IS IT NATURE OR NURTURE'S FAULT WHEN KIDS GO BAD?

Parents Swear Their Kids Had It All; Experts Tend To Disagree

The parents you're about to meet all claim their kids were brought up
in loving, attentive families where honesty, hard work and caring for
others was held up as an example and rewarded.

But while some grew into every parent's dream child, still others
wound up in youth criminal court or on the streets freebasing drugs.

Proof, they say, that you can't pin the blame for wayward youth or
killer kids on poor parenting.

People like me who argue otherwise "display a complete ignorance of
the realities faced by troubled teens, their parents and child-care
authorities," said a Coquitlam dad.

Steve, whose name is altered to protect his troublesome daughter, is
a church-going, law-abiding kind of guy, who like many other parents
I heard from, offered his parenting experience in a bid to bolster
the theory that parenting styles do little to shape youths'
behaviour: nature trumps nurture.

He said his daughter studied piano, pulled in good grades and showed
great potential.

Until puberty took over.

"It was like a time bomb went off. It was like we had a kid [who]
dropped down in the middle of the night from another planet,
completely out of control."

She split the school scene and starting playing around with nasty
guys and even nastier drugs. Everything she did contradicted
everything she was taught, he said.

"The law was useless. The age of consent being 14, she could hang out
with any vermin, and there was nothing we could do unless we could
demonstrate to police and the children's authorities that this kid
was either a danger to herself or the people around her."

Different circumstances, same outcome, says a Penticton retiree who
watched his sister raise two boys the same. One became a responsible,
hardworking dad who coaches his boys' hockey teams while the other
shifted to the dark side and landed in jail.

Exactly where a frustrated Cranbrook mom fears her 17-year-old,
privately schooled son is headed. Shannon says her boy was raised in
a loving, extended family home where everyone knew the difference
between right and wrong.

"He is becoming harder and harder to control and guide. I find myself
dreading the next few years, just hoping he survives.

"Smoking a joint laced with crystal meth or making the choice to take
it starts the kid on a downhill slide that few parents can stop."

Ah, but positive changes are possible with the right upbringing, diet
and experiences, say some top experts in the fields of genetics and
behaviour psychology.

"There might be genetic differences between children that make one
more temperamental, but with upbringing you can erase those
differences," says McGill University Prof. Moshe Szyf. "That puts a
certain responsibility on the shoulder of parents. They cannot say,
'I've a kid with bad genes.' "

Yes, we emerge from the womb with certain traits and tendencies, but
the consensus among experts is, with the right guidance and
direction, they can be altered.