptible to trends and peer influence and are more likely to follow their own plans and ideas. They tend to be more creative, used to thinking things through and have clearer goals. Of course, being low in extraversion also has its disadvantages. They are quieter and therefore more likely to be overlooked. They pay more attention to their inner thoughts, so they can come across as stubborn.

How should you raise your child according to their level of extroversion? First, for highly extroverted children, parents can provide the outlet and attention they need by giving them more social stimuli and exposing them to a variety of environments, such as amusement parks, football pitches, dance classes and various children's activities. The author knows a parent of a highly extroverted child who keeps a record of all the children's activities near the house and the opening hours of each. When the child is not at school, he can quickly take the child out to participate in activities so that his exuberant energy is not released in the confined space of the house. Also, give your child more feedback. Highly extroverted children crave your attention and feedback. Feedback does not mean that you have to praise them all the time, but simply give them a response such as "You did so many things at school today!" or "You played so many games with the other children!". In addition to providing stimulation and feedback, parents need to teach their children to slow down, the importance of rest, and how to regulate themselves. They also need to be taught to reflect, cultivate their empathy and learn to give others time to speak and the opportunity to show off.

Low extroverts don't need as much attention from others as high extroverts, but that doesn't mean they don't need it. What they do need is to feel loved and accepted. In a society that values extroverts, they may feel they don't fit in. So one of the most important things parents can do is to help their children know that there is nothing wrong with them, that low extroversion is just a temperament, and to give them more support and encouragement. In addition, parents should find activities that suit their child's personality, such as playing with Lego, doing jigsaw puzzles, painting, going to the library, art museums, etc. Some sports activities are also suitable for low extroverts, such as playing tennis, ice skating, rowing, climbing, etc. Parents should also give low extroverts their own quiet space, which could be a bedroom or a small corner with a warm atmosphere, so that when they feel that external stimuli are too strong, they can retreat into their own world to recharge. Parents also need to help their children recognise their need for quiet time. The author says that when there are guests in the house, her 3-year-old low extrovert will, after a while, throw a tantrum over some trivial matter because the house has become too noisy and he is tired. At this point she will help her child to recognise his inability to cope and then tell him that he can go to his room to rest for a while. This will let the child know that it is OK to leave the crowd temporarily.

More children are likely to be moderately extroverted than either highly or lowly extroverted. There is a term for this level of extroversion: "intermediate personality". They have some of the characteristics of a highly extroverted personality and some of the characteristics of a low extroverted personality. If your child has this intermediate personality, the key is to identify your child's patterns: what level of social activity suits your child? How long do they need to rest? How long does it take them to get restless after activity? What activities do they get upset about? By keeping a record of these things, you can get a good idea of your child's level of extraversion and plan a schedule around it.

Of course, highly extroverted children also need to learn how to be alone, and low extroverts need to survive in society. Parents who understand their child's level of extroversion will not become "slaves" to their temperament, but will be better able to anticipate and respond to situations that may arise with their children. Parents also need to challenge their children's level of extroversion at the right time and teach them coping skills and strategies.

Having talked about extroversion, let us now move on to the second temperament: emotionality. Children with high levels of emotionality are naturally prone to feeling pain, frustration and fear. If your child is high in emotionality, you should know very well that you don't know how to provoke him and that he loses his temper for no reason. When we see children throwing tantrums, we often blame the parents for lack of discipline. But in fact, emotionality is genetically influenced. For children with low levels of emotionality, general parenting strategies such as distraction, rewards and punishments are effective. But it's different for children with high emotionality. In fact, highly emotional children are punished more often than we think, rather than being coddled by their parents as we might imagine. When parents let their children misbehave in public, it may be because they know that disciplining their children will only escalate their behaviour, while their silence will invite further misunderstanding from those around them.

When children throw tantrums, parents often use punishment as a parenting strategy. But research shows that punishment often doesn't work. It may stop the child from doing something in the moment, but it doesn't change the likelihood of that behaviour in the future. Firstly, what children learn from punishment is that if they don't like what someone else is doing, they should yell at them, hit them or punish them. This is not what we want our children to learn. Secondly, punishment is actually a form of attention, and attention is a reward for children. When we nag our children about bad behaviour, we are actually rewarding the behaviour we don't like, whereas when children behave well, we often remain silent and enjoy the moment of peace. As a result, children feel that they have to do something naughty to get their parents' attention. And children get used to punishment quickly, so parents have to keep increasing the severity of the punishment. Therefore, instead of punishing bad behaviour, it is better to work on encouraging good behaviour and focus the child's attention on the good behaviour rather than the bad.

How do you reward your child? First, there are a few principles for praising your child: enthusiasm, specificity, timeliness and consistency. Give your child an enthusiastic compliment as soon as he or she does something good, and be specific about what the good behaviour is, for example, "You brushed your teeth really clean" or "You ate with a spoon today, that was really good". Secondly, parents don't need to reward every behaviour of their child, but focus on those that cause challenges at home. If there are many challenging behaviours, choose a few that need improvement. Imagine if your boss gave you a list of twenty things to improve, you might not be able to cope, but if there were only two or three requests, you would be able to do it.

Parenting highly emotional children requires not harsh tactics but softer rules. When a child throws a tantrum, especially in public, it can feel like the whole world is watching, demanding that you control your child's behaviour. Scolding your child harshly often just creates a negative feedback loop. At such times, parents need to calm down and shift their attention away from their child's behaviour and towards the triggers of their reactions. Bad behaviour is usually just a by-product of emotions, something that triggers their frustration, pain and fear. Highly emotional children have some common triggers, such as changing activities, completing difficult tasks, changing plans, things going against their wishes and so on. Parents can consciously observe and record to find patterns and make a list of triggers that are specific to their child. You will then know what happens when it triggers your child's anxiety or pain.

For highly emotional children, the key to improving their behaviour is to focus on problem solving rather than rewarding or punishing behaviour. You can work with your child to identify the reasons for emotional reactions and then work together to manage the emotions. For example, some parents and children name strong emotions, such as "Bert". You can teach your child to say, "I feel Bert coming on" when he or she feels an emotion. This is a way of identifying emotions and then discussing with your child what to do when "Bert" comes.

Raising a highly emotional child can be very challenging for parents. It's not that they aren't educating their child, it's just that these children have inherited a temperament that makes them prone to strong emotions, and they are still young and learning to manage these emotions. Parents of highly emotional children sometimes feel particularly frustrated and even develop an aversion to their children, which is normal. Parents don't need to feel too guilty, it doesn't mean you're a bad parent, you're just a normal person. Self-care is particularly important for parents. If you want to take care of your children, you have to take care of yourself first.

Now we have finished talking about two of the three temperaments. The final temperament dimension is self-control. The author focuses in this book on how to help children develop self-control, and the methods given are much the same as those in the book "Delayed Gratification" that I interpreted earlier. Due to space limitations, I will not repeat them here. If you are interested in this part, you can find that book and listen to it.

How can you recognise your own and your partner's parenting style?

We have just spent a lot of time discussing which temperamental style your child belongs to, but in order to understand whether you are giving your child the parenting style he needs, parents also need to understand which parenting style they and their partner belong to.

What are parenting styles? Psychologists divide parenting styles into two main dimensions: emotional responsiveness and behavioural demands. If these two dimensions are used as horizontal and vertical coordinates, they produce four quadrants or four different parenting styles: authoritative, permissive, neglectful and authoritarian.

Authoritative parents are high in emotional responsiveness and high in behavioural demands. They have high expectations of their children, have clear standards and can communicate actively with their children to express their expectations. They will set rules, explain the reasons for them to their children and allow their children to express their opinions. It is generally believed that the parenting style of authoritative parents is the most conducive to children's development.

Permissive parents are highly emotionally responsive but low in behavioural demands. They have fewer rules and are less strict, allowing their children to solve problems for themselves. They have low expectations of their children and provide limited guidance and direction.

Authoritarian parents, like authoritative parents, are high in behavioural demands but low in emotional responsiveness. They set strict rules for their children but leave little room for their opinions. Communication with their children is often one-sided and lacks warmth and empathy.

Neglectful parents are low in emotional responsiveness and low in behavioural demands. These parents don't pay much attention to their children and there are few rules or expectations. There is little communication between parent and child. These parents are either absent from their children's lives or their attention is occupied by other things.

We can better understand these four parenting styles through a real-life situation. A mother takes her child shopping in the supermarket. The child feels that the shopping trip is taking too long and becomes impatient. She throws the bottle of juice she has been drinking halfway to the floor, spilling the juice everywhere. An authoritative parent would say firmly but gently, "I know we've been shopping for a long time and you're tired, but we need to buy things for dinner. What did we say before? You can't throw things when you're angry. What are you going to do about the juice all over the floor? The indulgent parent looks at the child helplessly and says, "You know you're not supposed to do that. But shopping is really boring, let's go home. The authoritarian parent raises his or her voice and says sternly, 'Don't do that! When we get home, you're going to your room, and there's no dessert for you today! The neglectful parent, on the other hand, probably doesn't even notice that the child has thrown the juice.

You can think about which parenting style you and your partner belong to and evaluate each other. You may find that your partner's assessment of you is very different from your own. You can also involve your child and evaluate your parenting style, and the result may also be very different from what you think. You may think you are authoritative, but your child may think you are authoritarian. Of course, these assessments are not necessarily objective and you may not agree with them, but they can help you understand each other's views.

If you and your partner have very different parenting styles, you are likely to have a lot of conflict in raising your children. We often see this in life, where parents argue endlessly because they have different parenting philosophies. This is normal. At this point, what parents can do is either come to a consensus or allow for differences. First, you need to try to find common ground, which is the starting point for working together. For example, you both agree that it is necessary to have some rules and boundaries in order to have a warm relationship with your children. Start by agreeing and understanding each other's views on parenting, but that doesn't mean you have to agree.

Although it may be difficult for some people to have a partner with a very different parenting style to their own, the fact is that sometimes what works for one parent may not work for the other. Children are very smart, they can sense the different personalities and styles of adults, and whether consciously or unconsciously, they know how to adjust their behaviour in front of different adults. This is actually an important life skill, so don't worry too much if you and your partner approach your children differently. Parents can approach their children according to their own parenting styles, and they don't have to be completely consistent, but when it comes to certain important principles and rules, it's best for parents to be consistent.

Conclusion

Well, here I have finished interpreting this book for you. If you are a parent struggling with parenting issues, I don't know if this book has really relieved some of your parenting stress. We can borrow the recommendation written by Wanweigang for this book to briefly summarise it: This book uses scientific research to tell you that how a child is is not so much related to what you "do", but very much related to who you are, because genes have a strong influence here. There is a matching problem between your own personality type and your child's personality type. A good match is mainly luck, and a bad match requires learning.

Once you understand your child's temperament, you will know what you can and cannot control. Good parenting does not mean that you have to do more, but that you have to find out what is best for your child's temperament, rather than trying to change them. The author says that the hardest part of being a parent is facing up to the many things about her children that she cannot control. She has to acknowledge them, learn to accept them and coexist with them. Perhaps, in the end, the best gift we can give our children is to let go and let them be themselves and let their unique genetic code sing, even if the song is not quite what you imagined.